The Mandarin number word for 29 means “two-ten-nine” and the number word for 97 means “nine-ten-seven.” Scientists call such languages transparent. Mandarin (the most popular language in China) is one of these languages. In some languages, the way people name multi-digit numbers is very clear and regular. Learning number words for numbers larger than ten differs much more between languages (try the quiz in the Figure 1). For Basque, have a look at these YouTube videos: (numbers 1–19), (numbers 20–39). For Mandarin, French, German, and Hindi, go to /translator and insert the number word. If you want to know how these number words are pronounced, you can listen to them on the internet. The way some of these words are built is quite complicated.
Below all two-digit number words, you can see how these number words would most likely be translated to English. All blue number words have something special compared with the very regular Mandarin number words.
However, in 29 it is the other way around: the value of the 9 is just 9 (9 × 1) and the value of the 2 is 20 (2 × 10). For example, the value of the 9 in 92 is 90 (9 × 10) and the value of the 2 in 92 is 2 (2 × 1). The place-value rule means that the value of each digit becomes clear when we look at the place of this digit within the multi-digit number.
Multi-digit numbers follow the place-value rule, which allows us to write down as many numbers as we want with only the ten symbols we already know. We use these ten symbols to write down single-digit numbers and we combine them when we write down multi-digit numbers. The Hindu-Arabic numeral system uses exactly ten symbols that you are probably familiar with: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 0. Most countries use the so-called Hindu-Arabic numeral system to write down numbers. 7 × 8 equals 56, both in the United States of America and in Germany 2. This is also true for calculations: 2 + 2 equals 4, both in France and in China. Numbers and Maths Are Pretty Universalĭoing basic maths 1 seems to be a pretty common thing-you do it, I do it, even very young children do it before they go to school, for instance, when they count marbles. We also show how the way multi-digit number words are built can make learning maths and dealing with large numbers easier or more difficult. In this article, we will give examples of what number words in different languages look like. Although most of us use the same symbols to write down numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, …), we use very different words for these numbers simply because we speak different languages. 7 × 8 equals 56, both in the United States of America and in Germany. 2 + 2 equals 4, both in France and in China. Doing basic maths seems to be a pretty common thing.