Spoken english math terms

[Ranayna]

Hi,

recently, I started getting back into electronics, this time with considerably more effort as my dabblings in younger years.
One thing that is somewhat of a stumbling block for me is math. When reading a textbook, I like to read out loud any formulas I do not have internalized yet. Or at least I subvocalize them. When reading an english book (which virtually all of them are at the moment), I do not like to switch languages for that.

Being a non-native English speaker, I find myself lacking a couple of terms that I am used from german, that allow for more "fluent" formula reading.

For example X^Y. In german, this is simply "X hoch Y". In english, I know only of the somewhat cumbersome term "X to the power of Y". Using the literal translation "X high Y" sounds awkward. I would prefer to learn about expressions that are actually used.

Is there a resource somewhere, where I can look up proper spoken english math terms, like they are used in school?

[richard.cs]

Unfortunately I don't know a specific resource that would be helpful here, I don't remember any of my schoolbooks saying how to say them. In UK English at least we shorten "x to the power of y" to "x to the y" when reading aloud, unless y is a known small integer where there are specific terms, x^2 would be said "x squared", and x^3 "x cubed".

[kosine]

Cajori, Florian - A History of Mathematical Notations [1928] (two volumes, 870 pages):

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A_History_of_Mathematical_Notations_Two.html?id=gxrO8ZnMK_YC&redir_esc=y

Pretty much the definitive guide to the subject. You'll probably find a PDF somewhere on the internet.

[HoracioDos]

Cajori, Florian - A History of Mathematical Notations [1928] (two volumes, 870 pages):

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A_History_of_Mathematical_Notations_Two.html?id=gxrO8ZnMK_YC&redir_esc=y

Pretty much the definitive guide to the subject. You'll probably find a PDF somewhere on the internet.

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.200372
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.88254

[amyk]

"X power Y" is what I'd say.

[Mattjd]

I understand what you are saying, I believe saying the equations,operators,functions in english can help understand whats going on.

For example take the DiffEq


y'(t)+y(t)=0

The answer is trivial, y(t) = e^-t

You could work through it with calculus or you could do as I like and say out loud what the equation is asking in english

"What function y(t) has a derivative that is its negative? (because y'(t) = -y(t))"

Or take a logarithm

log₂16 = x

could be read as

"2 raised to what power x equals 16"

These things have their limitations (by the complexity of the equation/fuction/operator) but I find very useful for learning concepts

With that being said, I don't know where something like this exists.

[IanB]

For example X^Y.

As noted above, "X to the Y" is what we say. For example, e^x is "e to the x".

Other things you may want to know:

√x is "square root of x", or "root x" for short. For example a√x would be read as "a root x".

a/b is "a over b" or "a upon b"

x² is "x squared"

x³ is "x cubed"

x' is "x prime"

x'' is "x double-prime" (but that may be a British thing, not sure what USAians would say)


Also some Greek letters have different English pronunciations. π is "pee" in most languages, but "pie" in English.

[kosine]

You could also try watching some YouTube math videos to hear how the presenters pronounce things.

[rstofer]

Or spend a little time over at Khan Academy for both the math tutorials and the Electrical Engineering program.

Actually, I kind of like "x hoch y" - it pretty much describes exactly what is happening. "x to the y" is how it i usually said in American English.

[CatalinaWOW]

Other American English usage

The derivative of  the variable x, denoted with a dot over the x would be read x dot, and similarly the second derivative would be x double dot.

This forum might be the best resource.  Just post other questions as they arise.