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Everything ok Denmark and France?
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this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2026
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France I guess I can see, "four score and twelve". I don't have a clue with Denmark
In French, you count from 69 to 72 like "sixty-nine, sixty-ten, sixty-eleven, sixty-twelve". Then from 79 to 81 it goes "sixty-nineteen, four twenties, four twenties and one". Then from 89 to 91 it goes "four twenties and nine, four twenties and ten, four twenties and eleven".
It's not consistently vigesimal, though. Twenty is "vingt"*, thirty is "trente", forty is "quarante", fifty is "cinquante" and sixty is "soixante" - so far all normal. The only ones where they go all vigesimal on us are 70 (soixante-dix), 80 (quatre-vingts) and 90 (quatre-vingt-dix).
*etymologically "two-tens", if you go back beyond Latin: it's from Proto-Indo-European *dwi(h₁)dḱm̥ti
Danish has essentially managed to shorten "four and a half score" to what would be equivalent to saying "half to fives" in English. So it would be "two and half to fives" if we were to do the same in English. (This is also kinda similar to how the clock is read. 8:30 would be "half to nine" rather than "half past eight", which is used in English.)
In swedish 8:30 is half nine (halv nio), wonder if that's with spread.
In catalan it'd be two quarters of nine, usually shortened to quarters of nine (the two, specifically, is implied). You can also add “and five” (minutes) and “minus five", so 8:20 would be a quarter and five of nine, and 8:40 three quarters minus five of nine. 8:05 would be eight and five, and 8:55 would be nine minus five.
We have a contender!
In Russian, 5:30 is also "half of the sixth", but I still hate the Danish numbering system (which I have to live with)
I've always found that baffling. I've always said 5:30 instead, or even better, 17:30.
Interesting in NZ we would say half eight; for 8:30. Which when written looks really strange; but it is the shortening of half past eight. But strangely we always say quarter past eight rather than quarter eight.
8:25 would be eight twenty five.
8:35 would be twenty five to nine.
8:45 would be quarter to nine, or more uncommon is just to read out eight forty five.
In Sweden it's also 5 to half 8 / 5 past half 8. Or 7:25/7:35.
Same thing in Norwegian, but that shouldn't be a surprise given how similar it is to Swedish.
I think it's just a European thing because Czech has it too
It is in Dutch.
The hour that starts at 00:00 is the first hour of the day, hence 00:30 is half of that hour, or half [of] one. I think that makes sense. Not like the british who say half one and mean half past one.
Fascinating! Thanks for enlightening me
France is “Four twenty twelve”, but if they had picked 99 it would be “four twenty ten nine”, which I always thought was funny.