Impotent Question

You mean it isn't? Heh.

I don't why eleven, and twelve for that matter, have individual names. I would guess we can blame either the Danes or the Saxons. All the rest of that group reference ten; thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,,, . There's a language link somewhere with an explanation. Search that way.

While you're at it, figure out why English says: First (1st), Second (2nd) Third (3rd) then Fourth (4th) . Why the change from st to nd to rd to th? That's a good one.

Joe(one of my Chinese friends wants to know)Nation

This is one of those questions that wants to be hard, but isn't.

bcos it's pronounced eleven-teen...

Then it would make sense to call 21 'twoty-one' and 31 as 'threety-one' and so forth...

It's probably an artifact of language from before people in daily life had to deal with large numbers (and before Roman numerals were introduced). In several languages, numbers up to a dozen or so have unique forms and then they start with repeating forms)/

Off the topo of my head, English and German both have unique forms through twelve, then a compound which is essentially "x plus ten", then "multiple of ten plus x". Spanish goes uniques up to 15, then goes "multiple of ten plus x".
.

i just asked why 11 not prounced
as onety-one and i just took a
couple of example 2 incresed the
funny of post, i no need the so
big explanation as well,but its
good. keep it up

And in binary 11 is pronounced "three".

actually i'd change 11, 12, 13 15 to be pronounced, oneteen, twoteen, threeteen and fiveteen, given that the majority of the numbers in that sequence are simply the number followed by teen

Because it's pronounced Once. I remember this from the 3 times I took Spanish level 1.

Simply because it comes from the Danish - elleve.

i thought it was impotent...

I THOUGHT the Danes were the cause.

Joe(the Norse brought English a lot of words)Nation

You're right, Jack.

And the French do the same with their 'teen numbers, then the 20's - 60's follow a pretty normal progression, but after that something odd happens.

Joe(I need to look up what I'm talking about)Nation

Be happy you did not have to learn the oldfashioned counting in Danish. Say up til WWII and later by older people.

Tres -60 - was earlier tredsenstyve = (3 x 20)

Firs - 80 - used to be firsendstyve = 4 x 20)

Halvtres -50 -Halvtresendstyve means 2½ x 20) translated halfthreeandtwenty

Halvfjerds - 70 -Halvfjerdsendstyve 3½ x 20)

That´s enough.

I as a Swede learnt that as a preschool kid. Gosh - did I make many mistakes in counting in Danish the rest of my life.

as in italian.. (never trust me).

There are 10 types of people. Those who understand binary numbers and those who don't.

11 and 12 seem to be exceptions to the general rule in many languages with different roots from German (elf, zwolf) to Spanish (once, doce).