1, 2, 3

Today over at that's my answer, Laura Jayne asked how many languages can you count up to 3 in? And it got me to thinking - I think I can do it in 12 different languages ... lets see.

Well there's ...

Welsh - un, dau, tri
English - one, two, three
French - un, deux, trois
Spanish - uno, dos, tres
German - eins, zwei, drei
Latin - unus, duo, tres

Those are the ones I've learnt at one time or another in school ... 3 years of Latin and that along with amo, amas, amat is pretty much all I remember. I haven't really felt the need to use it to be honest - I know strange that - except that maybe doing Latin grammar helped me with my cases for German grammar. I struggled with German grammar too by the way - nominative, dative, accusative - whatever!!

Then there are the 1, 2, 3s that I've picked up on my travels through life ... there's ...

Italian - uno, due, tre. I want to go to Italy so badly. Simon's not interested - I know I should divorce him and take the cute one from il Divo. You're right - that's the right choice to make. Mind you, he's Swiss not Italian but what the hell!

Japanese - ichi, ni, san.* A friend of my mother's used to have Japanese language students who boarded with her - Mishiko taught me how to make tempura, how to count to 5, common greetings and how to say "my name is Jo."

Arabic - wahid, ithnan, thalatha. One of my favourite books is The Eight by Katherine Neville, one of the characters in The Eight is Wahid. He explains that his name means "numero uno" and I decided that if Wahid meant number 1 I wanted to know what the other numbers were ... and the rest as they say is history.

Punjabi - ekk, do, tenn. I work at a school where 23 languages (including BSL) are spoken as a first language. 40% of our children are Sikhs, whose families are originally from the Punjab area of northern India. Especially working in the nursery children have spent their time being looked after by grandparents - who speak Punjabi to them not English - so I have a smattering of phrases in Punjabi that I can pull out at the drop of a hat. Good morning Grandma - Sasiriakal Bibi-ji. Yes, Mummy is coming - Han ji, Mummy adja. The numbers to 5 and of course my personal favourites "sit down and cross your legs" & "go and wash your hands!"

Slovak - raz, dva, tri. You know those lads we had to exclude last week? One of them argued with me, why should he learn English when I wasn't trying to learn any Slovak - he had a point. I wasn't making any effort ... I know I didn't need to because we're in a school in England but if it gets him to make an effort in English then *holds up hands* I can say "dobre rano Roman!" and get a smile out of him at the start of the day.

Greek - ena, dio, tria (sp?). I've been on holiday to the Greek Islands a couple of/maybe even 4 times and I always make sure that when I go anywhere on holiday I can say hello, please, thank you, 1/2/3 and "can I have a beer and a ham sandwich please"?**

So for that reason I can also say 1, 2, 3 in ...

Setswana - ngwe, bedi, raro ... added to the end of a word. Usually people in Botswana just say the numbers in English - trust me it's bloody complicated - instead but I tried!!

Zulu - kunye, kubili, kuthathu. How the kids in a classroom in Durban laughed at me when I tried this vocabulary out. They laughed and then they clapped me because I tried and then they laughed again. My other great words in Zulu are shongololo (giant milipede), umbila (sweetcorn) and uquinye-quonyo*** (see-saw).

So, how many is that? 6 from my school years. And another 8 along the way. Not 12, but 14 ways of saying "one, two, three." What about you - can you teach me anymore?

* I always remember this by saying "itchy knee son?" in a south London accent ... I'm so mature.
** Years ago it had to include 20 Marlboro lights please.
*** The q is said like a click, as if the see-saw is going down hit the floor (on the click) and going back up.