this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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Ok, Lemmy, let's play a game!

Post how many languages in which you can count to ten, including your native language. If you like, provide which languages. I'm going to make a guess; after you've replied, come back and open the spoiler. If I'm right: upvote; if I'm wrong: downvote!

My guess, and my answer...My guess is that it's more than the number of languages you speak, read, and/or write.

Do you feel cheated because I didn't pick a number? Vote how you want to, or don't vote! I'm just interested in the count.

I can count to ten in five languages, but I only speak two. I can read a third, and I once was able to converse in a fourth, but have long since lost that skill. I know only some pick-up/borrow words from the 5th, including counting to 10.

  1. My native language is English
  2. I lived in Germany for a couple of years; because I never took classes, I can't write in German, but I spoke fluently by the time I left.
  3. I studied French in college for three years; I can read French, but I've yet to meet a French person who can understand what I'm trying to say, and I have a hard time comprehending it.
  4. I taught myself Esperanto a couple of decades ago, and used to hang out in Esperanto chat rooms. I haven't kept up.
  5. I can count to ten in Japanese because I took Aikido classes for a decade or so, and my instructor counted out loud in Japanese, and the various movements are numbered.

I can almost count to ten in Spanish, because I grew up in mid-California and there was a lot of Spanish thrown around. But French interferes, and I start in Spanish and find myself switching to French in the middle, so I'm not sure I could really do it.

Bonus question: do you ever do your counting in a non-native language, just to make it more interesting?

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[–] lukstru@lemmy.world 62 points 2 months ago (4 children)

1. Python

for i in range(11):
    print(i)

2. R

for (i in 0:10) {
  print(i)
}

3. C/C++

#include <iostream>

int main() {
  for (int i = 0; i <= 10; ++i) {
    std::cout << i << std::endl;
  }
  return 0;
}

4. Java

public class CountToTen {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    for (int i = 0; i <= 10; i++) {
      System.out.println(i);
    }
  }
}

5. Lua

for i = 0, 10 do
  print(i)
end

6. Bash (Shell Script)

for i in $(seq 0 10); do
  echo $i
done

7. Batch (Windows Command Script)

@echo off
for /l %%i in (0,1,10) do (
  echo %%i
)

8. Go

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
  for i := 0; i <= 10; i++ {
    fmt.Println(i)
  }
}

9. Rust

fn main() {
  for i in 0..=10 {  // 0..=10 includes 10
    println!("{}", i);
  }
}

10. Zig

const std = @import("std");

pub fn main() !void {
    var i: i32 = 0;
    while (i <= 10) {
        std.debug.print("{}\n", .{i});
        i += 1;
    }
}

11. Scala

for (i <- 0 to 10) {
  println(i)
}

12. Fortran

program count_to_ten
  implicit none
  integer :: i

  do i = 0, 10
    print *, i
  end do

end program count_to_ten

13. Haskell

main :: IO ()
main = mapM_ print [0..10]

14. Julia

for i in 0:10
    println(i)
end
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[–] Old_Jimmy_Twodicks@sh.itjust.works 50 points 2 months ago (4 children)

English:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Spanish:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

French:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

German:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Italian:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Greek:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Mongolian:

᠐ ᠑ ᠒ ᠓ ᠔ ᠕ ᠖ ᠗ ᠘ ᠙ ᠑᠐

[–] Dicska@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

The accent on the German is rather thick, though.

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[–] benignintervention@lemmy.world 29 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Uno, dos, très, quatro, cinco cinco, ses

[–] vodkasolution@feddit.it 9 points 2 months ago

You know it's kinda hard

[–] KittenBiscuits@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)
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[–] vodkasolution@feddit.it 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] sxan@midwest.social 7 points 2 months ago

25 or 6 to 4

[–] sxan@midwest.social 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

... siete, ocho, nueve, des!

Hah! I just needed to get started!

Spelling is probably horrible wrong, but Ima take it. 7! 7 languages, ah, ah, aahhh!

[–] LordWiggle@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Dutch, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Latin, Kmer.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 3 points 2 months ago (4 children)
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[–] davidgro@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

2: English and Japanese. (Took Karate classes as a kid)

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[–] Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

English, French, German is three.

