Math - Asian Style

**Muscle_Girl** · 07-15-2011, 09:39 PM

I have been reading a book the past couple days and I had come across a completely amazing chapter in which logically explains why Asians are commonly better at math than the English speaking world.

The book is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He features a part of the chapter on his site, but of course not the whole of it, gotta pay if you want the good stuff I guess. I tried finding the audio, but its impossible.

Quoted from his site, Chapter 8, Outliers:

Rice Paddies and Math Tests

"No one who can rise before dawn three hundred and sixty days a year fails to make his family rich."

An excerpt from Chapter Eight.

Take a look at the following list of numbers: 4,8,5,3,9,7,6. Read them out loud to yourself. Now look away, and spend twenty seconds memorizing that sequence before saying them out loud again.

If you speak English, you have about a 50 percent chance of remembering that sequence perfectly If you're Chinese, though, you're almost certain to get it right every time. Why is that? Because as human beings we store digits in a memory loop that runs for about two seconds. We most easily memorize whatever we can say or read within that two second span. And Chinese speakers get that list of numbers—4,8,5,3,9,7,6—right every time because—unlike English speakers—their language allows them to fit all those seven numbers into two seconds.

That example comes from Stanislas Dehaene's book "The Number Sense," and as Dehaene explains:

Chinese number words are remarkably brief. Most of them can be uttered in less than one-quarter of a second (for instance, 4 is 'si' and 7 'qi') Their English equivalents—"four," "seven"—are longer: pronouncing them takes about one-third of a second. The memory gap between English and Chinese apparently is entirely due to this difference in length. In languages as diverse as Welsh, Arabic, Chinese, English and Hebrew, there is a reproducible correlation between the time required to pronounce numbers in a given language and the memory span of its speakers. In this domain, the prize for efficacy goes to the Cantonese dialect of Chinese, whose brevity grants residents of Hong Kong a rocketing memory span of about 10 digits.

It turns out that there is also a big difference in how number-naming systems in Western and Asian languages are constructed. In English, we say fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen, so one would think that we would also say one-teen, two-teen, and three-teen. But we don't. We make up a different form: eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fifteen. Similarly, we have forty, and sixty, which sound like what they are. But we also say fifty and thirty and twenty, which sort of sound what they are but not really. And, for that matter, for numbers above twenty, we put the "decade" first and the unit number second: twenty-one, twenty-two. For the teens, though, we do it the other way around. We put the decade second and the unit number first: fourteen, seventeen, eighteen. The number system in English is highly irregular. Not so in China, Japan and Korea. They have a logical counting system. Eleven is ten one. Twelve is ten two. Twenty-four is two ten four, and so on.

That difference means that Asian children learn to count much faster. Four year old Chinese children can count, on average, up to forty. American children, at that age, can only count to fifteen, and don't reach forty until they're five: by the age of five, in other words, American children are already a year behind their Asian counterparts in the most fundamental of math skills.

The regularity of their number systems also means that Asian children can perform basic functions—like addition—far more easily. Ask an English seven-year-old to add thirty-seven plus twenty two, in her head, and she has to convert the words to numbers (37 + 22). Only then can she do the math: 2 plus 7 is nine and 30 and 20 is 50, which makes 59. Ask an Asian child 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's five-tens nine.

"The Asian system is transparent," says Karen Fuson, a Northwestern University psychologist, who has done much of the research on Asian-Western differences. "I think that it makes the whole attitude toward math different. Instead of being a rote learning thing, there's a pattern I can figure out. There is an expectation that I can do this. There is an expectation that it's sensible. For fractions, we say three fifths. The Chinese is literally, 'out of five parts, take three.' That's telling you conceptually what a fraction is. It's differentiating the denominator and the numerator."

The much-storied disenchantment with mathematics among western children starts in the third and fourth grade, and Fuson argues that perhaps a part of that disenchantment is due to the fact that math doesn't seem to make sense; its linguistic structure is clumsy; its basic rules seem arbitrary and complicated.

