Some languages also consider different numbers in different way. I have one ball, two balls, and zero balls. Zero might not be plural like in English. Also, some language have a dual distinction that changes thing when there are two of something (not just singular and plural, but singular, dual, and plural).

[–] zaphod@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago

English has inconsistent plurals too, one sheep, two sheep, zero sheep, one goose, two geese,...

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In Russian, numbers ending in one are singular, except for eleven which is plural.

[–] drathvedro@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's even more complicated with two plural declensions except for all numbers in 10-20 range having second form

0 мячей

1 мяч

2 мяча, 3 мяча, 4 мяча

5 мячей, 6 мячей, 7 мячей, 8 мячей, 9 мячей, 10 мячей,

11 мячей, 12 мячей, 13 мячей, 14 мячей, 15 мячей, 16 мячей, 17 мячей, 18 мячей, 19 мячей, 20 мячей

21 мяч

22 мяча, 23 мяча, 24 мяча,

25 мячей, 26 мячей, 27 мячей, 28 мячей, 29 мячей, 30 мячей,

... the rest goes the same as 0-10/20-30....

[–] kabat@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

In English that's called paucal vs plural forms, Polish has the same rules as Russian.

Sidenote: there are translation systems that support it, e.g. Qt does (https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/i18n-plural-rules.html).

[–] tiredofsametab@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Neat! I didn't know that. Is that common in other Slavic languages?