French Numbers are Just Plain Weird
Why saying '96' requires a little arithmetic
I’ve never been great with numbers.
Seriously, if you asked me to solve a mathematical equation, I would get it wrong nine times out of eight.
But that all pales in comparison to my struggles with French numbers, whose mere existence fill me with an unquantifiable dread.
It’s pretty embarrassing, honestly. After all, numbers are usually one of the first things you encounter when you start learning a language. But for whatever reason, my brain has trouble recognising French numbers the way that it does English ones.
That’s not to say I don’t know French numbers; I do know them, or at least I think I do. But when I think of a number, I can’t help but first think of it in English, and then spend some time trying desperately to remember what the French word for it should be. So, ironically, while I once managed somehow to write philosophy essays while on exchange in France, today I would still have trouble telling you how much a sandwich costs.
Despite being inherently incompetent with remembering numbers, though, I’d like to think that French numbers are partly to blame for my numerous numerical woes. You see, French numbers are just plain strange.
