Quantity expressed as a number to its verbal form (Spanish). | Tech Off

Tonatiúh
Cuali itcha a cosamalot

I have written the couple of functions herein linked, as a mean to translate any quantity expressed as a number, to its correspondent verbalized form, wich is given as the function output in Spanish, as used to be commonly needed, in México at least, for printing invoices, payroll envelops, checks and many other documents which deal with pesos.

I do not know if this is useful in other countries, but I think it should be. So, I am starting this thread to get some help for:

1) To know if there are any other country than México using in any way verbaly expressed quantities.

2) If it is so, what are that country language verbal expression for quantities.

NOTE: This functions have been coded for MS Access 95 VBA (1997), MS Word 98 VBA (2001), VB 6.0 (2002), VBScript 5.6 (2003). Now I am looking for update them for VB.NET, C#, J# and ASP.NET (JScript).

Carlos Bardullas

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

What do you mean by "country language verbal expression for quantities"? Are you just talking about numbers in word form (forty-two, twee en veertig, zwei und vierzig, quarante-deux, yon-juu-ni)? Or do you mean something like class identifiers, such as the Japanese use (birds would be counted differently from cars, for instance)?

Maurits
AKA Matthew van Eerde

Hmmm... could you do feminine forms for languages that have the distinction?

Tonatiúh
Cuali itcha a cosamalot

Tank you for asking Sven:

I think any digital numeric system built over the tenth bias (in the sense of been counted by means of the fingers, not in the informatics sense), is positional and at the same time each third gap has an special naming convention in any language. That is you have from right to left: the gap of the hundreds as in 999; then the gap of the thousands as in 999,~~999~~, then the gap of the millions as in 999,~~999,999~~. Each gap is a periodic instance of the same three digits running from 0 to 9, so the names for those nine digits are repeated but adding to them the neme for the given gap.

I do not know how to explain this in English, but it is as simple as you replying to me with the same number I posted in the mesagge after the yours, tied to its translation to de language you want to help me with.

Tank you again Sven
Carlos

NOTE: Or better simple: How you translate 123,456,789,000.00 to that language of you? (I think I can manage the required changes to the translation algorithm, but certainly I will need to know about any special cases).

Tonatiúh
Cuali itcha a cosamalot

Of course I will try, althought I will need some linguistical help on the matter.

Tank you Maurits for your interest
Carlos

Tonatiúh
Cuali itcha a cosamalot

Thinking in what I am asking help for, I feel that for those non Spanish fluent, should be needed to know how we spell out in mexican Spanish, any quantity; so, I am showing below the translation array initializing steps, that I use and an example of a translated quantity. What I need, is those words given in the trajet language, and the particular arrangement of a verbalized quantity spell out.

       Tokens(1, 1) = "UN":            Tokens(2, 1) = "ONCE"
    Tokens(1, 2) = "DOS":           Tokens(2, 2) = "DOCE"
    Tokens(1, 3) = "TRES":          Tokens(2, 3) = "TRECE"
    Tokens(1, 4) = "CUATRO":        Tokens(2, 4) = "CATORCE"
    Tokens(1, 5) = "CINCO":         Tokens(2, 5) = "QUINCE"
    Tokens(1, 6) = "SEIS":         Tokens(2, 6) = "DIECISEIS"
    Tokens(1, 7) = "SIETE":         Tokens(2, 7) = "DIECISIETE"
    Tokens(1, Eye Rolling

= "OCHO": Tokens(2, Eye Rolling

= "DIECIOCHO"
    Tokens(1, 9) = "NUEVE":         Tokens(2, 9) = "DIECINUEVE"
    Tokens(3, 1) = "DIEZ":         Tokens(4, 1) = "CIEN"
    Tokens(3, 2) = "VEINTE":        Tokens(4, 2) = "DOSCIENTOS"
    Tokens(3, 3) = "TREINTA":      Tokens(4, 3) = "TRESCIENTOS"
    Tokens(3, 4) = "CUARENTA":      Tokens(4, 4) = "CUATROCIENTOS"
    Tokens(3, 5) = "CINCUENTA":    Tokens(4, 5) = "QUINIENTOS"
    Tokens(3, 6) = "SESENTA":       Tokens(4, 6) = "SEISCIENTOS"
    Tokens(3, 7) = "SETENTA":       Tokens(4, 7) = "SETECIENTOS"
    Tokens(3, Eye Rolling

