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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[–] [email protected] 65 points 3 weeks ago (5 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
[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

If you didn't cheat that's actually pretty impressive.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

It is astonishingly easy to get basically any LLM to output a simple iteration from one to ten function in all of those languages, and more.

Here's Assembly:

    newline db 0xA  ; Newline character

section .bss
    number resb 1  ; Reserve a byte for the number

section .text
    global _start

_start:
    mov ecx, 1  ; Start with 1
    mov edx, 10 ; End with 10

loop_start:
    cmp ecx, edx  ; Compare ecx with edx
    jg loop_end   ; If ecx > edx, jump to loop_end

    ; Convert number to ASCII
    add ecx, '0'  ; Convert number to ASCII
    mov [number], ecx  ; Store the ASCII value in number

    ; Print the number
    mov eax, 4        ; sys_write system call
    mov ebx, 1        ; File descriptor 1 is stdout
    mov ecx, number   ; Pointer to the number
    mov edx, 1        ; Number of bytes to write
    int 0x80          ; Call kernel

    ; Print newline
    mov eax, 4        ; sys_write system call
    mov ebx, 1        ; File descriptor 1 is stdout
    mov ecx, newline  ; Pointer to the newline character
    mov edx, 1        ; Number of bytes to write
    int 0x80          ; Call kernel

    sub ecx, '0'  ; Convert ASCII back to number
    inc ecx        ; Increment the number
    jmp loop_start  ; Jump back to the start of the loop

loop_end:
    ; Exit the program
    mov eax, 1        ; sys_exit system call
    xor ebx, ebx      ; Exit code 0
    int 0x80          ; Call kernel

Here's FORTRAN

program iterate_from_one_to_ten
    implicit none
    integer :: i

    ! Loop from 1 to 10
    do i = 1, 10
        print *, i
    end do
end program iterate_from_one_to_ten

Here's COBOL

PROGRAM-ID. IterateFromOneToTen.

ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.

DATA DIVISION.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
    01  WS-Counter PIC 9(2) VALUE 1.

PROCEDURE DIVISION.
    PERFORM VARYING WS-Counter FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL WS-Counter > 10
        DISPLAY WS-Counter
    END-PERFORM.

    STOP RUN.
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[–] Old_Jimmy_Twodicks 53 points 3 weeks ago (5 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

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

The accent on the German is rather thick, though.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

You know it's kinda hard

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

25 or 6 to 4

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks 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!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

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

That makes 11, I guess.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks 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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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks 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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[–] neidu3 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Norwegian
English
Swedish
Danish
German
Spanish
Korean
Japanese
Chinese
Arabic

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks 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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks 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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

3.8

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

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

To 10? English and Spanish.

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks 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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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

german english latin italian spanish japanese

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks 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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks 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
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks 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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks 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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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks 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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

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

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[–] DasFaultier 3 points 3 weeks 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!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

English Spanish and Japanese

[–] arudesalad 3 points 3 weeks 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)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Une, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix

Uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinqo, seiz, siete, ocho, neuve, diez

Yï, èr, sän, sì, wû, liù, qï, bä, jîu, shí

Yain, tain, eddero, peddero, pots, later, tater, ovvero, covvero, dits

So... 5. Far fewer than I can toast in.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Drinking is clearly more important.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

English, Maori, Japanese, Korean, Spanish

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks 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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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks 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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

English, French, maybe German, binary and hexadecimal

Although hexadecimal might be considered cheating

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Points for creativity!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Four. English, Chinese, Japanese, German.

Among these German is the only one where I'm not confident in my language capacities... So I almost beat OP in the bet :P I just happened to have learned German up until ~A2 for career reasons but dropped it since my plans changed. Other three I'm all very fluent in. I am also learning French but ironically I only know 1/2/3 because I'm a complete newbie...

I spent the last 10 years in the US so my internal monolog is a bit messed up... I primarily count in English which is not my native language. If it is a long number I'll use Chinese since it is more efficient (one syllable each for 0-10)

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

4:

  • English (native)
  • Spanish (school)
  • French (school)
  • Korean (Taekwondo)

Hopefully next week I'll add Polish--I'm on day 3 of learning it in an app.

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