On Language and Counting

Last night we had pizza for dinner. Upon paying for the pizza, A. noticed that our good Italian waiter (who speaks extremely good German) was counting back our change in Italian. Since I wasn't dealing with the money I didn't notice, but upon our walk home A. remarked,

"It doesn't matter how many languages you speak or where you are, you always count in your native language, don't you?"

When I looked at him a little puzzled he explained how he noticed the waiter was counting our change in Italian.

I then asked him if even after living in the US for 8 years if he always has counted in German. Even though he is quite a mathematician and thinks in English when he does mathematics and algebra, he confirmed what I suspected: He still counts in German.

No question about it, I always count in English.

Interestingly enough, I once read something about that very subject: No matter where someone lives or how long they live there, they almost always count in their native lanuage.

And the reason for this is:

People tend to perform mental tasks with the language in which they learned them. For instance, some bilingual French Alsatians living near the border with Germany report that they count in French and do algebra in German. This is because they learned their counting skills and simple mathematics in French at primary schools and abstract algebra in German at secondary schools.
-- from "Language and Culture: Learning Language"

(Note: This is not an excerpt from the original article I read on this subject. I can't recall where I found it now, but the points raised here are, in a nutshell, what I remember reading.)

I am getting better at thinking in German more often when I am out and about nowadays, but if I never count in German, since there is a scientific reason for it, I guess won't feel bad.