>G2
9/The regularity of their number systems also enables
Asian children to make basic calculations
like
addition
far more easily. Ask English seven-year-
old children to add thirty-seven and twenty-two, in
their head, and they have to convert the words to
numbers (37+22). After that they can finally do the
math: 7 plus 2 is 9 and 30 and 20 is 50, which makes
59. Ask Asian children to add ‘three-tens-seven' and
*two-tens-two,' and then the necessary equation is right
there, embedded in the sentence.
No number
translation is necessary: It is ‘five-tens-nine.'