"Η φάρμα έχει σαράντα άλογα."
Translation:The farm has forty horses.
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In case you were wondering why σαράντα looks "nothing like" the word for 4, it's short from τεσσαράκοντα, where the relationship to τέσσερα is a lot more obvious.
How about the root τεταρτο as in "fourth" or "Wednesday," or the root of "Tetris"? Is that short for anything? Or does τεσσαρτο just sound bad in Greek?
I don't know for sure.
However, -ττ- and -σσ- sometimes interchanged in Ancient Greek depending on the dialect -- for example, "sea" (θάλασσα in modern Greek) was θάλαττα in Attic Greek. (See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalatta!_Thalatta! )
So I suppose τέσσερις had a form τέττερις in some dialects, and this may be related to the -τ- in τετρα- and τέταρτο.
It may also be related to the fact that "nine" is εννέα (two nus) while "ninth" is ένατο (one nu).
Σαράντα looks a bit similar to Russian сорок, but probably there is no etymological relationship between them: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BA. Still this might be helpful for memorizing it.
That's right. And Russian "sorok" (сорок) doesn't have any relation to the Russian number 4 either.
I hear a "d" when pronouncing "σαράντα" in the recording, however in another lesson I heard "nt" sound. My question is: Which of the two is the MOST popular pronunciation among the Greek population?