An Open Letter to the developer of the English number naming system

Dear English Number Naming System developer,

I write this letter on behalf of all the 6 and 7 year old English speaking children in the world, all those people learning English for the first time, and their hardworking teachers.

Firstly, I just wanted to start by saying thank you for all your hard work. Developing a number naming system is a VERY important job! Your legacy (good or bad) lasts a long time! Let’s face it, this system is something every English speaking person learns! Whoever bestowed this job upon you showed a great deal of faith in your abilities, knowledge and  judgement!

Having said that, I feel it is my duty to provide a little feedback. I have been thinking about the English number naming system for a long time, and just wanted to share what was going around in my brain in the hope that someday, somebody may act on my feedback! Maybe no-one has ever actually told you honestly what they think of the system- they have all just said “oh it’s great!”.

So here goes…

To begin with, I wanted to say the numbers one to ten are excellent! Great work!

Unfortunately, I feel things go quickly downhill after there!

Here is a list of the main issues I have noted over my journey as a Maths Educator:

1.       Eleven and Twelve: I believe these names provide no indication that they are in fact representing ten and one (eleven) and ten and two(twelve). Our students must simply rote learn what these number names represent. Also it really is such a shame these are so early in our number system!
2.       Fourteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen- So I’m thinking you were possibly going with ‘teen’ meaning ten, but I believe the name is ‘around the wrong way’- the number of ones is mentioned first and then the word ‘teen’. This causes big problems for students trying to write these numbers. They will often write 41 for fourteen, simply because they hear the four first. 
3.  Thirteen and Fifteen- I can see how the ‘thir’ comes from the ordinal number third and the ‘fif’ part comes from fifth, but unfortunately these are the only two teen numbers which follow this pattern! 
4.       Twenty, Thirty, Fifty: I think your plan was to have ‘ty’ part of the word indicating tens, but again, using ‘twen’, ‘thir’, and ‘fif’ is confusing. If we were really true to the ‘ty’ pattern, it should be two-ty, three-ty, four-ty, five-ty, six-ty, seven-ty, eight-y, nine-ty. When I am introducing these numbers to students, I actually use this language, because it makes them laugh and that seems to help them remember what ‘ty’ means. I think it would be very entertaining if these were our actual words! Let’s face it, everyone needs a “twoty” in their lives!
5.       Forty: Just to confuse things further forty isn’t spelt “fourty” it’s forty… to be honest, I don’t get too hung up on this, with everything else the students are having to deal with in our number names, a spelling error here this is the least of my concerns, but nonetheless it is something I wanted to raise.
6.       ‘Teen’ and ‘Ty’- Could these sound any similar?? Really! So many students in the early years have issues with their hearing and speech, the similarities between ‘teen’ and ‘ty’ do not help the situation!

Now I know comparisons sometimes don’t help, but I studied Japanese and French at school. Just to make you feel a little better, the French number system is actually worse than English. The french translation for 80 is quatre-vingts which means 4 twentys-eek! But at the other end of the spectrum, the Japanese spoken number system (like most Asian languages) makes so much sense! You see Juu is ten, ichi is one, so Juu-ichi is 10-1 or eleven, Juu-ni is 10-2 or twelve, Ni-Juu is two ten or twenty. 

I’m curious to know if you had any international consultants on your committee when you ratified the English system? I think it would have been useful! We can always learn from others! See Below:

 Did you know there is actually research to show that students who learn Asian languages pick up the place value system before (earlier) than their English speaking counterparts. This makes complete sense- the place value system is inherent in their number names! It would be amazing if we could have the same clarity!

Anyway, that is all I wanted to say for today. I’m not sure if you are familiar with Carol Dweck’s work on Growth Mindset, but she talks about how important it is to see mistakes as learning opportunities. So, could I encourage you to take on my feedback and, if possible, consider making some changes to your system. Future generations of English and Maths teachers will thank you!

Your Sincerely,

Dr Ange Rogers

Place value expert and frustrated number lover 

In all seriousness, as teachers there is not much we can do to rectify this situation…apart from being aware of the ‘sticking points’ and doing our best to help students to begin to make sense of the mess! Here are a few tips:

Teacher Tip 1: In their wonderful maths education books, George Booker and Di Siemon both suggest when introducing place value to leave the teen numbers and come back to them after the decade numbers have been introduced. This is because teen numbers are so troublesome!

Teacher Tip 2: Teen vs Ty: I have always used Jane Pasey’s ‘cued articulation’ hand signals to distinguish between ‘teen’ and ‘ty’. I use the “n” signal  when I say 17, and the “ty” signal when I say 70. You can see a video of me teaching these signals here.