Can Your Language Help You in Math?
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- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
- (NEW SERIES - EVERY TUESDAY on a new topic)
There's a theory that if your native language is Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Turkish, then you'll naturally do better at math than someone who grew up speaking English. This is because the names to describe numbers are more complicated in English than in those other languages. Here's an argument why that might not be true.
Link to "A Look At Korean" -- • Korean
Link to all the "A Look At Languages" videos -- • Language by language: ...
ADDITIONS/CORRECTIONS:
Just to be totally clear, this video isn't meant to somehow refute those studies -- I'm guessing they were peer-reviewed, and anyway, I didn't read them, just a couple of articles about them. Really, the video is just meant to pose a question about the overarching theory and offer an alternative view of the gap in math achievement mentioned among English / Korean / Chinese / Japanese / Turkish students.
Also, I know that having a bunch of accomplished mathematicians doesn't necessarily say anything whether math is difficult for the average student. Still, it also might suggest that at least language isn't a stumbling block after you get past basic math, and that even if there is a language effect, maybe it doesn't follow you around for long.
Photos in this video include the works of:
Taylor Van Riper
Gabby K
Jeswin Thomas
Husniati Salma
Digital Buggu
Pixabay
Jaikishan Patel
Chris Liverani
Roman Mager
Rheins
Les Anderson
Macau Photo Agency
Christiano Sinisterra
Nuno Alberto
Markus Winkler
Ethan Brooke
Waldemar Brandt
Andrea Piacquadio
Ian Panelo
Mohd Aram
Chee Huey Wong
Raj Rana
Pop & Zebra
Atharva Tulsi
Jeswin Thomas
Byron Aihara
Charl Folscher
Deepak Gautam
Nicolas Genin
Jéan Béller
India Post
George Sharvashidze
Max Fischer
Marius Mann
Edward Jenner
This is a new series on this channel, more of an illustrated podcast than a full-fledged video, so that I can do more of them. Unlike the rest of the content here, there's no sound editing, and it's more some semi-scripted ramblings, but hopefully you will find some of the topics interesting. There will be a new one every Tuesday, so if you don't like the one this week, you still might like the next one :-)
Please let me know what you think in the comments, and thanks as always for checking these out! (Also, there will still be new "A Look at Languages" videos coming soon as well)
How many words do need to count from 1 to 99 in French. Since 70,80 and 90 are a bit weird in French.
@@starknight103 it's a good point that sometimes there might be fewer words, but the system is still a little complicated. For French, if you ignore the fact that you need to learn to use "et" (and) for numbers ending in one, and learn that numbers over 60 are counted by 20s, then there would be 25 numbers to learn (1-20, plus 30, 40, 50, 60 and 80), or 27 numbers in Belgium and other places where they don't count by 20s for the higher numbers.
What happened to your voice?
:-D For this series, just using some notes and unedited sound, so for sure there is some stumbling and stuttering. Using this format will allow me to keep up with a one-video-a-week schedule, but let me know what you think, is it too difficult to listen to?
@@WorldisOurThing No, it just didn't sound like your regular self... It threw me for a loop, that's all.
@@truefriend5332 cheers - I just didn't want the voice to sound annoying or get in the way of the content :-)
i thought you would also talk about the fact that there is a word for 10000 in chinese and one for 100 million, so maybe one can argue that they also think in bigger numbers
For sure could do a video on how different languages do the larger numbers, including some of the insanely large Vedic numbers in Sanskrit
yea that would also be an interesting topic, great content btw
@@bruhxyz Thanks much! Will have a new one out each Tuesday
I’d’ve thought languages with more complex number systems would make their native speakers better at maths b/c of more practice
Nice new format!
In Teochew (Min chinese), there is a contraction form for twenty (二十 ri cap becomes 廿 riap). 一 has two pronunciations, cek when it is the number one, ek when it is the number of units (eleven = cap ek, twenty one = riap ek/ri cap ek). And... there is tone change whenever a word is used in a compound. 二 is tone 6 (rising) and 十 is tone 8 (high), but when you say 二十二 only the last word retain its original tone (ri7 cap4 ri6 -- low low rising).
Thanks! And very interesting on Min Nan, is cek vs ek kind of parallel to 二 vs 两 in Mandarin? I learned a little bit of Taiwanese when I lived in Taipei, and the fact that everything changes tone was hard to get used to -- really I just learned set phrases and dialogues and did the best I could :-D Anyway, given what you say, I guess Min Nan numbers are more involved than Mandarin, Cantonese and probably some others.
@@WorldisOurThing There are Chinese characters for 30 (卅
) and 40 (卌
) as well.
According to a Chinese video on the internet, those characters were colloquially read the positional numerals (the modern way) even during ancient times, but for literary/poetic purposes, monosyllabic pronunciations were adopted for them. Later with the introduction of Western mathematics, they were relegated to uses in literary context or names. (Ref: Name of the Chinese video is '数字汉字：“十廿卅卌”你认识吗？它背后隐藏哪些历史知识？', cannot link cause spam warning)
Very interesting
Thanks!