this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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In Czech, we say „čtvrt na osm“ (quarter to eight), „půl osmé“ (half of eighth) and „tři čtvrtě na osm“ (¾ to eight) to mean
19:15,19:30and19:45, respectively, so I kinda get it.Similarly, in German, 🕢=„halb acht“.
TIL that it not French with the weirdest way to count. I still don't really get the Danish way. Even with your explanation.
It’s not really an explanation, just a table where I leave the linguistically inclined to figure it out. The point is, the “s” at the end is short for “×20” and “half fifth” is short for ●●●●◖ = 4½ (four and half of the fifth).
Thanks. Do you know the history of that?
Maybe the Danish don't just count with their fingers to 10, but include their toes... So 10 fingers + 10 toes = 20?
"Four score and seven years ago" from the Gettysburg Address... Many languages have or had words for counting in 20's. They've just mostly gone out of fashion.
We also do this in germany
Ja, ich spreche auch ziemlich gut Deutsch. Ich würde aber lieber die Angelsächser mit meiner Fähigkeit „čtvrt“ (tschtwrt) zu aussprechen beeindrucken.
Username checks ou... oh sorry, I forgot where I am, for a moment.
*czechs
Yeah, this is why I chose it – it represents me well. And not only is feddit.de the fastest Lemmy server for me, I spend lots of time with the Germans because Czechs are fine with Reddit and czech-lemmy.eu is empty.
Now I followed your link and was overwhelmed by my intuitive understanding of the subtleties of the Czech language ... even better than reading Dutch ... until I noticed the "translate" in the URL :'-(.
Haha sehr gut ;)
Funny enough, I grew up saying "quarter of eight" to mean 19:45. It took until my mid-20s to realize its probably a regional thing because, after I left Philadelphia (my home city) and moved to Chicago, everyone thought I meant 20:15.
Mmm, American using 24h time. I know nothing else about you but this gets you +0.5 on an attractiveness scale.
Oh! In New England "quarter of" is 15 minutes before the hour (19:45) and "quarter after" is 15 minutes after the hour (20:15). That might explain why my colleagues in Alabama were surprised when I left a meeting at 9:45 when I had clearly warned them I had a hard stop at quarter of ten!
Interesting distinction none of us picked up on!
Thats pretty common in terms of time. I'm not going to say something is "half five" to say it coststwo and a half dollars though. I understand that with French and Danish you arent actually doing the math and just think of that string the same way i think of "ninety two" but it's still difficult to wrap my head around.
Just to make something clear, in this system, which isn't really used, half five would be 4.5, not 2.5.