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Comment by yongjik | Hacker News Reader

That's where I think the Korean numeric system really shines, for some weird reason.

gloss: han(a)=1 du(l)=2 se(t)=3 ne(t)=4 daseot=5 yeoseot=6 ilgop=7 yeodeol=8

    handu = one or two
    duse = two or three
    sene/seoneo = three or four
    duseoneo = two or three or four
    nedet = four or five
    daeyeoseot = five or six
    yeoseoilgop = six or seven
    ilgoyeodeol = seven or eight

Sadly I think that's about it, it doesn't extend much more. But it's quite useful where it's available!

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At this point, why not just use the exact number of items discussed? This system is more complex without any improved precision.

I’m pretty sure they started put as the exact numbers and were just shortened eventually for convenience. This kind of compound word shortening happens all the time in all languages, it’s just Korean happens to have it for numbers, not particularly related to the numeric system as suggested.

We have "one or two" in Greek as well. It is commonly understood to mean any small number, like "a couple", but can be much larger if the thing typically comes in large numbers. If you say "I want one or two chillies", you would expect to get five or ten, not one or two.

A small amount of the whole?

Of what someone would reasonably request, eg peanuts at a bar.

Are those terms used for continuous measurements (e.g. distances/timespans)? Could 110 seconds be "duse" minutes, or always "handu"?

Minutes are problematic for a different reason, but hours would work. I think 110 minutes can count as either "handu" hour or "duse" hour - after all they aren't supposed to be exact measures.

(The reason minutes don't work is that Korean has two different sets of numerals, native and Chinese, and minutes only work with Chinese numerals.)

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