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Perisie . Jul 08 2010 15:44. Posts 801 | | |
i love this post sooo freakin much im going to copy it to my blog so i dont lose it. i always wondered how language has an affect on the way people think, and bring it up from time to time but no one seems to fuckin care.
by Ooni on TLnet
I was doing a paper on East Asians languages and number systems. I thought some of the ‘non-Asians’ would find my paper interesting since we all know 'Asians' are good at maths. Right? I’ll rewrite my paper in the most simplest form, in math~.
East Asian languages have a logical numeric pattern. Using this pattern East Asian children subconsciously learn how to do basic arithmetic when they are learning how to count.
Let's look at the English number system
Twelve = 12
An English child has to associate the word 'twelve' with a value '12'. Not only that the child has to associate words with value from one to twenty.
Let's look at the East Asian number system
十 = 10
二 = 2
十二 = 12
An East Asian child associates 十 with 10 and 二 with 2.
An East Asian child says the word 十 (10) first followed by the word 二 (2) thus making the word 十二 (12)
Through just saying the word 十二, the child learns basic addition. 十 + 二 = 十二 i.e. 10 + 2 = 12
When an English child has learned how to count to 20, An East Asian child has learned concept of adding two numbers together.
Of course when an English child learns twenty-one
The English child will start to understand the concept of addition.
Twenty = 20
One = 1
Twenty-One = Twenty + One i.e. 20 + 1
However, by this time an East Asian child has already learned basic multiplication
二 = 2
十 = 10
一 = 1
An East Asian child says the word 二 (2) followed by the word 十 (10) then followed by the word 一 (1) thus making the word 二十一 (21).
In order say 21, the child must understand the basic concept of Arabic numerals.
* 2 followed by 10 is now 20 But why?
* 20 followed by 1 = 21 Because of the previous rule of adding two numbers
The child subconsciously figures out 2 followed by 10 means the numbers are base 10.
i.e. 2 x 10 = 20
20 + 1 = 21
So 二十一 (21):
二 (2) follow by 十 (10)
二 (2) x 十 (10) = 二十
And using the previous rule 二十 (20) + 一 (1) = 二十一 (21)
When does an English child learn this new concept? When they reach one hundred.
One hundred = 1 x 100
Two hundred = 2 x 100
Two hundred One = 2 x 100 + 1
Once the English number system reaches one hundred, it uses the same "wording" as the East Asian number system.
Now look at the stage of the development
Infancy – Basic Counting
Preschool – upto 20
Early Schooling – counts up to 100
An English child has little to no concept of Arabic until public school, while an Asian Child has already understood that the Arabic number system uses base 10 number system.
What is more interesting is concept of substraction.
Going back to previous example of twelve. An English child does not understand the concept of base 10 system. This means an English child only looks at twelve as 12 not 10 + 2. If you ask the child to take away 2 from 12, the child is likely to count his fingers, and realise that he only has 10 fingers. If the child was somehow gifted and visualised 12 objects and removed two from it, it still does not change the fact the child has no concept of the 10 base number system. The English child has to be told that ‘twelve’ minus ‘two’ is ‘ten’ (The words ten and two are hard to associate with twelve since it’s a different “word”. What is even more frustrating ~ tw- is in front of the word, not at the back).
If the same question was to be asked towards an East Asian child, either the child will figure out that the answer is 10 by dissecting the word 十二 (十二 - 二 = 十 or after the answer is given, s/he will figure out that they can dissect the word 十二 into 十 and 二.
So in order for an English Child to have the same mathematical reasoning skill as an East Asian child, when the East Asian Child learns to count to 11 the English Child must learn how to count to 21 and when the East Asian child learns to count to 21 the English Child must learn to count to 101.
So what does this all mean? It’s quite simple; East Asians are not natural mathematicians. Or rather a fault in the English language creates a barrier for English speakers from learning mathematical reasoning at early age.
Do not be discouraged because there are other people who seem to be better than you at math. Just put that extra effort into it. You could beat them because they may not be as smart as you think they are~
Thanks for reading guys, Ooni.
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=134881
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Shenny Canada. Jul 08 2010 16:11. Posts 1514 | | |
Is it really a fault? Often if something lacks in one area, it makes up for in others. Anyone who's taken any type of engineering education is familiar with this concept. Albeit short, this was a great read, learned something new. Thanks. |
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spets1 Australia. Jul 08 2010 16:41. Posts 2179 | | |
some of this is true. But dont think most of it affects this. East asian brain is larger than european brain on average by 10 grams. So asians have larger capacity. |
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jchysk United States. Jul 08 2010 16:50. Posts 435 | | |
Capacity doesn't make much of a difference though. Male brains are larger than female brains......oh wait |
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elephants brains are more than double our brains size |
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staxxx Bulgaria. Jul 08 2010 17:14. Posts 652 | | |
damn as soon as i read the word asian i snap opened the blog and got disappointed |
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qwerty67890 New Zealand. Jul 08 2010 17:35. Posts 14026 | | |
tldr; not reading all that, what do i look like? an asian? |
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thumbz555 United States. Jul 08 2010 17:52. Posts 3281 | | |
boring read; didn't make it all the way through. Add naked asian girls to the article plz. |
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Shenny Canada. Jul 08 2010 18:05. Posts 1514 | | |
We use very little of our brain capacity anyway, much less than what we are given. Einstein believed that if we were able to harness the power of using 100% of our brain, we wouldn't need to take on a physical form at all, we'd be one floating mass of energy. |
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mrpav.com Canada. Jul 08 2010 18:11. Posts 3069 | | |
Stay off the roads please.  |
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| ===== mrpav.com ===== | Last edit: 08/07/2010 18:11 |
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vlseph United States. Jul 08 2010 18:20. Posts 3026 | | |
I'm chinese and I never even realized this LOL |
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| The only hands a nit balances in his range are the nuts, the second nuts, and the third nuts. | |
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royalsu Canada. Jul 08 2010 18:25. Posts 3233 | | |
Lol I gave a presentation on this 7 years ago. This stuff is explained in way more detail in stanislas dahaene's book "the number sense". Great book.
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| | On July 08 2010 17:05 Shenny wrote:
We use very little of our brain capacity anyway, much less than what we are given. Einstein believed that if we were able to harness the power of using 100% of our brain, we wouldn't need to take on a physical form at all, we'd be one floating mass of energy. |
what a load of crap ROFL is this a sick troll my good sir? |
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