It's Harder in Other Languages Quiz

Answer: Italian

Italian is Romance language and has many similarities to other Romance languages such as Spanish and French; numbers is one example where Italian is quite close. "One, two, three" in Spanish is "Uno, dos, tres" and in French is "Un, deux, trois". In addition to Italy, Italian is an official language in Switzerland and San Marino, and a native language for many people in other nearby countries.

Answer: Finnish

The Finnish language is called suomi in Finnish. It is classified as a Uralic language, meaning originated in the region of the Ural mountains. Finland, of course, is home to the majority of Finnish speakers, but other Scandinavian countries recognize it as a minority language, such as in Sweden where Finnish is an official minority language and in Norway, where Kven, a particular dialect of Finnish, is an official minority language.

Answer: Japan

"Ichi, ni, san" are the English transcriptions of the Japanese pronunciations of "one, two, three"; when actually writing in proper Japanese, the numbers are represented by Japanese characters, not English letters. It is also common, especially in the modern day, for native Japanese speakers to use Arabic numerals for representing numbers in text. Japanese is spoken primarily only in Japan, as well as among Japanese emigrants.

The written Japanese borrows symbols from three Chinese scripts: kanji, hiranga and katakana.

Answer: Portuguese

Portuguese is another Romance language, and as we can see, the numbers in Portuguese are similar to Spanish, French and Italian numbers. It's the official language in Portugal and Brazil, which was once Portugal's largest colony in the Americas. Brazil is so large that half of South American's population speaks Portuguese, even though every other country in South America has Spanish as its official language. Portuguese is also the official language in six other states, including Cape Verde and East Timor, as well as in Macau, an 'independent entity'.

Answer: Afrikaans

Afrikaans is a Germanic language, directly descended from the Dutch language. It is an official language of South Africa (one of eleven official languages in that country) and also widely spoken in Namibia, especially in Namibia's capital city, Windhoek. It's also not uncommon to hear Afrikaans in Botswana, Lesotho, Zambia and other African countries in that region.

Answer: Punjabi

Punjabi is spoken in India and Pakistan, primarily in the Punjab province of Pakistan and the northwest region of India. It's an Indo-European language, and is estimated to be the 13th most widely spoken language in the world despite being mostly located in a specific region, thanks to the large population of India. Punjabi recognized as an official language in India and provincially recognized as such in Pakistan.

Answer: Haitian Creole

Haitian Creole is the most widely spoken creole language in the world; other creole dialects are spoken in Jamaica, Dominica and other Caribbean countries, as well as in Louisiana in the United States and in France. It is one of Haiti's official languages, along with French. Haitian Creole is primarily influenced by the French language; we can see how 'youn, de, twa' is similar in pronunciation to the French 'un, deux, trois'.

Other influences include African dialects, Spanish and English; other creole languages are more heavily influenced by African languages.

Answer: Farsi

Farsi is a language widely spoken in Iran and surrounding areas. 'Farsi' is the name of the language in Iran; in other areas it has different names (such as 'Dari', in Afghanistan) though it is effectively the same language with some local dialect differences.

In other areas of the world, the language is collectively referred to as Persian. In addition to Iran and Afghanistan, it is an official language in Tajikistan.

Answer: Croatian

Croatian is a Slavic language. It's an official language in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a recognized minority language in Austria, Romania and Italy. There are also fairly large populations of Croatian speakers in Serbia and Montenegro. It is sometimes classified as Serbo-Croatian by outside organizations and countries, but that term is contested in Croatia.

Answer: Samoan

Samoan is an Austronesian language and is the official language of the Pacific nation of Samoa and the US territory of American Samoa. English is also an official language in both regions. It's also commonly spoken in other areas of the Pacific, including New Zealand and Tuvalu. Samoan quite similar to other Polynesian languages.