Lesson - Section 4 - Les nombres français
 

PART 1 - PRESENT TENSE VERBS

Section 4 - Les nombres français

Welcome to French Numbers! Numbers work very much the same way in French as in English, except for the fact that there are no unique words for seventy, eighty, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, or ninety. The words for these numbers are made out of other words. Otherwise, they work on exactly the same system. Without further ado, let’s get straight to it!

0 - zéro/nul
1 - un
2 - deux
3 - trois
4 – quatre
5- cinq
6- six
7- sept
8- huit
9- neuf
10- dix
11- onze
12- douze
13- treize
14- quatorze
15- quinze
16- seize
17- dix-sept
18- dix-huit
19- dix-neuf
20- vingt

21- vingt et un
22- vingt-deux
30- trente
31- trente et un
32- trente-deux
40- quarante
41- quarante et un
42- quarante-deux
50- cinquante
51- cinquante et un
52- cinquante-deux
60- soixante
61- soixante et un
62- soixante-deux
70- soixante-dix
71- soixante et onze
72- soixante-douze
73- soixante-treize
74- soixante-quatorze
75- soixante-quinze
76- soixante-seize
77- soixante-dix-sept
78- soixante-dix-huit
79- soixante-dix-neuf
80- quatre-vingt
81- quatre-vingt un
82- quatre-vingt-deux
90- quatre-vingt-dix
91- quatre-vingt-onze
92- quatre-vingt-douze
93- quatre-vingt-treize
94- quatre-vingt-quatorze
95- quatre-vingt-quinze
96- quatre-vingt-seize
97- quatre-vingt-dix-sept
98- quatre-vingt-dix-huit
99- quatre-vingt-dix-neuf
100- cent

101-cent un
200- deux cents
201- deux cents un
etc
1000- mille
1001- mille un
1100- mille cent
1200- mille deux cents
1300- mille trois cents
etc
2000- deux mille
2100- deux mille cent
10 000- dix mille (attention, a comma is used to denote decimal places less than 1)
100 000- cent mille
1 000 000- un million
1 000 000 000- un milliard
1 000 000 000 000- un billion

Decimals in French are denoted by commas. For example, when you would write 1.273 in English - the French equivalent is 1,273.

Ordinal Numbers

These numbers are fairly easy to construct. For each number that ends in a consonant, append -ième to the end of the word. This is the English equivalent of -th, as in 10th, 11th, etc... For each number that ends in a vowel, delete the last letter (that vowel) and replace it with -ième. For example, douzième, trentième, etc.

And now, for your homework questions:

1. Write out 1-10.
2. How do you say 56?
3. How do you say 74?
4. How do you say 94?
5. How do you say 3890 seconds (hint, somebody important said this number below the Eiffel Tower ;))
6. How do you say 25?
7. How do you say 59?
8. How do you say 666?
9. How do you say 127?
10. How do you say 1.283.756?

gc, you're right about the comma, but the thousands separator is a space, not a dot: 12 345 678,90.

It becomes tricky for the 70s, 80s and 90s because you're under the impression you're doing math by enunciating them, like 90, which is "quatre-vingt-dix" -> (4x20)+10 :D. In Belgian French, those are just septante, octante and nonante instead of "soixante-dix", "quatre-vingt" and "quatre-vingt-dix"

ah so I am old fashioned then? :) Could it have been a dot in the olden days?

You have seen dots already? Well, I wouldn't be surprised if you found some on the internet or anything computer to prevent one of the spaces that might be at the end of a line to split the number on two lines. Those spaces should be "insécable" (don't know the English word) of course like Winword, for example, makes them so.

An example of the spaces and the comma in numbers under Windows (c:\pagefile.sys properties):

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/2152/pagefilewd0.gif

Hmm... I'm going to go with "indivisible" for "insécable." Basically, the number should remain together as if it were one word, but if it's at the end of a line of text, some computer programs will seperate it. To prevent this, people will use a dot to make it continuous, thus keeping it on one line?

That is interesting though, as I'd been taught to use a dot to seperate thousands as well. I'd never heard it was done with spaces only.

With the Belgian French seventy, eighty, and ninety... are those things people use and understand in France-proper? Would folks look at me strangely on the streets of Paris if I used "nonante-sept" instead of "quatre-vingt dix-sept?"

I was always taught in school to use spaces for the thousands (in both french class and english math).

I didn't pay much attention in french class, but I do remember that..

ooooo kay spaces it is then :)

That right there is a good thing to note! "Un Milliard" is the English Billion, while "Un Billion" in the English Trillion. While I knew milliard already, I had never gone beyond it, and I'm sure I would have been horribly confused had I run across un billion and not realized it is a thousand times bigger in French than in English :-)

il fais chou
q'est que tu fait
j'ne sais pas

d'accord, je ne pars en francais parce que je suis tres bete
si vous plait garconcanadien, voulez ...

im trying