Math in Spanish

Math in Spanish


Just a few weeks ago, I had an interesting conversation on the phone with my husband. He had called me one morning as I was getting to school. I wasn't expecting the topic to be math; we rarely even make mention of it but since he uses sometimes in his work, it wasn't so surprising. The conversation went something like this:
¿Recuerdas la fórmula para un triángulo cuadrado?
¿A al cuadrado más b al cuadrado igual a c al cuadrado?
Si. Ya tengo el lado más largo es 5 y uno de los otros lados es 3. ¿De cuánto tiene que ser el otro lado?

I did the math in my head in English and Spanish, double checking myself. Then realizing the number he was looking for, 4, I told him back in Spanish.

Cuatro. Tres al cuadrado más cuatro al cuadrado iguala a cinco al cuadrado.
 Nueve más 16 iguala a 25.


I'm not that good at doing math in my head in any language and I had never done any in Spanish. But I got him the answer and felt satisfied that I used Spanish for something other than the usual conversations that I have day to day. I'm just glad that the numbers involved in this problem were not fractions or decimals. In that case I wouldn't have been able to solve it so easily!