Random factoid

[pne]

The German names for the sixth and seventh month are, respectively, "Juni" /'ju:ni/ and "Juli" /'ju:li/.

Since those names are so similar, they can sometimes be mis-heard. As a result, some people say /'ju:no/ ("Juno") and /ju'laI/ ("Julei"? Never seen it in writing) when a distinction must be made. I'm not sure where those names come from, or whether the English name "July", with a similar pronunciation to "Julei", was an influence.

On a related note, there is also a second name for the number "two"—since "zwei" (2) and "drei" (3) also sound fairly similar, the number "2" is sometimes called "zwo", especially in contexts such as spelling out numbers (such as phone numbers) digit-by-digit. This is a bit like the practice I've heard of for using "niner" for 9 in noisy environments such as (ham) radio, to help avoid confusion with "five".

Comments

[wingflutter.livejournal.com]

oooh good to know hehe thanks for writing that! :)

ps will get back to you by email soon

[pthalo]

In Hungarian, Junius and Julius and whenever you say one of them someone will clarify by asking a shortened version of what they thought they heard (Juni?) or (Juli?)

kettő means 2 and hét means 7, but kettő is used mainly for counting, while két is used before a noun (so 2 kutya = két kutya. but the answer to "how many dogs did you see?" is "Kettőt" or "Két kutyát") And 200 is generally kétszáz not kettő száz.

However két and hét sound very similar, so at the store, the lady will ask you for kettő száz or hetes száz (hetes being kind of like "seventh" it's one of Hungarian's two types of ordinals.)

In the states, "oh" is generally used for "zero" so if giving a phone number you'd say "five nine oh" for 590. I remember asking why my mother said "five nine zero" (or some similar sequence) to an answering machine when I was a child and she said that the answering machine quality isn't very good and "oh" and sound like "four"

[pthalo]

the Juni? Juli? thing in Hungarian is usually more like Junnnni? or Julllli? when clarifying

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

Weird you didn't mention [juno:] (I guess stress can be on either syllable) in your post. For me, [juno:] and [ju'laI] are like a pair.

I heard from my friends who went to the Bundeswehr that they always had to say "zwo" there rather than "zwei" in order to avoid confusion and they said "zwo" now feels totally natural to them.

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

I think people from some parts of Germany (east and south) like to say "weiches b/d" and "hartes p/t" when spelling. Perhaps that's because the distinction between voiced and unvoiced consonants is not so big there.

Juno

[pne.livejournal.com]

Weird you didn't mention [juno:] (I guess stress can be on either syllable) in your post. For me, [juno:] and [ju'laI] are like a pair.

*slaps head* Of course.

Yes, you're right; it's the same for me. But for some reason, I didn't think of "Juno".

(I pronounce it ['ju:no], FWIW, with stress on the first syllable. [ju'no:] sounds a bit weird to me.)

two types of ordinals

[pne.livejournal.com]

it's one of Hungarian's two types of ordinals.

Two types of ordinals? Tell me more.

ISTR reading that Hungarian has a form of numbers which are used in contexts such as bus routes and money... is that one of them? Because I think German has something similar, e.g. I'd call bus route 150 "der Hundertfünfziger" rather than simply "Bus Nummer hundertfünfzig", and "ein Zwanziger" is a twenty-euro note.

British English has "a fiver, a tenner" for money, but not for anything else, I think.

[fweebles.livejournal.com]

Unless of course you're Swiss or Bayernisch, and then zwo is about all you've got. ;)

Re: two types of ordinals

[pthalo]

bus/tram/etc. routes use that form, 71-es busz, 3-as villamos, 7-es troli. 60-as

I'd be hard pressed to list the ones that use egyes kettes hármas négyes vs the ones that use első, második, harmadik, negyedik...


ooh, it is used with money too, but you don't normally say "hetes száz" (except to differentiate) you would never say "Hármas száz" and you wouldn't say "három százas" either because there's no such note. but "két százas" is fine, to refer to the note. it's not really used with 1 forint coin or the 2 forint coin or the 5 forint coin, as far as I've noticed, but from 10 forints up, tizes, huszas, ötvenes, százas. If the lady at the store is asking if I have a 1/2/5 forint coin she'll say "5 forintod nincsen?" but "tízesed nincsen?"

Re: Juno

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

"(I pronounce it ['ju:no], FWIW, with stress on the first syllable. [ju'no:] sounds a bit weird to me.)"

It's probably because Juno always contrasts with Julei, which actually is the right spelling, that I can't think of a context where saying [ju'no:] to emphasise the distinction would sound weird, even though I guess the usual stress is on the first syllable.

[darth-spacey.livejournal.com]

I was going to say the exact same thing. Well, almost the exact same thing. Close enough.

zwo

[pne.livejournal.com]

Didn't know that! Interesting.

Re: zwo

[schnurble.livejournal.com]

And in Saxony, we count this way:
eens (langes E wie in See), zwee, drei, ..., (the rest is like normal)

Oh, and I know quite a few people who say fuffzehn (fifteen) and fuffzig (fifty), perhaps to distiguish fünfzehn/fünfzig from vierzehn/vierzig.

fuffzehn, fuffzig

[pne.livejournal.com]

I hear "fuffzehn" and "fuffzig" around here, too, as informal variants. Probably "fuffzig" more often.

For example, "€ 2,50" is likely to be "zwo-fuffzig". And I don't think that 'ein falscher Fünfziger' works -- I think it's always 'falscher Fuffziger' in that expression.