Why I can't count.

Why is the French number system so complicated? They make you do math. Seriously. Count von Count did not prepare me for this.

Failure.

The basic numbers are a snap…up until 69. Dix (10), vingt (20), trente (30)..etc. Then you add the single digits to those. Take 33, for example…trente trois. Easy as pie. Chocolate pie, because it’s the best.

But somewhere between 69 and 70, that pie disappears and things get very complicated, very fast. Rather than chocolate pie, you’re left with a 50 layer lemon cake, overly complicated, looming, and terrible.

Quatre vingt dix huit- anyone wanna take a stab at what number this is? 

It literally translates to “4, 20, 10, 8”

Somehow you’re supposed to get 98 out of that.

 It’s just a slew of numbers that combine together in several different ways. Some of them you multiply together and others are added. There is no rhyme or reason. Why?!?

The years are the worst, and I’m sure I’m not alone, here. For as long as I have been taking French, all the kids dread the numbers. You know when you have to read a paragraph aloud, and there’s that one sentence with a year in it? Everyone is secretly praying that they don’t end up having to read that sentence, because the pressure of doing math on the fly like that is unbearable…at least it is for me, and probably most of my fellow right-brainers…

This kid likes the French numbers. He's the only one.

Speaking of numbers-
Happy birthday to my Mom, who is (fortunately) well under 69 years old. Maybe I'll have mastered the numbers by then!