Legendary 1,000,000 count

~Stealing one half an hour after midnight :O~
ג׳תרפ״א
Hebrew is a language but you're on the right track. And well, you have a season and a half to fix it.

 

Pretty sure she edited it. Either that or I done diddly goofed, myself, hard.

As an Englishman, I am deeply, deeply offended. Are you <insert slavic country opposed to the slavic country I'm assuming you're from based on your name>?

I did learn both French and German at school, though, so often things from both languages creep in here and there. I was always much more interested in German, though. The way it worked at my school, we had to do well in one language to take on a second one, and then after a year of doing two at once, you could drop one of them if you wanted. I had to do French at my "starter" language and hated it, but I worked hard at it so that I could study German instead in the long run. My French teachers all seemed shocked when my grades started plummeting after I'd seemed so keen and put in something in the region of 3582 hours of work into French.

Also, aren't Hebrew numbers just called Hebrew numerals or something along those lines? As for how it works, here's a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_numerals

 

This post bytes!

 

(yes I edited it lol, I just left no mark to make you feel like you were the one who misread it heehee)

You thought I was a Russian? As an American, that deeply offends me!
...Just kidding, I don't care. I know I'm using a Russian/similar country name.
It did seem like you were using French as a personal example, but I see.
How does learning extra languages work in most of Europe? I'm assuming in most countries they teach English even when it's not their first... and then usually one or two more? Europeans seem to always be very poly-lingual.

Yes, it's the Hebrew letter number system... well done. I didn't expect anyone to get it so quickly.
It's closely related to the practice of gemtaria where every Hebrew word has a numeric value.

Unfortunately 3584 is too big a number for an example.

 

Katia has already traveled the distance!

 

Just on the off-chance it wasn't clear, I was also joking.

In England it isn't mandatory to learn a foreign language at all. Most secondary schools (ages 11-16) do teach it, but it isn't something their ranking is based on. It's also a bit late in life to really be learning a new language. Ideally, you'd teach them right from when they start school at age 5. Schools are ranked based on mathematics, science and English. There's an old German joke:
What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
Trilingual
What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual
What do you call someone who speaks one language?
English

I know that in Germany the kids tend to get a choice between learning British and American English. Don't really know how it's done elsewhere in Europe, other than that the vast majority of people do seem to be fluent in English no matter where you go.

Almost forgot to add a number: 3586

 

I only know English. Therefore, I'm English. Therefore, I'm on an island. Therefore, I need a boat...

 

3588

 

3589

 

Not as famous as the 3310, but still a phone that existed.

 

Not as famous as Yellow Corn, but still a Corn that exists.

 

Ah, so that's where the Americans got their laziness in learning languages. Still, I can imagine it being more commonplace to learn more languages in England than in the US...

3592

 

'MERICA!

 

BIG POWER

 

BIG POWER...BLOCKS!

 

By virtue of being closer to a lot of countries that speak lots of different languages (rather than mostly Spanish and Portuguese for North America), I think you're probably correct. I have no actual data to back this up, though.

3596

 

But also:


Not even Portugese, North America just has some Mexican Spanish and a bit of French in Quebec. And even those two languages aren't much taught in American Schools. Spanish, if anything. So, though I haven't been to Europe, I'm sure that's the main factor.

 

As an American who has toured through Europe twice, I can give you my educated guess to this phenomenon. First off, Europe is a very small place relative to North America - Europe and The United States are roughly the same size. Second, Europe has a diverse language set (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Slavic, Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Norwegian, Latvian, Estonian, Lithuanian, and Danish just to name the ones I know off the top of my head). Historically, these groups wanted their own national independence and later national identity to be unique and recognized among their neighbors. In North America, the picture was quite different. Canada and The United States were British colonies, and Mexico and a lot of Central and South America and the Caribbean were Spanish colonies. The few notable exception would be the French in Louisiana, Quebec, and a couple Caribbean islands, and a couple Dutch islands. Given the size, people living within these borders have little need to know more languages than their primary language - whereas European residents would benefit greatly from knowing their neighboring languages as they have a much higher chance of visiting and travelling through those places. It's all a question of necessity - which is why most Americans don't have a passport; there's so much to see in the States that the proposition of going through the hoops to get a passport seems most unnecessary to average citizens.

 

3599=3+5+9+9=26
Apparently this is how we do math now.

(first time participating so I hope I'm not breaking the rulz )

 

Annolis, that sure is a long way of saying "By virtue of being closer to a lot of countries that speak lots of different languages"

MissRainbow, you did it perfectly... well, apart from the mathematics side of things. Reminds me of this a little: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8XMeocLflc

Is it bad that I did a similar challenge to this once? The difficulty with McDonalds eating challenges in my experience isn't the quantity of food, but rather the quantity of salt. Leaves you thirsty for the rest of the week. No change there for some guys I guess...