The Easy Guide to French Numbers

3 videos · 6 min read

Learn how to say numbers in French within 10 minutes. Saying numbers in French is a tad bit complicated, but it’s nothing we can’t learn with practice.

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Part 1: Cardinal NumbersADDITIONAL RULES IN FRENCH CARDINAL NUMBERSPART 2: ORDINAL NUMBERS

Difficulty: Beginner

Before you start to shudder at the thought of learning about numbers in French, don’t worry. There are no maths in here. We’ll only be talking about the most important and practical topics about numbers – the kind of things that you actually need to know, and the ones that are useful in the real world.  Plus, we’ll be doing it the easiest way possible– ironing out the quirks as much as we can.

Fair enough?

But first, let us look at ordinal numbers and cardinal numbers and how they differ from each other.

• Cardinal numbers are used to tell us how many there are, or the quantity. Example, 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on.
• Ordinal numbers tell us the position or the order in relation to other numbers. Example, 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and so on.

Twenty people joined the party. (cardinal number is used)

The twentieth person joined the party. (ordinal number is used)

See the difference?

Part 1: Cardinal Numbers

The pronunciation spellings below are rough guides. In particular, six and dix end in an “s” sound when said alone, usually lose it before a consonant, and use a “z” liaison before a vowel or h muet. The final dix in 70 and 90 follows this pattern too.

Now let’s take a look at the French cardinal numbers. A pronunciation guide is added in the last column to help you practice saying the numbers.

If you were quick enough to notice the difference, you’re probably wondering why everything got all messed up starting from seventy.

What we’re saying is this:

• sixty is soixante
• seventy is soixante-dix (literally sixty-ten)
• seventy-two is soixante-douze (literally sixty-twelve)
• seventy-nine is soixante-dix-neuf (literally sixty-ten-nine)

Confusing? We know, right?! But on the bright side, it means you don’t have to learn new numbers, you only have to make use of the ones you already know!

When it comes to the eighties and nineties, it gets even more confusing! (and you thought English numbers were difficult?!)

Here, take a look:

• eighty is quatre-vingts (literally four-twenties)
• eighty-two is quatre-vingt-deux (literally four-twenty-two)

So there’s a tiny bit of math here (just a tad little bit). To understand the logic behind it, you have to get a bit of a grasp of basic addition and multiplication at the very least. It is just like President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address: the famous line “four score and seven years ago”. 

A score means twenty, so four score and seven ((4 x 20) + 7) is eighty-seven.

That’s basically in the same vein as the French numbers we’re trying to learn.

For the nineties:

• ninety is quatre-vingt-dix (literally four-twenty-ten)
• ninety-two is quatre-vingt-douze (literally four-twenty-twelve)

If you could just grasp the underlying logic, the process would be so much easier to learn.

Quick tip: In other French-speaking countries like Belgium and Switzerland, they have different words for seventy, eighty and ninety.
Seventy is septante in both Belgium and Switzerland
Eighty is huitante in parts of Switzerland (other Swiss regions and Belgium use quatre-vingts)
Ninety is nonante in both Belgium and Switzerland. But if you find this all too confusing that your brain cells can’t seem to take more number rules, just stick to the regular French numbers soixante-dix, quatre-vingts, quatre-vingt-dix and so on. You’ll still be understood no matter which French-speaking country you go to anyway.

ADDITIONAL RULES IN FRENCH CARDINAL NUMBERS

1.     When to use et and hyphens with cardinal numbers?

The rule goes like this.

You use et for the following numbers:

21           vingt et un

31           trente et un

41           quarante et un

51           cinquante et un

61           soixante et un

71           soixante et onze

In traditional spelling, use hyphens between the elements below 100 except around et, as in vingt-deux and vingt et un. The 1990 spelling also allows all the elements of a compound number to be joined with hyphens: vingt-et-un. Both spellings are valid. The traditional hyphen patterns cover the following numbers:

17, 18, 19, 22 – 29, 32 – 39 up to 79, and then 80 – 99

2. When to use figures when writing cardinal numbers?

In most instances, cardinal numbers are being spelled out. Except for the following:

• In dates

Example: le 29 janvier 1950

• In prices

Example: L’armoire coûte 449 euros (the cupboard costs 449 euros)

• In weights and measures

Example: Vous pesez 56 kilos pour 1,70 mètre (you weigh 56 kilos for 1 meter 70)

• In mathematical usage
• In percentages
• In addresses and telephone numbers

3. How to say approximate numbers in French?

In English, we often use the expression “around” or “about” to make a quick guess about the numbers. For example: (1) There were around twenty students who joined the class. (2) about a thousand people watched the concert.

French has approximate-number nouns ending in -aine, often with a changed stem. These are established words, not a suffix you can attach unchanged to every number. For example:

une dizaine (about ten)

une quinzaine (about fifteen)

une vingtaine (about twenty)

une centaine (about one hundred)

It’s kinda like (but not quite) the use of –ish in urban lingo.
Example:
Q: How many people went to the party?
A: Like, 50-ish or so.

Here are some very useful videos for you to check out:

PART 2: ORDINAL NUMBERS

Once you have familiarized yourself with the cardinal numbers, learning ordinal numbers is a lot easier. Ordinal numbers except for ‘one’ are derived from their corresponding cardinal numbers.

The general rule for ordinal numbers is: use the cardinal number, drop the last letter e (if any), and add the suffix -ième.

Using this formula, let’s try some examples:

• quatre — drop the last -e, becomes quatr — add -ième, becomes quatrième
• six — since there is no -e in the ending, we add -ième, so it becomes sixième

Important items to note:

1. First or premier (m) and première (f) is the only ordinal number that doesn’t follow the rule above.
2. Cinquième and neuvième follow the rule except for a few spelling changes in the original word. Twenty-first, thirty-first, forty-first, and so on, also follow the rule.
3. Unlike in English, French normally uses cardinal numbers for dates, but uses premier for the first day of the month: le premier janvier.
4. Most fractions are also derived from the ordinal numbers. Here are examples:

• 1/5 is un cinquième
• 1/6 is un sixième
• 1/7 is un septième
• 1/8 is un huitième
• 1/9 is un neuvième
• 1/10 is un dixième
• 2/5 is deux cinquièmes

For additional material in learning ordinal numbers, check out this video as well: