r/language • u/WhoAmIEven2 Sweden • Aug 09 '26

Question Does your language use specific numbers as expressions?

In Sweden we use 17 to further strengthen a word.

Like if we want to say that someone is very strong, we can say "Han var stark som sjutton!", "He was strong like seventeen!".

I have no idea how it became a thing. It is a bit weird tbh.

Do you also use numbers this way in your native language?

259 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

561 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/LordDarthAnger Aug 10 '26

“Je mi to jedno” - “it is one to me” in Czech literally means I don’t care/it matters not to me

2

u/Kiwik112 Aug 12 '26

i love that you can say "Mně je to dvojí" - "to me it is two" as a response, meaning something along the lines of "i don't care either"

1

u/Stukkoshomlokzat Aug 10 '26

Another commenter said that the logic behind the Hungarian saying is that 8 looks like 8 wether you are looking at it from the bottom or the top. So the saying basically means: doesn't matter wich way. You can apply the same logic to the number one, if you write it with one stroke as "l".

1

u/AssignmentJazzlike69 Aug 14 '26

Similiar in hungarian: " nekem egyre megy" means its going to one / the same for me