Asian children, by contrast, don't face nearly that same sense of bafflement. They can hold more numbers in their head, and do calculations faster, and the way fractions are expressed in their language corresponds exactly to the way a fraction actually is—and maybe that makes them a little more likely to enjoy math, and maybe because they enjoy math a little more they try a little harder and take more math classes and are more willing to do their homework, and on and on, in a kind of virtuous circle.

When it comes to math, in other words, Asians have built-in advantage. . .

Source: gladwell dot com - rice paddies and math tests

**Ichigo** · 07-15-2011, 10:52 PM

I always wondered why the Asians are so much smarter in math.

**danzik17** · 07-15-2011, 11:14 PM

**Muscle_Girl** · 07-16-2011, 12:02 AM

I finished reading the chapter and he goes on to say that their consistency in schooling is also a contributor (school throughout the year, instead of massive summer time off)

I can really understand this issue, the complexity of how math sounds and is worked out in my head is boggling; I often confuse myself. Ultimately, it makes me feel a little less silly that I am not exactly genius when it comes to math.

**KelJu** · 07-16-2011, 12:47 AM

That explanation is grossly over simplified. Remembering sequences of numbers and easily performing addition and subtraction has diddly shit to do with deferential equations, calculus, linear algebra, physics, engineering, ect. But, as anybody who has ever been in the math department of any major university in America knows, it is usually dominated by Asians.

Why? Well I am not going to pretend to know the answer, but I am pretty sure that it has more to do with their culture than their language if it is true at all. Let's ask the most important questions first, are they actually better at math? It might look that way if you go to MIT or Caltech. But, lets pose some basic assumptions that conflict with the idea.

First, there are a shit ton more people in Asia than North America. The US is the world hub of higher learning. That means we are pulling the majority of the worlds smartest people here to study. I don't know the numbers, but lets say conservatively that there are 10 Asians for every 1 US citizen. Lets then say that the smartest students in Asia are likely to come to the US to study. Then lets say that most international students regardless of their mother country tend to pursue degrees that are universally applicable while the majority of US students get bullshit degrees that aren't even applicable in the US, much less the globe. Math, science, and medicine are universally applicable. Humanities and liberal arts degrees are not. By the time you take all of that in consideration, it isn't hard to understand why half of your calculus I class is filled with Asians, and why they are kicking your ass on the bell curve.

Second, American students are fucking lazy compared to international students, and for good reason. Chen Lu Wang is attending American universities to take care of business while Joe Blow is going to drink beer and fuck bitches, and on the side might actually have intentions to better himself for a better future. Chen doesn't want to fail out just to go home and face his family with shame, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, just saying that priorities are different.

Third, there are many other cultural groups that tend to excel at math and science who have chaotic languages that are not conducive to performing calculations easily. Germans, for example tend to kick ass at math and science. German Jews kick twice as much ass at math and science. Is it because they are the chosen people of God?...I kid I kid. No, it is because their have rigorous educations with expectations to excel and an emphasis on math and science. It is commonly called the self fulfilling prophecy. You are expected to be better, therefor you are.

Forth, I have read and heard from many math teachers that teaching students the basics of math at an early age using the abacus is an extremely effective tool to building the fundamentals to excel at math. Human brains are not calculators or memory banks They are relational machines. You can't know what day it was 3 days ago unless you know what today is. That is how how brains handle numbers, too. Americans are taught the basics of math using memorization and repetitive drills. They give a kid a page of simple math problems to do, and the kid does them until they know the answer without actually using their relational abilities, which is the part of the brain you should be using to do math. It should be fucking obvious that teaching a kid to do math in the same way you teach them the alphabet is going to be problematic later. Asians are more often taught math from a relational perspective instead of just memorizing answers.

