The number
system in English is highly irregular. Not so in China,
Japan, and Korea. They have a logical counting system.
Eleven is ten-one. Twelve is ten-two. Twenty-four is twotens-four and so on.
That difference means that Asian children learn to
count much faster than American children.
Four-year-old
Chinese children can count, on average, to forty. American children at that age can count only to fifteen, and most
don't reach forty until they're five. By the age of five, in
other words, American children are already a year behind
their Asian counterparts in the most fundamental of math
skills.
The regularity of their number system also means that
Asian children can perform basic functions, such as addition, far more easily. Ask an English-speaking seven-yearold to add thirty-seven plus twenty-two in her head, and
she has to convert the words to numbers (37 + 22). Only
then can she do the math: 2 plus 7 is 9 and 30 and 20 is
50, which makes 59.
Ask an Asian child to add three-tensseven and two-tens-two, and then the necessary equation is right there, embedded in the sentence. No number
translation is necessary: It's five-tens-nine.
Culled from Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Abdulkareem,Taoheedah kehinde
system in English is highly irregular. Not so in China,
Japan, and Korea. They have a logical counting system.
Eleven is ten-one. Twelve is ten-two. Twenty-four is twotens-four and so on.
That difference means that Asian children learn to
count much faster than American children.
Four-year-old
Chinese children can count, on average, to forty. American children at that age can count only to fifteen, and most
don't reach forty until they're five. By the age of five, in
other words, American children are already a year behind
their Asian counterparts in the most fundamental of math
skills.
The regularity of their number system also means that
Asian children can perform basic functions, such as addition, far more easily. Ask an English-speaking seven-yearold to add thirty-seven plus twenty-two in her head, and
she has to convert the words to numbers (37 + 22). Only
then can she do the math: 2 plus 7 is 9 and 30 and 20 is
50, which makes 59.
Ask an Asian child to add three-tensseven and two-tens-two, and then the necessary equation is right there, embedded in the sentence. No number
translation is necessary: It's five-tens-nine.
Culled from Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Abdulkareem,Taoheedah kehinde
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