A friend of mine’s father did mental (abacus) math competitions when he was younger. We were chatting about it, and he suggested I test him.
I started off with some easy ones, and he nailed them. I went up to 5 and six digit numbers (different operations, no less), and he still nailed them. He mocked me for speaking so slowly, but my Japanese was pretty fast, especially for something as easy as numbers (not auctioneer fast, but still...).
All I can say is that I was thoroughly impressed. He had the correct answer within a fraction of a second of me finishing my last number every time.
To make it “tougher”, he suggested we do it in English. His spoken English was not very good, but his listening may have been ok.
He nailed the simple stuff, but I was able to break him a few times by going over 10,000. Japanese counting uses base 10k, while English counting uses base 1k, so it throw him off a bit — he didn’t slow down enough to process exactly what I was saying. That said, I’m sure he could have nailed the English version just as well as the Japanese with just a little bit of practice.
If you ever get a chance to meet these mental soroban folks, I encourage you to ask them about their experiences.
I started off with some easy ones, and he nailed them. I went up to 5 and six digit numbers (different operations, no less), and he still nailed them. He mocked me for speaking so slowly, but my Japanese was pretty fast, especially for something as easy as numbers (not auctioneer fast, but still...).
All I can say is that I was thoroughly impressed. He had the correct answer within a fraction of a second of me finishing my last number every time.
To make it “tougher”, he suggested we do it in English. His spoken English was not very good, but his listening may have been ok.
He nailed the simple stuff, but I was able to break him a few times by going over 10,000. Japanese counting uses base 10k, while English counting uses base 1k, so it throw him off a bit — he didn’t slow down enough to process exactly what I was saying. That said, I’m sure he could have nailed the English version just as well as the Japanese with just a little bit of practice.
If you ever get a chance to meet these mental soroban folks, I encourage you to ask them about their experiences.