Sentence of the Day - pet peeve
65 mineros murieron en una explosión de gas.
65 miners died in a gas explosion.
As I have stated before, learning numbers is not that easy and it takes lots of practice. The above sentence is so very typical and it keeps us from getting the practice necessary to learn numbers. Is it typical because everyone is just too lazy to write out the spanish translation for the numbers or do they just forget how it goes?
4 Answers
The rule I learned in "typing" class (where we actually used typewriters, the finest being an IBM Selectric) was that numbers of one or two digits were given as digits (e.g., 4 monkeys, 63 members, etc.) and numbers of three digits or more were spelled out (e.g.quinientos noventa y un) --- excepting monetary numbers which are always digits preceded by a dollar sign. In newspapers (diarios), numbers are almost always given as digits to save space. Now - this is one area where machine translators have their use; plug in a number like "five hundred ninety-one" and you will get the correct equivalent, and most machine translators will pronounce it for you.
Numbers are actually quite repetitive in Spanish, the same as in English...
Sesenta y cinco
It may be for practicalities sake.
Interesting,
Back in typing class (also long enough that Selectrics were involved) we learned more or less the opposite. We were taught that numbers below 10 and down were spelled out, that 21 and up were written with numerals, and that there was leeway on 11-20 (basically, depending on the area-industry´s practice). This strikes me as more efficient and logical, by a long shot, but that might be as much a bias of adhering to what I Iearned, as to actual efficiency, In a society where abbreviations are often used that save only one or to letters, and abbreviation like 65 that saves more than a dozen spaces seems obvious.
But I totally agree, using the numbers and thinking of them in spelled out form, and pronouncing them, makes WAY more sense that in numeric form, when it comes to practice.
I eventually became very adept in German, but the fact that I studied engineering there, and that engineers would never have or take time to write numbers out, means that I am relatively weak at numbers . I´m trying to do better in Spanish.
Sidebar, the textbook my university uses for basic Spanish is horrible, but, its small saving grace, is that at the bottom of each page, the page numbers are there in both spelled out and numeric form. A GREAT reference to learning.
I wish my German book had done that.
Wow, that was a lot of typing. Not that I have an opinion on the subject or anything.
I have to agree that in a learning forum like this, it is much better to spell out numbers. It's just a matter of practice vs. convenience.
