Megasprachen

Croatian for your holiday · Chapter 3: Numbers and Shopping

The Numbers from 1 to 10

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Jedan, dva, tri, četiri, pet, šest, sedam, osam, devet, deset – the numbers from one to ten come in a single video because they need a shared filing system. Without it you would know how the words sound but not which number belongs to which word.

That filing system is the body list, from the bottom up: shoes, knee, thigh pocket, back pocket, navel, chest, shoulders, neck, face, hair. Five sits at the navel because that is where the hand with its five fingers rests; seven has the seven dwarfs standing there. So you always know which position you are at – backwards or in random order too.

Then the images move in: a date on every toe with a handkerchief at the back for jedan, the knee in thick wadding for dva, something to drink in the trouser pocket for tri, the jazz record with the huge animal in the back pocket for četiri, the plastic bottle on the navel for pet. Further up: the ship loaded with food for šest, the lake with the lady swimming for sedam, the hole in the scarf with seeds in it for osam, lips stretched into a smile in fine weather for devet, and right at the top the dessert without a radio for deset.

Test it straight away: ask yourself for seven or eight, and you will notice the answer is already there.