I imagine it can really trip you up with large numbers that are usually grouped by thousands, millions, billion, etc. when saying them out loud, like 123456789: "hundrede og treogtyve millioner, fire hundrede seksoghalvtreds tusinde og syv hundrede niogfirs", literally: "one hundred and three-and-twenty million, four hundred six-and-fifty thousand and seven hundred nine-and-eighty".
And Danish has yet another quirk. The names for 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 aren' based on multiplication with 10 but on multiplication with 20, so instead of saying something to the effect of "five-tens" we say "half-third (i.e. 2.5) times 20", and then we even go and shorten it to obscure the fact that it's based on 20-multiplication.
I envy no one who has to learn Danish numerals.
I wish Danish had made the same changes. "Tres", "firs" are clearly something about three and four, and "halv" is half -- it's difficult not to think about 3, 4 and ½, and with the "sinds-tyve" omitted, there's no time to think before then next word is spoken. I also have difficulty distinguishing "halv" and "og" in "tre half tres" / "tre og tres".
This website will be useful practise.
I've found [2]
"A Scandinavist language reform movement tried to get the 20-based forms replaced by 10-based like Norwegian and Swedish have. With absolutely no success.
Danish 10-based forms are only used in inter-Scandinavian communication and money documents like cheques. They are: femti, seksti, syvti, ot(te)ti, niti"
I suspect English numbers would be better understood by the average Dane...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_a_Song_of_Sixpence#Lyrics
Quatre-vingt-douze = four times twenty plus twelve = 92
France, belgium/switzerland
70 -> soixante dix (60 + 10) -> septant (latin word like september for 7)
80 -> quate vingt (4 * 20) -> octant/huitant (come from huit = 8)
90 -> quatre vingt dix (4 * 20 + 10) -> nonant (latin word for 9)The thing that always throws me off is that the breaks in larger numbers are different than in English. For example, as we add more and more zeros to a number, we say:
One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, one million, ten million, one hundred million, one billion.
In Japanese, they break the numbers up like this (they use different words, of course):
One (1), ten (10), hundred (100), thousand (1,000), one "man" (10,000), ten "man" (100,000), one hundred "man" (1,000,000), one thousand "man" (10,000,000), one "oku," (100,000,000), and ten "oku" (1,000,000,000).
I'm pretty good up until one "man," then I have to start thinking.
The man (10,000) thing catches me out every time though.
in german: when (for whatever reason) people dictate numbers i always insist on single digit dictation
my brain cant handle long series of "twoandtwenty, threeandforty"