They must have meant 9*10+2 for most of the countries. For French and Danish you would just remember the word for 90 instead of using logic to get there so they are actually quite 90+2.

Bit of a sidenote.

Are the English numbers 11-20 influencer by the base 20 system of french back when we had French speaking royalty? And for some reason they’re the only unique “digits” for lack of a better term that survived because once we get to twenty it’s a pure base 10 system with a consistent pattern throughout.

I’m hoping someone more knowledgeable than me can tell me if my thinking is correct or not.

Edit: thanks for the history lessons, were interesting to read through.

97

4x20 + 10 + 7

Four score and a dozen.

Oh yeah, one of the pics that inspired me to study French. I was dreading the numerals but it’s not that bad. You count tens and twenties and sometimes they’re special. And numbers below 20 have specific names, but that’s kinda true in most languages.

A lot of languages have weird corner cases. (Like, in Finnish most numbers are perfectly regular. Except 11-19 which are not “one-ten-and-x” but rather “x-of-the-second”. I’m sure there’s a reasonable etymological reason. At least they’re not “teens”.)

The map is wrong, Czechs can do both 2+90 and 90+2, I am not sure if it’s regional within the country, or depends on the context, but they definitely use both versions

And the French way isn’t rotten? Lmao