If the water’s too cold, do it the Danish way: Count TI - TYVE - TREDIVE - FYRRE - HALVTREDS - TRES - HALVFJERDS - FIRS - HALVFEMS - and at HUNDREDE you dive!
Trouble falling asleep? Counting
får (sheep) in Danish might just do the trick! For one thing, the Danish words for 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 are much less transparent than the
fif-ty,
six-ty,
seven-ty,
eigh-ty,
nine-ty row of English – and so it goes when comparing them with a lot of other languages too. Norwegians and Swedes on holiday in Denmark always mess things up, creating on-the-fly numerals like ”fems” and ”halvfirs”. Don’t you listen to them! It’s actually quite easy when you get down to it:
50 – halvtreds
60 – tres
70 – halvfjerds
80 – firs
90 – halvfems
The halv- part means–you guessed it–half. As usual, there’s a historical explanation lurking in the mist… The modern words are actually shortened from older Danish
halv tredje sinds tyve = half(way to the) third times twenty = 2.5 × 20 = 50
tre sinds tyve = three times twenty = 3 × 20 = 60
halv fjerde sinds tyve = half(way to the) fourth times twenty = 3.5 × 20 = 70
fire sinds tyve = four times twenty = 4 × 20 = 80
halv femte sinds tyve = half(way to the) fifth times twenty = 4.5 × 20 = 90
Makes sense? 🙂 Most Danes are not aware of this either, and happily go on counting without giving the etymology much thought. It is, however, revealed whenever you want to say that something is the 50th, 60th … of something:
den halvtredsindstyvende, tresindstyvende, halvfjerdsindstyvende, firsindstyvende, halvfemsindstyvene øl ’the 50th, 60th, 70th, 80th, 90th beer’
(I doubt you’ll get to the 90th beer, though!) By the way, the word sinds is not used in modern Danish. (Only as a part of nogensinde ’ever’. Some young folks even use the English word ever. Whatever.) 4 × 20 in the modern language is 4 gange 20.
And oh, in Danish you say ”two and forty” rather than fourty-two!
Now, let’s count:
0 nul
1 et (én)
2 to
3 tre
4 fire
5 fem
6 seks
7 syv
8 otte
9 ni
10 ti
11 elleve
12 tolv
13 tretten
14 fjorten
15 femten
16 seksten
17 sytten
18 atten
19 nitten
20 tyve
21 enogtyve (en og tyve)
22 toogtyve
23 treogtyve
24 fireogtyve
25 femogtyve
26 seksogtyve
27 syvogtyve
28 otteogtyve
29 niogtyve
30 tredive
31 enogtredive
32 toogtredive
33 treogtredive …
40 fyrre
50 halvtreds
60 tres
70 halvfjerds
80 firs
90 halvfems
100 hundrede
101 hundrede et
102 hundrede to
247 to hundrede syvogfyrre
500 fem hundrede
1000 tusind
2001 to tusind og et
1 000.000 en million
7 000.000 syv millioner
1 000.000.000 en milliard
10 000.000.000 ti milliarder
