# In how many languages can you count to five? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 23, 2024, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694 "2024-07-23T16:21:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/41 "2024-07-23T22:46:22Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > to get back on topic, ένα δύο τρία τέσσερα πέντε, pronounced ena, duo, tria, tessera, pente And in Calabrian Greek, which is written with the Roman alphabet, **ena, dio, tria, tessera, pende**. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2024, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/42 "2024-07-23T22:51:12Z")
Sam the Sham only taught me to count to quatro. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/43 "2024-07-24T00:11:47Z")
I can count to any number I like in English, French, German (also Swiss and Belgian French). I think I got Danish 1-5, although I would have to check. And Latin. From doing crosswords, I could probably do Spanish. So maybe 6. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/44 "2024-07-24T02:32:29Z")
Six: English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Japanese. The Russian I took in high school, which is a very long time ago now, so it took me a while to remember. Then I remembered a children’s song we learned in first year, which starts with counting one to five, and ends “bang, bang, oh oh oh, my rabbit is dead.” Cheerful little ditty. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/45 "2024-07-24T02:44:53Z")
English, Spanish, Mandarin, Latin, Klingon, Loglan. I once knew them in Russian, Italian, Dutch and Classical Greek but have forgotten those. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/46 "2024-07-24T03:10:01Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Then I remembered a children’s song we learned in first year, which starts with counting one to five, and ends “bang, bang, oh oh oh, my rabbit is dead.” Why am I not surprised that’s a Russian children’s song? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/47 "2024-07-24T03:18:31Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > I was surprised to find 5 in my list. > > English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, German. > > Of the non-English ones, Portuguese is the only one I can actually speak. Me too. Except for speaking Portuguese, but I can read it a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/48 "2024-07-24T04:30:01Z")
Three natural languages: English, German and Spanish In math, I can do binary, base3, base4 and base5, and base6+. But those probably don’t count. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/49 "2024-07-24T04:35:39Z")
My answer would be about average (for the SDMB) I think. Maybe 6? English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Japanese. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/50 "2024-07-24T04:58:35Z")
English, French (and by tourist extension, Spanish & Italian), Russian and with a bit of effort Greek. And Sheep (the last relic of Romano-British Cumbric?): Yan Tyan Tethera Methera Pimp Sethera Lethera Hovera Dovera Dick ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/51 "2024-07-24T05:03:51Z")
Now I’m curious (but not curious enough to count) what language after English is most common in this thread. My guess would be Spanish or French. When I was in grade school and high school French, Spanish, and German were offered as foreign language courses. I wonder if most folks here had a similar offering? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/52 "2024-07-24T05:31:56Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > When I was in grade school and high school French, Spanish, and German were offered as foreign language courses. I wonder if most folks here had a similar offering? I was in high school from ‘79 to ‘83, and those were our choices (plus a compulsory year of Latin, as it was a Catholic school). If one had scored well on the placement test, you could choose either French or German, and could take up to four years of it. If you had scored poorly on the test, you took one year of Spanish. I took French; in retrospect, even a single year of Spanish would have been far more useful to me, as an adult. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/53 "2024-07-24T05:39:36Z")
My high school offered Spanish, French, German, Russian, Latin, and Chinese. The year after I graduated, they added Japanese. I took 4 years of Spanish and only 1 of Chinese. The Chinese program started my senior year. Through savings and generous donations from local oil companies (the school was in Tulsa) our teacher was able to take 6 of us to China in the summer of 1981 for 2 months. A local news crew followed us around for 2 weeks and made a documentary out of it. It even won a Peabody award. ---
**Author:** ![Kedikat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kedikat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kedikat)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/54 "2024-07-24T06:10:10Z")
Four. Used to be five. But it has been a long time since I took Karate. So Japanese numbers have slipped away. ---
**Author:** ![abcdefghij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/55 "2024-07-24T07:07:38Z")
Seven? English, Spanish, Italian, French, Japanese, Welsh, German. At one time, I could do Romanian and Korean, but I’ve forgotten both. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/56 "2024-07-24T12:08:54Z")
Let’s see: English Afrikaans Dutch German Xhosa French Italian Latin Greek Finnish Japanese Spanish Portuguese Hindi and Discworld Troll. So my answer is Many Many Many, which is written “15” I only speak 2 of those fluently, and 3 very, very badly. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/57 "2024-07-24T12:42:26Z")
For a serious answer, involving only languages spoken in daily lives by actual humans, I’m afraid that I can only do English and Spanish. Sesame Street stuck with me, but the French I took in middle school and the Latin I took in high school and college are more fleeting. I do remember enough Latin that I can fake it, or other romance languages, pretty well, though. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/58 "2024-07-24T12:53:42Z")
English, Hindi/Urdu/Punjabi (all the same), French, Chinese (Mandarin), Dutch, Spanish, German, Korean, Sindhi. Catalan (was recently there, will forget in a few weeks) ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/59 "2024-07-24T13:02:21Z")
3: English, Spanish, French. > [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > 01000010 01101001 01101110… OK, I could add binary too, if that’s considered a language. I can also count to five in hexidecimal (base 16): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 😆 ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694/60 "2024-07-24T13:04:38Z")
Nice to finally see Catalan on the list! So for me it is Spanish, Catalan, German, French, Italian, English, Russian, Portuguese. That must be about eleven or twelve, I guess. That is not including the innumeral ones I forgot. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-how-many-languages-can-you-count-to-five/1004694.md?page=4)