And I thought French numbers were confusing....

The local language has a base 5 number system. Sort of. The number 98 is written

"Juróom ñeent fukk ak juróom ñett"

Which litterally means "five four ten and five three." In other words,

10*(5+4) + 5 + 3

Money is even more fun. Rather than counting money in the actual currency of the country, they count it in coins. The smallest coin is worth 5. So something that costs 5000 in French or English costs 1000 in the local language. It is like saying that a shirt costs 500 nickles rather than saying that it costs 25 dollars.

So lets say you want to buy something using the local language. Not only do you have to make sense out of a vendor telling you "two hundred and five three ten," you then have to multiply that by five in your head to figure out that he wants 1400. And then, since the thing is probably worth half that much and he fully expects you to bargain it down to that price, you need to quickly divide 600 or 700 by 5 to give him your opening bid. That's too much work, so you go with 500. So you tell him, "hundred nickles." He acts shocked at your outrageous suggestion and says maybe he can give it to you for 260 nickles. Rather than trying to figure out in your head how much that actually as, you simply match his shocked expression and insist that no, 140 nickles would be a much more realistic price. He laughs, possibly because he is enjoying this but more likely because he thinks your accent is hilarious, and suggests 240. After another exchange or two like this you have him down to 220. At this point you have a choice. You can pay the 220 or you can hold out for a lower price. If you are patient enough, and it might eventually require walking half way out the door and then pausing there, he will offer it to you for under 200. Otherwise, if you wish to spend your evening doing some other activity, you need to quickly do the mental math to figure out how much money to hand over. 220x5= um... um... um... It's somewhere between 1000 and 2000. You hand over a 2000 note and then wait while he asks a couple of his buddies for change. You get 900 back, which you assume is correct, and happily head home. Once there you can go online, find the current exchange rate between the local currency and the dollar, and discover that you have just paid $2.51. 

And that, my friends, is why I still do all my bargaining in French. Hopefully one day I will be able to shop in the local language.