Today I learned that the best number in Slovene is 18 because it’s “awesome nice”!
Well, osemnajst.
(It’s a pretty awesome number in traditional Welsh counting as well: deunaw, two-nines.)
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Ooo, look! I never thought about Slovene 18 this way! It’s awesome (and) nice, yes. Youngsters would surely say this as with 18 in our country you become adult and many youngsters think this brings “freedom” … 
Ohh, and … are you learning Slovene? This would be super awesome!
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Thank you, Sonia!
I’m not really back yet, though – haven’t made time for that – I just pop in briefly every week or three.
But perhaps one day (soon?) I can become more active again on the forum.
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No, I’m afraid I have to disappoint you
I was watching a live video stream where people were playing a new card game that is being crowdfounded, and one of the creators was in Ljubljana at the time and mentioned that language tidbit.
I have too many languages on my plate already I think I need to get my Welsh back on track first.
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This number is interesting in Breton too, it’s “three sixes” : triwec’h.
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Interesting! Welsh has “two nines”, Breton has “three sixes”, only Cornish has a boring “eighteen” (etek < eth+deg).
Perhaps we should campaign for Cornish to start calling it hwedri “six threes” or nawdhew “nine twos”!
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In Breton eitek can be found too, but is less frequent. Interesting to note that there are now two streams for numbers in Breton : the main one using a traditional way such as daou-ugent = 40, tri-ugent = 60, hanter-kant = 50.
And the second one using a more mathematical and historical form: 40 = pergont, 50 = pemont, 60 = c’hwegont… Supposedly easier for counting, used by those who favour the most a very pure literary tongue.
This difference also implies a different word order:
-with the first method, 44 is “pevar ha daou-ugent” (similar to German somehow)
-with the second method, 44 is “pergont pevar” (similar to French, English… it makes it easier to count more elaborate numbers for sure).
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Oh please… counting in Cornish is hard enough without making it even less “boring”!! 
I wouldn’t ask to get rid of traditional counting altogether, but I’m afraid I’m one of those heretics who would love to see a base 10 counting system introduced in Kernewek — as I believe has already been done in Welsh, and now, I see from @sandrig.argall’s post, in Breton… it would make doing mathematical and scientific calculations in Kernewek so, so much easier. (AND make it more fully usable as a modern language, not just an interesting historical relic. 
)
I believe Nicholas Williams has advocated the use of one.
I’ve no idea how much traction that has received, though.
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My KDL tutor has a proposal for one as well, but I also have no idea how widespread the support or opposition is. The traditional system of course has its historical and cultural value and I don’t mind being made to think a different way about numbers in general — that’s rather fun and it’s part of the tradition of the language. But when you’re trying to do serious calculations and your numbers are written in Arabic numerals… well, put it this way, I can’t look at (for example) 57 and readily think of it as “seventeen and two twenties” even in my native English, let alone as “seytek ha dew ugens” yn Kernewek!! 
A matter of practice, I think – I’ve heard that native French speakers, for example, store numbers such as quatre-vingt-dix-sept as a single unit in their brain and so when they see “97”, they think quatre-vingt-dix-sept without having to worry about the fact that it’s made up from “four-twenties-plus-ten-plus-seven”.
A bit, I suppose, like how English speakers see “15” and immediately think fifteen and don’t have to do onety-five … ah no, in English that’s “fifteen” isn’t it.
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Good point — I guess it does depend a lot on what one grows up with and is used to. The difficulty being that probably 99% of Kernewek speakers have learned it as a second language while being native speakers of English, which makes it very hard to get one’s head around such a different way of thinking of numbers! 
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Indeed, as a French speaker I can confirm that I don’t need to think before counting quatre-vingts, quatre-vingt-dix, etc. You can notice the German way to count as well: vierundfünfzig for 54 (vier-4 + fünfzig-50).
Interesting to see how close the French and Breton systems are, inasmuch as they use a 20 base (although it is more extended and generalised in Breton than in French). One might suppose it is the Celtic heritage (Gaulish) in French.
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That’s what I have heard as well – that things such as “soixante-dix” and especially “quatre-vingts” are from Celtic influence.
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Well, if we stay with “osemnajst” then the Slovene counting from 10 on changes quite too. We say “deset” = 10 but we say “enajst” = 11, “dvanajst” = 12 etc … al the way to 19 which is “devetnajst” but you’d probably expect 20 is said “desetnajst” … I make jokes about this very often when counting, because this is not true. We put 20 into “dvajset” what means we take number “dva” = 2 and then we take part of 10, “set”. and it becomes “dvajset” and then “trideset” = 30, “štirideset” = 40 but “petdeset” (not pedeset what many native speakers write wrongly because t and d merges together). The equal with 60 “šestdeset” and then we’re back to normal all the way to 100 which is “sto”. Then on the counting begins from the beginning again adding that 100 in front (as you write) - “stoena” = 101, “stodva” = 102, “stodeset” = 110, “stodvajset” = 120, “stopetdeset” = 150, “dvesto” = 200 (not “dvasto” this time) etc, etc If we compare this to German counting they say “einundzwanzig” = 21 and so do we - “enaindvajset” = 21. Und means and in German and in means and in Slovene so here we have prety similar counting.
(well just for enlightening Slovene counting a bit)
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