= "OCHENTA": Tokens(4, Eye Rolling

= "OCHOCIENTOS"
Tokens(3, 9) = "NOVENTA": Tokens(4, 9) = "NOVECIENTOS"

We spell $ 13,893,025.25 as TRECE MILLONES NOVECIENTOS OCHENTA Y TRES MIL VEINTICINCO PESOS 00/25 MONEDA NACIONAL

NOTE: In Spanish there are some particular cases for some numbers (like in: VEINTICINCO, instead of VEINTE Y CINCO). Those cases are few and are easily handled inside the translation loop.

Tank you for any help
Carlos Bardullas Subirats

ADDENDA: The first dimension of the array is the period, the second is the how a particular decimal digit is named at that position. I do not know if this will bee functional for every language, but I will try to make the job.

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

Tonatiúh wrote:
NOTE: Or better simple: How you translate 123,456,789,000.00 to that language of you? (I think I can manage the required changes to the translation algorithm, but certainly I will need to know about any special cases).

My language is Dutch, and that number would be:
honderd drie en twintig miljard vier honderd zes en vijftig miljoen zeven hondred negen en tachtig duizend.

What is interesting is that in Dutch (and German too) we reverse numbers between 20 and 100 (between ten and 20 they are all exceptions), so instead of saying "forty-two", we say "two and forty" (twee en veertig).

The Japanese (and Chinese) have one of the simplest counting systems in the world. You need to know 1 through 10, 100, 100, 10000 and everything else is derived from that (until you get to 100000000). So 42 is said as four-ten-two (yon-juu-ni), 4573 would be said as four-thousand-five-hundred-seven-ten-three (yon-sen-go-hyaku-nana-juu-san), perfectly regular. The only weird things that happen here is that 1,000 is not their separator, 10,000 is. It has its own word (man) and above that you combine: 100,000 is ten-tenthousand (juu-man). The only irregularities are a bunch of contractions: 300 (sanbyaku instead of san-hyaku) 600 (roppyaku instead of roku-hyaku), 800 (happyaku instead of hachi-hyaku) and 8000 (hassen instead of hachi-sen).

Of course, the Japanese muddy it up a bit by having both this system (the Chinese system) and their own Japanese system for numbers one through ten. Perplexed

Maurits
AKA Matthew van Eerde

There are various Lingua::*::Number Perl modules on CPAN to translate numbers into various languages.

Note in British English "one billion" is a thousand times as large as "one million" is in American English

EDIT: In particular Lingua::ES::Numeros may be of interest to you
EDIT2: Since Sven brings up Dutch...

Lingua::NL::Numbers

<BR>  use Lingua::NL::Numbers;<BR>    <BR>  my $numbers = Lingua::NL::Numbers->new;<BR><BR>  my $text = $numbers->parse( 123 );<BR><BR>  # prints 'een honderd, drie en twintig'<BR>  print $text;<BR>

Tonatiúh
Cuali itcha a cosamalot

Tank you Sven... I am not impresed because the complexities and special cases I will face attempting to build an all-languages number-form to string-form bi-direccional application... What certainly will keep me amazed, is have had my first meeting with a person who manages the linguistics as you do... I am sure you are a lot more than solely a polyglot...

Besides, that post of you actually is a whole new world of help... Would you keep on traking my project advances from time to time?

Regards Sven
Carlos

SimonJ

If you want to make a truely global system, you should be aware that not all languages use groups of three digits in their numbering systems. In India it is common to see the lowest group of three digits and then groups of two.

12,34,56,789.00

Tonatiúh
Cuali itcha a cosamalot

Beg you pardon Niners... For been prevented of viewing this thread by clicking unawarely the "Don't watch this thread" button... I hope some body keep intersted in yet.