Oh, also Scottish, American English, Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English, er... Canadian English, Irish English, Singaporean English, oh, and lots of other Xian English where X is one of the various African countries or islands of the Caribbean that use English as their official language.

Call it another 27 or so.

And they say maths is a language, so 31 total. What do I win?

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[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Japanese, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Latin, Classical Greek.

That makes 11, I guess.

[–] Opinionhaver@feddit.uk 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I had mandatory Swedish at school for over 6 years and I can't even count to ten in that language. Time well spent.

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[–] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)
  1. English (native), Welsh, French, Spanish, German, and binary if I use my fingers 🙌

EDIT:Bugger, it's 5. I can't remember 6 and 10 in German 🙈

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[–] ZeroGravitas@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I speak three languages and I can count in ten.

Not a hard guess, to be honest, lots of people pick up numbers from popular culture (Spanish songs are big on counting, but weirdly, German ones as well). And if you study an Eastern martial art, chances are you'll learn to count to ten in the corresponding language from your instructor.

Or I don't know, maybe my brain is weird and I'm collecting numbers, that's a non-zero possibility.

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[–] toofpic@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Russian as native
English as expected
Danish as I'm integrating
Korean as I was doing Taekwondo (can't say much more actually)

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Just 3; English, Spanish and Japanese.

1-10 was actually like the first or second lesson I had in Japanese, along with phrases related to telling time or paying for things.

[–] tanisnikana@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I can count to ten in just four languages, sadly.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] tanisnikana@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Japanese, English, ASL, and Spanish. Those are my four.

I’m trying to get my Japanese back to as good as it was before I came to America-proper; I spent my childhood on an Air Force base and went to a school in rural Japan. Then I learned English, and with it, my Japanese started rotting. Started really trying hard to get decent at it again for the last decade. It comes, but slowly.

I can count to ten in Spanish cause that’s the second-place language out here, and ASL cause doing 20 counts on one hand is stupid useful and I love it.

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[–] i_am_not_a_robot@feddit.uk 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Three: English, Welsh, German.

I used to be able to do French, Italian and Japanese, but I've managed to forget everything above about five.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 3 points 2 months ago

That's my problem. I live in the US, and there's essentially no opportunity to verbally practice anything. The only options, really, would be Hindi or Spanish, and where I live there's a significant Somali immigrant community, but if you don't use it, you lose it!

My girlfriend in HS had a German mother and a Japanese father. Her mother left Germany when she was 16. After I came back from my extended stay in Germany, speaking fluid German, I visited her parents, and tried to have a conversation with her mother in German. After a few minutes, she said - a little sadly - that she just didn't remember German anymore because it had been so long since she'd spoken it.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

3.8

I can’t remember the German words for 8 and 9

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[–] Marty_TF@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

german english latin italian spanish japanese

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[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Norwegian
English
Swedish
Danish
German
Spanish
Korean
Japanese
Chinese
Arabic

[–] megane_kun@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago

I can count to ten in seven languages. Not as many as some of the others here, I suppose?

Yes, I sometimes count in one of my target languages.

Languages in which I can count one to ten, along with the numbers (in words)

  • Tagalog/Filipino (native): isa, dalawa, tatlo, apat, lima, anim, pito, walo, siyam, sampu
  • English (school): one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten
  • Cebuano (heritage speaker): usa, duha, tulo, upat, lima, unom, pito, walo, siyam, napulo
  • French (school): un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix
  • Japanese (self-study): ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyuu, juu
  • Esperanto (self-study): unu, du, tri, kvar, kvin, ses, sep, ok, naŭ, dek
  • Spanish (quirk of native language): uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco, sais, siete, ocho, nueve, diez
[–] Burninator05@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

To 10? English and Spanish.

If we can drop the requirement to 5 I can add Turkish.

I like learning languages so with that in mind: German, Dutch, French, Swedish, Estonian, Russian, Afrikaans, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Irish and Latin. I don't speak all of them thought.

[–] WalrusDragonOnABike@reddthat.com 3 points 2 months ago
  1. The same 3 I knew back in kindergarten. But I totally forgot one of them for a long while, which is the one I choose to use when I started kindergarten and resulted in my mom getting a call because I supposedly didn't know how to count.

Not fluent in either of the two non-native languages. My peak was probably 5, but two of which were only for a couple years max and very similar.

