Can you say 수십/몇십 in English?

[유진승]

“몇(수) 백”은 a few hundred, 혹은 hundreds라고 합니다. 그런데 “몇(수) 십”을 tens라고 하면 좀 이상합니다. 왜일까요? 그것은 ten은 hundred, thousand와 달리 십대의 기본 단위의 구실을 하지 못하기 때문입니다. 자, 이게 몬말인지 다음을 보고 비교해 보세요:

백, 백일, 백이, 백삼 ... à hundred, hundred one, hundred two, hundred three ....

백, 이백 ... 수백       à one hundred, two hundred ... a few hundred / hundreds

십, 십일, 십이, 십삼 ... à ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen

십, 이십 삼십 ...수십   à ten, twenty, thirty ... ?

보시다시피 hundred는 100 대의 기본 단위이고 one hundred, two hundred, 이렇게 셀 수도 있습니다. thousand, million, 등도 마찬가지죠. 그러나 ten은 그렇지 않습니다. 그래서 원칙상 “수십”을 tens로 할 수가 없는 것입니다. 사전에도 tens 라는 것은 없죠.  

그러면 영어에서는 “수십”이라는 것을 도대체 어떻게 표현할까요? “몇 번째”같이 이것도 영어의 사각지대일까요? 일단 한국어처럼 한마디로 해결해주는 단어는 없습니다. 표현하는 내용에 따라 여러 가지 단어들이 동원되죠.

Decade

우선 가장 쉽게 수십 년, 즉 햇수를 말할 때는 decades를 씁니다. (아래 용례는 모두 British National Corpus와 Oxford 사전에서 발췌했습니다)

@ Israel Radio"s popularity in the Arab world is remarkable, given the decades of war and hostility between Arabs and Israelis. à 수십 년의 전쟁과 분쟁

@ This process, which can take several decades in open country, may be contrived in only a few years in a garden by reversing the natural scheme of things. à 수십 년이 걸리는 이 과정

@ For several decades most scientists assumed that the discrepancy was too negligible to worry about: after all, no one said that everything in the Universe should work perfectly. à 수십 년 동안

Dozen

그 외에 일반적인 경우 12를 뜻하는 dozen을 많이 씁니다. two dozen (24개), three dozen (36개), 그리고 dozens, 등으로 쓰이기도 합니다. 그러니까 ten이 못하는 것을 대신 dozen이 한다고 할까요? 심지어는 half a dozen (6개)로 쓰기도 하죠.

그런데 dozens라고 하면 많다는 의미가 강하게 있습니다. 이럴 경우 “수십”이 보통 의미하는 2~40은 훨씬 더 될 수도 있겠죠, 물론 100은 안되지만요. 그래서 “몇십”을 분명히 말해주려면 a few dozen, several dozen, 이렇게 써줍니다. hundreds, 등도 “수백”의 의미와 함께 “많다”는 의미가 강하기 때문에 정확히 하려면 a few hundred, several hundred, 등으로 써주는 것과 마찬가지입니다.

@ They arrived in dozens (= in large numbers). (Oxford)

@ And you should make one early raid on the Wednesday or Saturday markets, which offer dozens of stalls and hundreds of bargains if you have the patience to sift through the dross.

@ I"ve been there dozens of times. (Oxford)

@ He expected a few dozen people.

@ Yet by 1962 the population was no more than 5,000 and by 1976 only a few dozen.

@ Soon, several dozen men were employed in the trade, working in cottages or small factories.   

Score

그리고 score라는 단어도 사용하는 데 20, 혹은 “20 안팎”을 의미하고, scores라고 하면 역시 많다는 것이 강조됩니다.

@ Several cabs and a score of cars were parked outside. (Oxford) à about twenty cars

@ There were scores of boxes and crates, all waiting to be checked and loaded. (Oxford) à many boxes

Ten

그런데 아무래도 이렇게 돌려서 쓰는 것이 불편한 것은 사실입니다. 그래서 사전에는 안 나오고 원칙적으로는 안되지만 코퍼스에는 tens라는 표현이 심심찮게 쓰이는 것을 봅니다. New York Times도 그렇고 전반적으로 허용이 되는 추세입니다. 큰 부담 없이 사용하셔도 되리라고 봅니다:

@ Comets incident with tens of kilotons of energy explode so high in the atmosphere that they are scarcely noticed at the surface. à 수십 킬로톤 = 수만 톤

@ In New York last week, with tens of channels at my disposal, I found it difficult to get a satisfying service of news from around the world. à (TV) 채널 수십 개가 있었지만 ...

