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by lordnacho 3160 days ago
> The "logic" of the system is NOT transparent nor generally known to native speakers.

Totally true, you often find people wondering what exactly the pattern is. A good language teacher will tell you though.

> 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.

If this is a real movement, they need better PR. I've never heard anyone make this case. What's the point anyway?

Interestingly if you look at French, there's a similar thing with the numbers between French French and Swiss French. Soixante-dix vs septante, and similar for 80 and 90.
2 comments
Symbiote 3160 days ago
I've had Danes give me the wrong total in a shop in English since they're used to reading the numbers backwards. I've done the same with my phone number -- I practised saying it in Danish so much, I forgot whether it was 56 or 65. Now I only ever say it in English.

I was very pleased at a concert when the barman said "niti fem" -- was this the reform I'd heard about, from reading this page? No, said my friend, it's just my spoken Danish is so bad the barman thought I was Swedish, and tried to be nice.

I've lived here for two years, and I still can't reliably distinguish between "fem og tres" and "fem halv tres".

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kristiandupont 3160 days ago
>What's the point anyway?

Well it would be easier for learners to pick up for one, but I actually think the system is annoying, even as a native speaker. When someone tells me a phone number or similar, I will often ask them to read out the digits one by one because writing down the numbers can be difficult with the alternating order.

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lordnacho 3160 days ago
That's another weird thing. You CAN read out a number as 8 individual digits, but most Danes will give you 4 two-digit numbers. It's almost a shibboleth, like that movie where the non-native German speaker uses his pointing finger instead of his thumb to count "one".
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Bromskloss 3160 days ago
I had a teacher, who, when enumerating, say, three points in his address of the class, used his thumb all three times.
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