The importance of getting yourself familiar with numbers before you go abroad, especially the currency! By Lynne Davis 

Numbers are not my favorite thing.  I’m much better at Scrabble than Sudoku.  I prefer words, which is why I became an English teacher and not a mathematician.  But numbers are common features of everyday life in every country, in every language.  They have to be learned.

   A friend of mine was planning a trip to Paris.

   “Do you know the money?” I asked him. 

   “Oh, that’s easy,” he said.  “It’s euros.”

I agreed that it’s easy to understand euros when you’re looking at them.  But what about when people say the price?  Can you understand then?  That’s the real test. 

What makes money difficult?    First you have to get used to another currency and a different way of grouping money.  Then, you’re translating the words for numbers and at the same time figuring out what it is in your own currency.  It’s double-translation. 

Also, there are different ways to say numbers.  In America, $1.50 can be one dollar and fifty cents, a dollar fifty, or one fifty.  And you’re just getting used to their pronunciation.

Sometimes there are nicknames - a buck fifty in the US, and the English don’t always talk about pounds and shillings; they say quid sometimes, and bob.  

Then the coins are different.  In America we have silver dollars, but it’s extremely rare to see one; we use paper dollars:  one, five, ten, twenty, fifty.  But in Europe there are one-euro and two-euro coins.  You have to get used to it quickly.  You don’t want to make everyone wait  at the subway station.  If you would be comfortable holding out a wad of cash and letting the seller  choose, that’s fine.  But if you prefer to have a little more control over your money, do the numbers!

I had been living in Korea for several months when a clerk at a store told me how much something was, and I couldn’t understand. She asked me how long I had been in Korea.  Maybe she was just being friendly, but I took it as a criticism:  why didn’t I know the Korean numbers better?  I went home feeling very discouraged, and very stupid.

I traveled for a few days to Japan, and a few days to China, and I made the same mistake in each place.  At a shop in Japan there was a sale.  I bought a nice washcloth, thinking I was paying a dollar.  Actually it was ten dollars!   In China, same thing.  I picked up a great bargain at the duty-free shop in the airport, a lovely silk caftan for only four dollars, only to realize later that I had paid forty!  Not such a good deal.

After those experiences, when I have the chance to travel to a foreign country, I take the time to “do the numbers,” to really study them over and over until I know them well.  I also practice situations and how to say different prices.  It’s no coincidence that language textbooks and CDs always feature a section on numbers.  They can be difficult, and often when they’re used, it’s in a situation where you are tired and don’t have time to think - buying a train ticket with people in line behind you; paying a taxi driver; bargaining in the market.  So it’s best to be prepared.  If you’re number-challenged at all, like me, and you don’t particularly enjoy making mistakes in public, I recommend studying. 

Last summer I went to Europe.  I landed in one city and took a bus from the airport to the train station, then a train to another city.  I had to find out what time the bus and train left, then buy tickets for both.  These transactions of course involved numbers.  I was very glad that I had studied and I knew them.

In the train station, I decided to buy a snack from one of the vendors.  When he gave me the wrong change,  I asked him about it politely.   He gave me the money back, graciously apologizing.  It felt good.  It wasn’t the small amount of money that I had recouped, but the fact that I’d understood when he told me the price, and thus I knew how much was owed me. 

Your first days in a new country will probably involve using some numbers.   Make the time easier by learning them before you go. 

1) Learn the numbers from 1 to 100 - not just backwards and forwards, but randomly.

2) Learn to recognize the currency and coins - what they look like, what denominations they come in.  If you can get some foreign money before you leave home, at a bank or the airport, do it.

3) Practice prices and change.  If something costs seventy-five sixty-two ($75. 62), what do you give them?  What’s the change?  Yes, it’s a bit like playing store in kindergarten - but it will pay off.

4) Practice phone numbers too, and dates, and times, and the way they are spoken.  Then you’ll be able to understand when they tell you what time the train leaves, or when someone gives you a phone number to call, or tells you the last day you can change classes.

5) Learn hello, goodbye, thank you, excuse me, I’m sorry, and I don’t understand.  And then do the numbers!  

Lynne Davis taught for over 15 years at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, USA