Numbers

I thought my biggest number problem here would be that Germans express a lot of the numbers backwards. Here I'm not twenty-five years old, I'm five-and-twenty. But, as it turned out, there were all kinds of strange number situations that took getting used to. Case in point:

— Everywhere that decimals are used in numbers back home (fractions, prices, etc.), Germans use commas, and everywhere commas are used back home, Germans use decimals. For example, here the number 1,000 is shown as 1.000 and the number 1.5 million is 1,5 million. The price 5.99 is shown as 5,99. And the price $3,000.25 (are you ready for it?) would be expressed $3.000,25. Sorry for just BLOWING YOUR MIND.

— Germans use the 24-hour clock. So a meeting at 3 p.m. is at 15 o'clock instead. I just recently stopped requiring my fingers to determine the correct times for things. And I'm still pretty much baffled by time expressions. "Half-10" means 9:30, as in half-way to 10. And "three-quarters 10" means 9:45.

— When Americans write a date numerically, it always goes month/day/year. Here it's always day/month/year. (And they express it with decimals rather than dashes, which I think looks sharp. And single digits in the date are always expressed with a zero in front of them.) Also, on the topic of dates, Germans like to express them numerically verbally, as well as in writing, as in, "We'll meet on the tenth fifth (May 10)." And they'll express it like that even if it's in three days. I find I think in days of the week and they, more often than not, think in exact dates.

— In German many of the number words are similar, hundred is hundert, thousand is tausend, and million is million. But billion is milliard.

Hopefully we'll talk again soon. I'm thinking 15.05 at around 20 o'clock or maybe half-21, if that works for you.

JEM