United States | News & Politics

Yeah, I have no idea where you get that notion that somehow the alphabet is relevant here. This sounds more like a case of correlation than causation to me. Yes, numbers are more consistent in East Asian languages (I can't speak for the rest of Asia, I'm only familiar with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), but the real magic is in how much emphasis their cultures put on education generally and math specifically.

My spouse is from E. Asia, and if they ever got something wrong in class, the teacher would physically reprimand them (i.e. smack their knuckles with a ruler), which was very embarrassing. If they got poor feedback from a teacher, their parents would physically reprimand them (e.g. spanking).

I am from the US and the culture is very different here. If I got a question wrong, the teacher would call on someone else. If I got poor feedback from school, my parents would express how disappointed they are and life would go on. They also went to school for ~10 hours/day, with the last few hours being after school tutoring and whatnot.

I was emotionally better off, but the only motivation I had to do well in school was internal. I happened to really like math, so I did well. I had plenty of friends who didn't, and they did poorly. After school tutoring wasn't really a thing unless you were at risk of not progressing to the next school year, which was pretty rare.

In many parts of E. Asia, doing poorly just isn't an option, because you will be physically and emotionally reprimanded until you improve. I don't find that healthy, but it's apparently quite effective. I'm guessing much of the rest of Asia has similar culture (esp. Russia, I had a Russian friend in school so I can speak from second hand experience).