Fifth, most scientist lean towards the belief that a person's intellectual potential is about 50% nature and 50% nurture. I think that is a fair assessment. It is possible that some ethnic groups have a strong propensity towards excelling at logical and relational thinking. Unfortunately, liberal political correctness as gotten in the way of scientific discussion on this topic. It is fine to say a group of people are more susceptible to immune diseases, better at sports, more likely to have health problems, more likely to have, blue eyes, red hair, ect, but as soon as you try to bring up the possibility that some groups may be smarter than others at analytical thinking, liberal assholes pucker up, and someone gets labeled a racist.

**Big Smoothy** · 07-16-2011, 05:08 AM

Originally Posted by Muscle_Girl

I have been reading a book the past couple days and I had come across a completely amazing chapter in which logically explains why Asians are commonly better at math than the English speaking world.

The book is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

Yes, it's a very interesting book. Very informative, quick read, and written to interest us on a lot of topics.

He also noted the determination and perseverance to solve math problem by Asian in comparison to westerners.

Perhaps, he noted, the major difference between rice farming and wheat farmin (Asian farming to western farming) because of the difference in crops.

Different farming techniques were needed.

He also notes this about westerner being able to drink more alcohol and handle it in comparisons to Asians, who often lack a gene for it.

Great book, about many topics.

**ROID** · 07-16-2011, 07:16 AM

I invented the chinese language.

**Muscle_Girl** · 07-16-2011, 08:07 AM

Kelju: It was definately more about the culture than the simplified language when it came to numbers. I posted this cause I was like Wow!, I gotta share this with someone, and I hadn't even finished the chapter. The comparison with rice paddies is that it has to be done the exact right way or you might not be feeding your family. So, they research every possible angle to ensure they get the most out of their crop. They put their every waking moment, and sometimes sleeping moments, into their paddies, which is why they are often successful.

He also said the largest downfall for North American schooling was the massive summer break that we have all come to love. Parents who are better off may continue their child's education through the summer, while those parents who are working and can't afford to put their children into programs or camps for the summer opt for the TV and movie theatre for a treat. The children that aren't consistently practising their learnings from the school year often lose a majority of it over the summer break.

He also talks about the Kipp program, which has seen massive success when their students move on to better schools. The Kipp program has a lengthened school day and school year. As he says it, they repeat the teachings 90%+ compared to regular public schools who don't have enough time to explain every detail and take every question ~50% is repeated. http://www.kipp.org/about-kipp

Ultimately, a lot can be done. Parents who become active in their child's education, rather than just expect that "its the teachers job" will see a more promising future for their child. Extended effort is just that much better for everyone involved.

**Gissurjon** · 07-16-2011, 08:44 AM

Originally Posted by KelJu

Why? Well I am not going to pretend to know the answer, but I am pretty sure that it has more to do with their culture than their language if it is true at all. Let's ask the most important questions first, are they actually better at math? It might look that way if you go to MIT or Caltech. But, lets pose some basic assumptions that conflict with the idea.

I learned math in a different language. When I went on to college math here in the U.S. I noticed difference in my approach, more than verbal aspects, and the other students'. I sought to understand why the outcome was 53 and why the steps that were taken to get that outcome, were necessary. Not once did I write down a definition of a rule, while the person next to me had a notebook full of notes.
People in my class would sit and scratch their head at a problem when they just completed an identical problem with the exception of different numbers. That only tells me one thing, they were not focusing on understanding why they got the answer they got but more on how they could get there.

Thats why you start teaching math with objects, they are visual and they show the child that if you add 2 blocks to 4 blocks you certainly have 6.

My teacher got tired of me asking questions, which prompted other kids not to ask out of the fear of people thinking they were stupid. I dont give fuck so I kept bothering him and got my A+, chi ching

**Muscle_Girl** · 07-16-2011, 09:41 AM

Originally Posted by Gissurjon

My teacher got tired of me asking questions, which prompted other kids not to ask out of the fear of people thinking they were stupid. I dont give fuck so I kept bothering him and got my A+, chi ching

This is the greatest issue for our schools right now. The teachers can't or won't take the time to explain and answer all the questions that may arise for a child to understand in their own way. A child should never be afraid to ask questions, especially when it will help them better understand how something works.

