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?

  • luluu@lemmy.world
    661·
    10 days ago

    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
      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        4·
        10 days ago

        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.
        • Zangoose@lemmy.world
          1·
          10 days ago

          Why does that assembly code use a global variable for a loop value?? It’s also ignoring register conventions (some registers need to be preserved before being modified by a function) which would probably break any codebase you use this in

          • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            4·
            10 days ago

            Because it was generated by an LLM that assumes this one to ten iteration function is the entirety of all of what the code needs to do.

      • luluu@lemmy.world
        1·
        8 days ago

        Yes I cheated. To be fair, I used each of those languages at one point and knew how to do it but was to lazy to look it up again.

        Edit: except Fortran

    • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      1·
      9 days ago

      I might be missing something, but don’t most of these count from 0 to 10, not 1 to 10 as was requested?

  • Old Jimmy Twodicks@sh.itjust.works
    53·
    10 days ago

    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

      • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
        2·
        10 days ago

        Yeah, no issue with counting to 10. The rest however… Im really bad in learning languages, I’ve had German and French in school for 13 years yet I can’t speak either. I know English besides Dutch because of the internet and subtitles on TV. I wanted to learn languages like Norwegian, Latin and Russian but I gave up because I just don’t remember words that well. Same with history, I remember stories but can’t remember dates. I’m better at logic, like math and chemistry. But at least I know how to order up to 10 beers in multiple languages.

        • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.socialOP
          1·
          9 days ago

          at least I know how to order up to 10 beers in multiple languages.

          Critical life skills !

          Most languages go all wonky after 10. German is pretty regular after 12 (12 is such an important number in human history!), French is absolutely insane. Conlangs like Esperanto are the really only highly regular ones.

      • Tanis Nikana@lemmy.world
        3·
        10 days ago

        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.

  • Opinionhaver@feddit.ukEnglish
    5·
    10 days ago

    I had mandatory Swedish at school for over 6 years and I can’t even count to ten in that language. Time well spent.

  • Hossenfeffer@feddit.ukEnglish
    5·
    8 days ago

    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?

  • Stovetop@lemmy.world
    5·
    10 days ago

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

    That makes 11, I guess.

  • ZeroGravitas@lemm.ee
    4·
    10 days ago

    I speak three languages and I can count in ten.

    Not a hard guess, to be honest, lots of people pick up numbers from popular culture (Spanish songs are big on counting, but weirdly, German ones as well). And if you study an Eastern martial art, chances are you’ll learn to count to ten in the corresponding language from your instructor.

    Or I don’t know, maybe my brain is weird and I’m collecting numbers, that’s a non-zero possibility.

    • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.socialOP
      1·
      10 days ago

      Well, I eliminated 30% of the competition: almost nobody is going to count in fewer languages than they speak. That leaves only the people people who’ve picked up counting but little else, and people who can count only in the languages they speak.

      It wasn’t a hard guess. I thought it would be a more fun way of running the question, plus I might get some metrics out of it. If people follow the rules, we can tell what the ratio of group A to group B is by looking at down and up votes.

  • Chris@feddit.ukEnglish
    4·
    10 days ago

    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.

    • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.socialOP
      3·
      10 days 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.