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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

30 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4 Next >>

Iversen
Super Polyglot
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Denmark
berejst.dk
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Message 17 of 30

04 September 2012 at 9:14am | IP Logged

Danish: 117 (hundredeogsytten)

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tarvos
Super Polyglot
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China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
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Message 18 of 30

04 September 2012 at 9:58am | IP Logged

Море (sea) can also be used for this in Russian I believe
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newyorkeric
Diglot
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Singapore
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Message 19 of 30

04 September 2012 at 10:16am | IP Logged

emk wrote:

The other popular word in English is "zillion", which is larger than umpteen, though
nobody's quite sure about the relative sizes of "zillion", "bazillion" or "gazillion".

You also have the variants jillion, bajillion, and gajillion.
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Serpent
Octoglot
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Russian Federation
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Message 20 of 30

04 September 2012 at 9:00pm | IP Logged

a3 wrote:

FELlX wrote:

clumsy wrote:

I have no idea, why 18 is so special to be used for such a purpose.

French has two special numbers of that kind: 36 and 36 000.

And English has 9000 (which has been used over 9000 times).

I think "over 9000" is more netspeak than the examples here. It's also used in Russian, often with "over" in cyrillics (овер 9000). An example specific to Russian and a bit netspeaky is 100500, read as one hundred-five hundred (we don't read numbers this way otherwise, not in standard Russian at least) - стопятьсот or often spelt as стопицот.

We also use nouns like sea, pile, cloud.
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stifa
Triglot
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Norway
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Message 21 of 30

04 September 2012 at 9:29pm | IP Logged

I would say that tusen (1000) or million is more often used in Norway. In my dialect:

"Æ har sagt det tusen ganga allerede." (I've already said it a thousand times.)
(Æ = jeg; ganga = ganger)
It may be different in other parts of the country, but I find it more natural to use a
number like 1000 or 1,000,000 to express an indefinite number.

Of course, there are several other ways of referring to indefinite numbers.

Edited by stifa on 04 September 2012 at 9:31pm
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Solfrid Cristin
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Message 22 of 30

19 January 2013 at 8:29pm | IP Logged

I would either use ørten, or nte ( like in French) coming from the mathematical sign for un unspecified amount
N, depending on the context.

Jeg har sagt det ørten ganger ( I have said it umpteen times)
Jeg har minnet ham på det for nte gang ( I have reminded him for the umpteenth time)

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Lakeseayesno
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Mexico
thepolyglotist.com
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Message 23 of 30

20 January 2013 at 1:17am | IP Logged

In slangy Mexican Spanish, a noun emphatizing quantity + "mil" (a thousand) is often used. Most commonly, "chorromil" ("chorro" actually means "stream" but somewhere along the way, it ended up meaning "a lot"). I think it's become outdated, though.

My favorite, however, is the Japanese 無量大数 (muryoutaisuu), which according to Jim Breen's WWWJDIC, is about 10^68 (or 10^88).
Literally, it means "a number so large it's immeasurable".
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Ojorolla
Diglot
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France
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Message 24 of 30

20 January 2013 at 3:00pm | IP Logged

Lakeseayesno wrote:

My favorite, however, is the Japanese 無量大数 (muryoutaisuu), which according to Jim Breen's WWWJDIC, is about 10^68 (or 10^88).
Literally, it means "a number so large it's immeasurable".

Which comes from Buddhist scripts translated into old Chinese.

Korean : 온갖 (Ongat)
'on' means whole or hundred(archaic), 'gat' means number.

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