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There's a theory that if your native language is Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Turkish, then you'll naturally do better at math than someone who grew up speaking English. This is because the names to describe numbers are more complicated in English than in those other languages. Here's an argument why that might not be true.


Link to "A Look At Korean" --    • Korean  
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ADDITIONS/CORRECTIONS:
Just to be totally clear, this video isn't meant to somehow refute those studies -- I'm guessing they were peer-reviewed, and anyway, I didn't read them, just a couple of articles about them. Really, the video is just meant to pose a question about the overarching theory and offer an alternative view of the gap in math achievement mentioned among English / Korean / Chinese / Japanese / Turkish students.
Also, I know that having a bunch of accomplished mathematicians doesn't necessarily say anything whether math is difficult for the average student. Still, it also might suggest that at least language isn't a stumbling block after you get past basic math, and that even if there is a language effect, maybe it doesn't follow you around for long.



Photos in this video include the works of:
Taylor Van Riper
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Jeswin Thomas
Husniati Salma
Digital Buggu
Pixabay
Jaikishan Patel
Chris Liverani
Roman Mager
Rheins
Les Anderson
Macau Photo Agency
Christiano Sinisterra
Nuno Alberto
Markus Winkler
Ethan Brooke
Waldemar Brandt
Andrea Piacquadio
Ian Panelo
Mohd Aram
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Raj Rana
Pop & Zebra
Atharva Tulsi
Jeswin Thomas
Byron Aihara
Charl Folscher
Deepak Gautam
Nicolas Genin
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India Post
George Sharvashidze
Max Fischer
Marius Mann
Edward Jenner