Problems with French Numbers - Numberphile

Key Takeaways

and then when they get to 70 that's where the big problems start because the French haven't invented a word for 70 I always assume the one thing that is kind of international is numbers mathematics that's the one thing that is the same everywhere you're about to ruin this aren't you uh yes I am one thing that uh that you learn when you're studying a foreign language is that counting systems are very different and in fact it's one of the ways that you can tell if somebody's a really good speaker of a foreign language you can really tell what their real mother tongue is when they start counting because even if somebody operates you know an English person living in France when they start counting to themselves they'll probably count to themselves in English you know they're our closest neighbors so you'd have thought that maybe they count in the same way as us but one of the things that I have to keep repeating to my students is that in fact the French don't count in the same way and they use numbers uh in very different ways in a whole range of different everyday environments let me give you some examples so the French well what do we do in England when we're counting numbers we give numbers the first uh 12 numbers when we counting we give them individual names so we go 1 to 12 and then we slip into a thing where we go 13 14 which is kind of three and 10 4 and 10 and so forth the French start off in a slightly different way they go a bit further says and then they go for 17 so D set 107 d 108 109 and then van for 20 it's very similar the counting system after that to English so they go on to 20 I just said was Van then they go to 30 for 40 s for 50 Swant for 60 and then when they get to 70 that's where the big problems start because the French haven't invented a word for 70 instead what they do is they count to 60 and add 10 so whereas we go to 6 and then go to 70 a French person goes to 60 but then goes to 60 + 10 because they say SW SW is 70 in French SW literally means 60 10 but it means 70 oh they know what the number 70 is they don't they don't sort of do this plus business they and a French person when they hear you say SW they don't think oh that's 60 and 10 they see 70 so the mental picture that is conjured by the sound of swle this is still 70 the same as we we would and then they continue by instead of saying they haven't invented a word for example for 71 so that's Swant literally 60 and 11 it's rather odd with these ones that they say SW is the word for and because when they get to 72 they just say Swant do okay Swant do 60 12 and it's only when we're dealing with ones that they use the e but it gets even more confusing from the English point of view because you think Okay so we've got 601 that's 70 ner what do they do when they get to 80 surely they got a word for 80 well no because the French when they get to that number they say k which means 420s well that's what it means 420s literally the French of course when they hear kraan see 80 in their minds and then they go KRA 420s 1 420s 2 not 420s and one no they just be oh the reason they don't say 420s and one is because it's too many words so there's also a style issue here because you know the French uh love their style but what they do do then and this is the other weird thing when they get to 90 they still haven't even thought of another word for 90 or a decent word for 90 so what do they say they say 420s 10 and then when they get to 91 they say 420s 11 92 is 93 is 94 is KRA 95 KRA and so it goes until they get up to 100 and they have invented a word for 100 so 100 is s one of the big problems of course with this kind of numbering system is when you're listening to somebody giving you a phone number because if I could just explain let me uh let me think of an English phone number so you might have uh uh you'd have 0115 so that's your Nottingham code then you have 962 would be the sub code for the exchange and then the individual number would be 5782 and in English we would read out all of the numbers 0115 or you might say 015 962 5782 two this isn't a real number by the way is no no I just made that one okay so that's your that that's your uh an example of an English telephone number but in France they do it completely differently they will take the numbers and they will say they will actually distinguish the numbers 62 58 49 27 and when you ask somebody for their phone number they will tell you that it is 62 58 49 27 they won't say for all numbers will they they'll do that for all telephone numbers they won't say 625 849 27 and this causes not big problems but if you're on the telephone to a client in France who wants your mobile number and you're used to giving your mobile number in the in in the way the English do and then you try to do it into to the French they find that very difficult to cope with and it works in the other direction my students are endlessly telling me about the problems they had copying down telephone numbers and of course the really big problems start when you get to numbers that start with a six with a seven with an eight and with a nine well it's a problem because if you're English and you hear Swant let's remember that numbers that what we would call 60 to 69 start with the word Swant but so the numbers 70 to 79 let's say that your friend starts saying my number is say in French SW you start you do that and then they say you have to go back correct it because it's not Swant at all it's 71 but the other thing that the French do with numbers while we're on the subject that's the French for 10.69 let's say that that's the world record for the women's 100 meters Dash in the Olympics okay now you can see that's very different uh from the way that we would we would write it in English it's also very different from the way that we would say it there we've got a decimal point and the French are using a comma but they also say it differently in English we say 10.69 because we separate the tth and the hundreds okay but the French would say 10 comma 69 okay so you have to listen out very carefully if you're watching a french sports commentary for example if you're watching the Olympic Games in France and you're trying to catch the time you have to listen out for not 10.69 but this 10 comma 69 so so once again you've got this issue of numbers being grouped together and that's something the French do all the time they don't separate individual numbers out they group them and give them and use their name yeah the word the French use for a comma is a virgule and they use that in grammar as they use it in numbers as well so when a French person reads out this time then they will say this vir comma enough to a French person is that 10695 or is that 10,695 it's 10 V 695 so it would be that would be the way they express it how would a French person write 10,695 well 10 they would either just do that and very often they leave a space in a French textbook you might find there's a space between the 10 between the thousands and the 695 or occasionally this is going to confuse you just occasionally they'll do that 10,000 full stop 695 so in fact you could say that the French and the English do exactly the opposite thing and you could argue that it's just to confuse each other and it's deliberate well I don't have a problem with it but it has caused problems in the past there was a case of rather unfortunate case in a French hospital a few years ago go where there was a serious uh a too large a dose of something was administered to patients simply because of a misreading of a decimal point for uh this or a comma not being read the right way around so it can be a big problem in technical translation technical translators need to be absolutely sure that they get it right because otherwise it can go very very wrong if you'd like to hear a bit more about French numbers including it's impossible to score 20 out of 20 in France check out another video we've got here on number file or if you just like to hear more about languages in general from people like Paul and others check out another Channel I've got called words of the world it's got all sorts of fascinating videos about things like California or biscuit or vodka there's loads of videos on there already and there's new ones going on every week so maybe subscribe