this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)
# 🇩🇰
1 en
2 to
3 tre
4 fire
5 fem
6 seks
7 syv
8 otte
9 ni
10 ti
11 elleve
12 tolv
13 tretten
14 fjorten
15 femten
16 seksten
17 sytten
18 atten
19 nitten
20 tyve
21 enogtyve
22 toogtyve
30 tredive
40 fyrre
50 halvtreds
60 tres (threes)
70 halvfjerds (½fourths)
80 firs (fours)
90 halvfems (½fifths)
92 tooghalvfems (twoand½fifths)
100 hundred

In Czech, we say „čtvrt na osm“ (quarter to eight), „půl osmé“ (half of eighth) and „tři čtvrtě na osm“ (¾ to eight) to mean 19:15, 19:30 and 19:45, respectively, so I kinda get it.
Similarly, in German, 🕢=„halb acht“.

[–] Bruno@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

TIL that it not French with the weirdest way to count. I still don't really get the Danish way. Even with your explanation.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s not really an explanation, just a table where I leave the linguistically inclined to figure it out. The point is, the “s” at the end is short for “×20” and “half fifth” is short for ●●●●◖ = 4½ (four and half of the fifth).

[–] Bruno@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks. Do you know the history of that?

[–] abecede@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe the Danish don't just count with their fingers to 10, but include their toes... So 10 fingers + 10 toes = 20?

[–] vidarh@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

"Four score and seven years ago"‍ from the Gettysburg Address... Many languages have or had words for counting in 20's. They've just mostly gone out of fashion.

[–] SourSweetChaos@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Ja, ich spreche auch ziemlich gut Deutsch. Ich würde aber lieber die Angelsächser mit meiner Fähigkeit „čtvrt“ (tschtwrt) zu aussprechen beeindrucken.

[–] froh42@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Username checks ou... oh sorry, I forgot where I am, for a moment.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

*czechs

Yeah, this is why I chose it – it represents me well. And not only is feddit.de the fastest Lemmy server for me, I spend lots of time with the Germans because Czechs are fine with Reddit and czech-lemmy.eu is empty.

[–] Kornblumenratte@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

Now I followed your link and was overwhelmed by my intuitive understanding of the subtleties of the Czech language ... even better than reading Dutch ... until I noticed the "translate" in the URL :'-(.

[–] SourSweetChaos@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

Haha sehr gut ;)

[–] thelastknowngod@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Funny enough, I grew up saying "quarter of eight" to mean 19:45. It took until my mid-20s to realize its probably a regional thing because, after I left Philadelphia (my home city) and moved to Chicago, everyone thought I meant 20:15.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago

Mmm, American using 24h time. I know nothing else about you but this gets you +0.5 on an attractiveness scale.

[–] Vacationlandgirl@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Oh! In New England "quarter of" is 15 minutes before the hour (19:45) and "quarter after" is 15 minutes after the hour (20:15). That might explain why my colleagues in Alabama were surprised when I left a meeting at 9:45 when I had clearly warned them I had a hard stop at quarter of ten!

Interesting distinction none of us picked up on!

[–] Uncle_Bagel@midwest.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thats pretty common in terms of time. I'm not going to say something is "half five" to say it coststwo and a half dollars though. I understand that with French and Danish you arent actually doing the math and just think of that string the same way i think of "ninety two" but it's still difficult to wrap my head around.

[–] Bumblefumble@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Just to make something clear, in this system, which isn't really used, half five would be 4.5, not 2.5.