#cannibal_elk
cedar basin
dreamy wadi
yeah so the thing is there are two main ways to count large numbers, known as short and long scale
they're pretty confusing, but basically English uses short scale while French uses long scale.
meaning you can often have the same words in both languages (billion, trillion, etc)... but they are off by factor of thousands
stoic socket
I think, numbers should be numbers and be universal smh
fluid pulsar
okay that's good to know. is this something that i would get corrected on? or do people really care? if i was in france and i said this number 2,002,002,002,002,002,002,002,002,002. they would most likely expect me to say it in long scale form? also would this also apply to quebec too?
dreamy wadi
oh, idk about quebec actually, but for France yes, although you can assume not all people are familiar with high end numbers to begin with
when I was learning English and I first heard of billionaires I was pretty confused because I thought they weren't any
then I learned that what English calls billionaire is just "milliardaire" in French. Because my thought was what French calls billionaire, and it is actually "trillionaire" in English
fluid pulsar
good to know. thx you. i have been trying to understands numbers in french so this helps. just got to find other things that will surprise me.
atomic siren
By the way, you missed a few numbers in the long scale: deux quadrilliards deux quadrillions deux trilliards deux trillions deux billiards deux billions deux milliards deux millions deux mille deux.
hasty wagon
okay that's good to know. is this something that i would get corrected on? or do...
As a general rule, most the vast majority of people are going to switch off right around the 10^12 limit (English trillion, French billion)
dreamy wadi
oh right, that's the limit around which you can assume people might need clarification
fluid pulsar
As a general rule, ~~most~~ *the vast majority* of people are going to switch of...
what do you mean switch off? like they don't care if you use short or long term or just don't know what would be the name for what is above
hasty wagon
what do you mean switch off? like they don't care if you use short or long term ...
They just don't know
It's really hard to mentally imagine numbers once you got to the tens of millions, regardless of whatever scale you use
fluid pulsar
okay. i only knew short scale so long scale is a bit to wrap my head around. good to know
hasty wagon
People think a billion is not that far off from a million, yet a million seconds is only 11 days whereas a billion seconds is like 31 years and 8 months or ~11,500 days
For the most part, you're going to be dealing with 10^9-10^12 and personally as someone whose language is also using the short-scale, it's a mental switch personally
