My proficiency in Italian, and to some extent also in french, has reached a rather good level I would say. I can understand almost everything now days. Subclauses no longer makes me loose the thread and even rather intellectually lofty things is more or less comprehensible (as long as it doesn’t require specialist competence (but in those cases I’m an idiot, even in my native language Swedish)).
However, there is an exception… Numbers, they still evades me. The reason isn’t that difficult to understand. They are rarely spelled out, but instead written with arabic numerals. They don’t repeat as often as words, but are instead said once; like in: “the french revolution took place in “mille sept cent quatre-vingt-neuf””. And natives, even cultivated ones, who speak clearly, have a tendency to rattle them of in a hurry; understandably so, their intended target audience will understand them anyhow, and the number in itself is rather uninteresting.
For learners however this creates a problem. Do you have any tips on how to learn them profoundly? In my best foreign language, english, they dont pose a problem. It could be that the traditional schooling did it’s job, or that the massive exposure swedes experience made it natural. I can’t remember. There ought to be a shortcut…any hints?
I’m tired of, after uttering a perfectly fine sentence in Italian, looking like a fågelholk* when the answer contains a number.
*Pardon, I couldn’t help myself. I.e. not very smart. Look it up. If you are going to learn one fixed Swedish expression, this is the one.
I think you answered your own question. I rarely use numbers in Swedish (didn’t even pass Ma2 hahaha), rarely in English but they are still second nature to pronounce or use.
But we spend like a whole week learning math, and I think that drilling would help you again. Comprehensible input helps with language as us adults use it but I think the weakness in the theory is that we skip the phase when we are children.
As children we both spend time learning our colors, animals, and numbers. It’s very much conscious drilling like you would in a foreign language with books talking about what sounds the elephant makes and so on.
I think if you take a notebook and deliberately do basic addition or subtraction for a week or so in both languages you’ll get fluent. Same goes for things like kitchen appliances and utensils. They are the most elusive word categories and I believe consequently why every language book obsesses over them.
By the way do you have any tips from your experience as a fellow Swedish native speaker on how to learn French (particularly the grammar)
I struggle with numbers in French when they use their weird non decimal system such as soixante douze, quatre-vingt dix sept and so on. It is said to be a celtic remnant.
You can read the numbers out loud when you encounter them in text.
Alternatively, find a random number generator on the Internet and drill saying the numbers out loud. As an example, say these out loud: 84, 72, 2, 109, 22, 50, 51. If you can go through a few hundred numbers like this, you’d probably significantly improve your ability to say them and recognise them. A few minutes per day for a month might suffice. If it’s dates which particularly interest you, just set the range of the random number generator from 1700 to 2025, say.
Speaking helps a lot to solidify words.
There would also be plenty of maths videos for children on YouTube, if you want to practise them with input.
Or get a list of random numbers and get the TTS for them. Eg. just write them on Google Translate with a full stop after each number and then press the speaker button.
Download any app that will generate random numbers. Usually you can set the range, so you can start for example from numbers between 0-100 and spend few minutes a day on generating them and saying them loudly or writing them down. Then next week you change the range from 100 to 1000, then 1000-10000, etc. Before you realize it, you’ll be reading them in your mind automatically, without switching to your mother tongue!
The random number generator idea seems the least boring. Still a drag, but I guess there is no way around it; some grinding has to be done. In small stints it should be doable.