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GERMAN: Mathematical Language | ||
Tags: Mathematics | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 1 of 11 03 October 2011 at 2:26am | IP Logged |
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I realised today that I didn't now how to express the more complicated mathematical
fractions in German, or "powers" of numbers (squared, cubed, etc). The simple fractions are easy enough: halb; viertel; drittel; drei-viertel; achtel? neuntel? In (British) English, you will sometimes want to express a fraction, at least temporarily, without converting it to decimal, because it might be capable of further simplification, and during a calculation, you might have something like: 25 --- 100 (ok, that is easily simplifiable, but others might not be) and in English, I would call that "twenty five over one hundred" g A common (and not very accurate) approximation for "pi" is 22 - 7 and in (British) English, we would say "twenty two over seven". How would that be tackled in German. Then we have "powers". 2X2 = "two squared" or 2² 2X2X2 = "two cubed" = 2³ In scientific terminology especially, very large or very small numbers are expressed in powers of 10, e.g. 2.5 x 10³ ("two point five times ten to the three" - except that it's normally bigger than that) You can also have e.g. "two point five times ten to the minus three" (for a negative power, in this case a cube root - I can't type a minus power, or I don't know how to, rather). Again, how would that be expressed in German? Thanks, M. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 11 03 October 2011 at 3:57am | IP Logged |
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We just say n-tel for fractions. 25/100 would be "fünfundzwanzig hundertstel" and 22/7 "zweiundzwanzig siebtel". (This follows the same rule as ordinal numbers.)
2² can be called "zwei im quadrat", "zwei quadrat" or "zwei hoch zwei" 2³ is "zwei hoch drei" or "zwei kubik" 2^n is "zwei hoch n" 2.5 x 10³ turns to 2,5 x 10³ which is read "zwei komma fünf mal zehn hoch drei", the term for this is Darstellung in Zehnerpotenzen, if the power or exponent (=Exponent :D) n is negative we say "hoch minus n" Also, a square root is simply called eine Wurzel and an nth root is called nte Wurzel I'm too lazy to think about correct capitalization (it's not like you'd ever use it) Edited by Bao on 03 October 2011 at 7:14pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 3 of 11 04 October 2011 at 1:28am | IP Logged |
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Thanks Bao. Very useful.
One more question: how would you go on with ratios? I'm not actually au fait with currently mathematical/scientific usage, but "in my day", to express a ratio of say 3 to 2, I would write something like 3:2 but read it out as "three to two". However, I've seen it in older texts written more like a fraction 3/2. Another related question, if it's a symbolic relationship, some scientific property, e.g. e/m (I think that was (electrical) charge over mass, in the example I was reading). I could say it as a fraction "e over m" ("ee over em") or as a ration "e to m" ("ee to em"). Or the one everyone knows: e = mc2 ("ee equals em cee squared"). How would I say those (out loud) in German? Thank you very much. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 11 04 October 2011 at 1:49am | IP Logged |
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3:2 and "drei zu zwei"
I'd expect 3:2 and not 3/2, but I don't actually have a scientific background. e/m "e durch m" (like the letters of the alphabet) e = mc^2 "e gleich m mal c quadrat" 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| alang Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7221 days ago 563 posts - 757 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 5 of 11 04 October 2011 at 4:29am | IP Logged |
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Are there any authoritative widespread books in German to learn Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry and Calculus in German? Similar to Aurelio Baldor Math books in Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 11 04 October 2011 at 5:46am | IP Logged |
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No idea. If nobody else knows it, I'll ask my teacher on Thursday.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 7 of 11 04 October 2011 at 2:07pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks again Bao!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| alang Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7221 days ago 563 posts - 757 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 8 of 11 04 October 2011 at 10:41pm | IP Logged |
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Bao, I found information on a German Mathematician named David Hilbert. I have no idea if any standard Math books from my previous post are authored by him. I hope your teacher will have something. I think this topic will help the TS and anybody else interested in Mathematics through German. Thanks for your help. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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