PAUL SMITH: And then when they get to 70, that's where the
big problems start, because the French haven't invented a
word for 70.
BRADY HARAN: 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?
PAUL SMITH: Yes, I am.
One thing 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.
They're our closest neighbors, so you'd have thought that
maybe they'd 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 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 12 numbers when we're 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 3 and 10, 4 and 10, and so forth.
The French start off in a slightly different way.
They go a bit further.
Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix,
onze, douze, treize, quatorze, quinze, seize.
And then they go for our 17, dix-sept, 10-7; dix-huit,
10-8; dix-neuf, 10-9; and then vingt for 20.
It's very similar, the counting system
after that, to English.
So they go on to 20, as I said was vingt.
Then they go to 30, trente.
Quarante for 40.
Cinquante for 50.
Soixante 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 60 and then go to 70, a French person
goes to 60, but then goes to 60 plus 10, because they say
soixante-dix.
Soixante-dix is 70 in French.
Soixante-dix literally means 60-10, but it means 70.
Oh, they know what the number 70 is.
They don't sort of do this plus business.
And a French person, when they hear you say soixante-dix,
they don't think, oh, that's 60 and 10.
They see 70.
So the mental picture that is conjured by the sound of
soixante-dix is still 70, the same as we would.
And then they continue by instead of say-- they haven't
invented a word, for example, for 71.
So that's soixante et onze, literally 60 and 11.
It's rather odd with these ones that they
say soixante et onze--
"et" is the word for "and"--
because when they get to 72, they just say soixante-douze.
Soixante-douze, 60-12.
And it's only when we're dealing with ones that they
use the "et."
But it gets even more confusing from the English
point of view, because you think, OK, so we've got
60-10, that's 70.
Soixante et onze, soixante-douze,
soixante-treize, soixante-quatorze,
soixante-quinze, soixante-seize,
soixante-dix-sept, soixante-dix-huit,
soixante-dix-neuf.
What do they do when they get to 80?
Surely they've got a word for 80.
Well, no.
Because the French, when they get to that number, they say
quatre-vingts, which means 4 20s.
Well, that's what it means, 4 20s, literally.
The French, of course, when they hear quatre-vingts, see
80 in their minds.
And then they go quatre-vingt-un, 4 20s, 1.
4 20s, 2.
BRADY HARAN: Not 4 20s and 1?
PAUL SMITH: No.
They'd just be-- ah.
The reason they don't say 4 20s and 1 is because it's too
many words.
So there's also a style issue here, because, you know, the
French 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 quatre-vingt-dix, 4 20s, 10.
And then when they get to 91, they say
quatre-vingt-onze, 4 20s, 11.
92 is quatre-vingt-douze.
93 is quatre-vingt-treize.
94 is quatre-vingt-quatorze.
95, quatre-vingt-quinze.
And so it goes, until they get up to 100.
And they have invented a word for 100.
So 100 is cent.
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 think of an English phone number.
So you might have 0115, so that's your Nottingham code.
Then you'd have 962 would be the subcode for the exchange.
And then the individual number would be 5782.
And in English, we would read out all of the numbers,
0-1-1-5, or we might say 0-double 1-5, 962, 5782.
BRADY HARAN: This isn't a real number, by the way, is it?
PAUL SMITH: No, no.
I just made that one up.
OK.
So that's 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--
BRADY HARAN: They'll do that for all numbers, will they?
PAUL SMITH: 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 way the English do and then you try to do it 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 6, with a 7, with an
8, and with a 9.
So it's a problem, because if you're English
and you hear soixante--
let's remember that numbers, what we would call 60 to 69,
start with the word soixante.
But so do numbers 70 to 79.
Let's say that your friend starts saying "my number is"--
I'll say it in French, "mon numero, c'est
soixante" you start--
you do that.
And then they say "et onze" and you have to go back and
correct it, because it's not soixante 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 point 69."
Let's say that that's the world record for the women's
100 meters dash in the Olympics.
Now you can see that's very different from the way that 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 point 69," because we separate the
tenths and the hundredths.
But the French would say "10 comma 69."
So you have to listen now 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 point 69, but "dix virgule soixante-neuf," "10
comma 69." 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 use their name.
The word the French use for a comma is "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 "dix virgule"--
comma--
"soixante-neuf."
BRADY HARAN: To a French person, is that "10 point 695"
or is that 10,695?
PAUL SMITH: It's 10, virgule, 695.
So it would be "dix virgule six cent quatre-vingt-quinze."
That would be the way they express it.
BRADY HARAN: How would a French person write 10,695?
PAUL SMITH: Well, 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 thousands and the 695.
Or occasionally, this is going to confuse you, just
occasionally they'll do that.
10,000, full stop, 6-9-5.
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 rather unfortunate case in a French hospital a
few years ago where there was a serious--
too large a dose of something was administered to patients
simply because of a misreading of a decimal point for this,
or a comma not being read the right way round.
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.
BRADY HARAN: If you'd like to hear a bit more about French
numbers, including why it's impossible to score 20 out of
20 in France, check out another video we've got here
on "Numberphile." Or if you'd 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.