[–] Kazaxat@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

For this question exactly I can claim 6, but beyond counting to 10 I know very little in most of these.

  • English (native language)
  • Spanish (took a couple years in high school)
  • French (took one class in middle school)
  • Japanese (took a semester in college)
  • Malayalam (parents' native language)
  • Hindi (popular old song with Madhuri Dixit where the chorus counts up to 13, lol)
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[–] zanyllama52 3 points 2 months ago

Three. Spanish, Korean, and English.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

English, French, Spanish, Japanese.

French is lapsed, Spanish broken, and Japanese I know only that required for karate class.

My French was conversational, my Spanish was touristy (what time does the bank open? Where's the bathroom? Etc), and my Japanese was never getting better. But I miss the fluidity of thought and I'm sad to have lost ground on my language goals since COVID.

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[–] PlexSheep 3 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier, Fünf, Sechs, Sieben, Acht, Neun, Zehn (German, Native)

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten (English, know this pretty well)

Un, Deux, Trois, Quatre, Cinq, Six, Sept, Huit, Neuf, Dix (French, least sure about this one)

いち、に、さん、よん、ご、ろく、なな、はち、きゅう、じゅう (日本語, I love it but it's still hard)

一、二、三、四、後、六、七、八、九、十 (also 日本語 but with kanji)

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[–] TerranFenrir@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 months ago (4 children)

English (school/friends): one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten

German (school): eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sechs (hehe sex), sieben, acht, neun, zehn

Marathi (native): Ek, don, teen, char, pach, saha, saat, aath, naoo, daha

Hindi (friends/school): Ek, do, teen, char, panch, cchah, saat, aath, naww, thus

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[–] Freshparsnip@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago

English, French, Spanish, Inuktituk

I grew up in Labrador, where they teach Inuktituk in school. I also know a little French because I'm Canadian and a little Spainish because of American educational television.

[–] ProfessorScience@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

4: English, Spanish, French, and Japanese Bonus: Yes

[–] sevon@lemmy.kde.social 3 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Cool idea. Got a few where I might know just enough to pass this.

attempts collapsedOne two three four five six seven eight nine ten

Ett två tre fyra fem sex sju åtta nio tio

Ein zwei drei vier fünf sechs sieben acht neun zehn

Yksi kaksi kolme neljä viisi kuusi seitsemän kahdeksan yhdeksän kymmenen

Üks kaks kolm neli viis kuus seitse kaheksa üheksa kümme

[–] Nasan@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I never remember German 9 and 10 because the song only goes up to 8.

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[–] Nemo@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Replying opened the spoiler for me, but:

  1. English (native)
  2. Spanish (school)
  3. Esperanto (self-taught)
  4. Latin (university)

I can also count to five in German, and I used to know 1-10 in Swahili, but now only remember that "moja means one"

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[–] arudesalad@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago

English, German and French. I don't speak German or French but I am still learning German (my school forced me to learn French from when I was 7 to when I was 14, but it was taught to poorly to me until I was 13 that I dropped it as soon as I could and the only things I remember are the numbers)

[–] DasFaultier@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago

German, English, French and Upper Sorabian

Bonus: nope, but I sometimes try counting in Binary with my fingers.

But damn there are some smart people here!

[–] fubo@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Eight: English, German, French, Spanish, Latin, Russian, Japanese, ASL.

Bonus question: do you ever do your counting in a non-native language, just to make it more interesting?

Russian occasionally. ASL when I'm counting how many seconds the cat has to stay quiet before I give her a treat.

[–] Theoriginalthon@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

English, French, maybe German, binary and hexadecimal

Although hexadecimal might be considered cheating

[–] sxan@midwest.social 3 points 2 months ago

Points for creativity!

[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 3 points 2 months ago

5: English, German, French, Spanish, and Japanese.

[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

English Spanish and Japanese

[–] Fondots@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

English, French, Spanish, Esperanto

As a bonus: binary, hexadecimal, octal (really most bases but I can only go past that up to hexatrigesimal without looking up the symbols) Roman numerals, tally marks

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[–] HatchetHaro@pawb.social 3 points 2 months ago

English, Cantonese, Mandarin, German, Japanese

I'm native at the first two, fluent in Mandarin, currently learning German, and Japanese I learned by watching Puyo Puyo gameplay.

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