@ The patented process is inexpensive: just tens of dollars a stone, not much really when you consider the selling price (Bank of English). à 보석(precious stone)에 대한 특허를 내는 과정은 ... 하나 당 몇십불...

@ A report to Congress last year noted that intelligence officials predicted in 1999 that by 2015 China was likely to have " `a few tens" of missiles with smaller nuclear warheads" that could hit the United States (New York Times, 9-2-01). 

04/4/7

[hyunook]

Wonderful! With great teachers come great knowledge!

[로빈]

A. tens of hundreds of (thousands of, millions of, kilo-, etc.) / B. tens of (people, books, cars, etc.) / C. a few + tens of + dollars (minutes, miles, years, etc.) / B는 A나 C와 다름 / "I got a few tens." = "I got a few ten dollar bills." 이것은 A, B 및 C와 다름 /

[유진승]

Hey, Robin, can you be more specific about your comments? I am not quite sure what U R getting at!

[빅터]

며칠전에 미국인과 이야기하다 이부분에서 막혀 얼버무리니 그쪽에서 tens of ... 라고 하더군요.

[로빈]

Hi Jinseung. By "A", "B", and "C", I was merely referring to the three example sentences that immediately follow the last section, labeled "Ten". / When we say "수십 개의", we are counting items by tens (i.e., as 'ten', 'twenty', 'thirty', 'fourty', 'fifty', 'sixty', 'seventy', 'eighty', 'ninety').

[로빈]

However, "수십" means "십의 두서너 배가 되는 수"! It is a multiple of 10 that is greater than 10 but less than 50. It does not mean "SOME multiple of 10 greater than 10 and/or less than 100"; it excludes 10 and 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100. / "A few" means "more than one but indefinitely small in number"

[로빈]

or "not many" or "some". But many people use it to mean "more than two" but "less than several"... something like "three or four" (even five). / "A couple of" means "two" or "a small number". "Several" means "more than two but not very many". However the majority of people share in common

[로빈]

the following senses of the expressions: "a couple of" for "two or three" and "several" for "three, four, or five". / ("hundreds" for "between 100 and 900" 수백의. "thousands" for "between 1000 and 9000" 수천. / tens of hundreds 수천의. tens of thousands 수만의. tens of millions 수천만의.

[로빈]

Here "수" means "여러" or "확실하지 않은 수효" -> "a lot of hundreds", "a lot of thousands", and "a lot of millions" respectively. But actullay they mean "greater than one thousand but less than ten thousand", "greater than ten thousand but less one hundred thousand", "greater than ten million

[로빈]

but less than one hundred million" respectively.) / tens of kilotons 수십 킬로톤 (X). hundreds of kilotons 수백 킬로톤 (X). tens of kilotons = hundredths of megatons 수만(greater than ten thousand but less than one hundred thousand) 톤. hundreds of kilotons = tenths of megatons 수십만(greater than

[로빈]

one hundred thousand but less than one million) 톤. / tens of channels -> 수십 개의(greater than 10 but less than 100) 채널 / a few tens of missiles -> 수십 개의(greater than 20 but less than 50) 미사일 / 여남은. 스물 몇 개의. 서른 몇 개의. -> ten odd. twenty odd. thirty odd. /

[로빈]

Anyways, insofar as Koreans use "수십" to mean "a multiple of 10 between 10 and 100" (or even "a natural number between 10 and 100") (I don't know if this is the case), and not just to mean "twenty, thirty, or fourty", I believe 'dozens', 'some dozens of', 'scores', '(twenty/thirty/fourty...) odd',

[로빈]

'tens', 'a few tens', 'several tens', etc. are all equally plausible ways of rendering "수십" into English. (Many Korean-to-English dictionaries suggest that we translate "수십" into English as 'several tens', 'scores', 'dozens'. I pretty much agree with them in this particular case.)

[유진승]

Thank you for your comments. I do think 수십 often means higher numbers than 몇십, and corresponds better to tens, dozens, scores, etc. / About the kiloton thing, although it doesn't translate into 수십, it still shows how "tens" is used. So I kept the example and added a note to clear the confusion