**Gissurjon** · 07-16-2011, 11:29 AM

Originally Posted by Muscle_Girl

This is the greatest issue for our schools right now. The teachers can't or won't take the time to explain and answer all the questions that may arise for a child to understand in their own way. A child should never be afraid to ask questions, especially when it will help them better understand how something works.

No such thing as a stupid question, except the ones you know the answer to.. but that's not really a question then is it...

I was approached by this very heavyset girl after class who had something very important to say about the way i dressed. Evidently my white socks didn't go with my black shoes and shorts. I asked her what difference it made and she told me that I should make sure I always look my best when I walk out the house. I took a min to look at this 300 pound 5'2 woman, trying to decide weather I should go there and decided not to. So I asked her what her GPA was and she told me, 2.5. I told her "well mine is 4.0 so I guess my socks are working just fine" and walked away.

She pretty much summed up most of the people's attitude in that school though, and it's sad.

**maniclion** · 07-16-2011, 04:02 PM

I remember long numbers in chunks, also relate the number to something to fix it in my mind like in this the 485 reminded me of RS-485 the standard for digital communications over long distances up to 4000ft (many of our manufacturers use it for monitoring pv systems)

485 39 76

Much easier that way...

**Gissurjon** · 07-16-2011, 04:29 PM

Originally Posted by maniclion

I remember long numbers in chunks, also relate the number to something to fix it in my mind like in this the 485 reminded me of RS-485 the standard for digital communications over long distances up to 4000ft (many of our manufacturers use it for monitoring pv systems)

485 39 76

Much easier that way...

yea that's an old pretty common technique, you can also make up a story involving the things you are trying to remember.

**hoyle21** · 07-16-2011, 08:53 PM

Just my two cents, but the way we formulate out sentences does have something to do with it.

As we all know the above example is 128 divided by 5 but look at the way it is written. It is read from right to left. Because Math is old world, Algebra is actually an Arabic word, and they actually write everything from right to left.

Calculus on the other hand were discovered (I use discovered because it is more accurate than saying created or invented) by Newton and Leibniz (there is some argument here too, but anyway) who were English and German. I could do math before Calculus, but it was Calculus class where it all started to make sense.

**Edit, my example didnt stay, but write and solve 128 divided by 5 using long division and you can see what Im talking about.

**Built** · 07-16-2011, 09:06 PM

I really find it irritating when the lay definition of math comes down to arithmetic.

I mean shit, a machine can do that part. Reducing mathematics to arithmetic is like saying literature is mainly concerned with spelling. It's part of it to be sure, but that's what spellcheck is for.

**hoyle21** · 07-16-2011, 09:09 PM

Originally Posted by Built

I really find it irritating when the lay definition of math comes down to arithmetic.

I mean shit, a machine can do that part. Reducing mathematics to arithmetic is like saying literature is mainly concerned with spelling. It's part of it to be sure, but that's what spellcheck is for.

Very, very true, but that is how we teach it. That's another of my complaints.

**GearsMcGilf** · 07-16-2011, 11:37 PM

I've always wondered why this is the case. I'd like to take a look at that book. I've run into that a lot. There was this 7 year old Chinese kid in my neighborhood several years ago. He asked me once how long we'd had our dog. I told him 6 years. He aked "how many days is that?" So, I was like IDK, we've had her for 6 years. So, he rode his bike around the cul-de-sac a few more times, then comes back to me and says "it's 2,190 days." I was like "hold on" and got a calculator and he was right. The little effer was 7 years old and worked that out in his head while circling the cul de sac. This kid can also solve the Rubix Cube in 2-3 minutes every time. Says he learned it from youtube vids. Just about every Chinese kid I meat is somewhere around that level. I think it's the study habits they enforce over there. Genetics may also play a role, but it is amazing how smart those fukker are.

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