French Numbers: How To Count & Talk About Numbers In French
by Olly Richards
When you start learning French one of the first things you need to learn is the French numbers. Without knowing how to count in French, you won’t be able to buy things in a shop, try on clothes or shoes, order drinks, ask about public transport – or a whole range of other things.
To be honest, French numbers are not the easiest in the world – but nor are they excessively hard – so to help you get started, here’s everything you need to know about counting in French.
By the way, if you want to learn French fast and have fun while doing it, my top recommendation is French Uncovered which teaches you through StoryLearning®.
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Let’s jump right in – here’s how to count to ten in French:
Un, une
1
Deux
2
Trois
3
Quatre
4
Cinq
5
Six
6
Sept
7
Huit
8
Neuf
9
Dix
10
French numbers 1-10
There are several points to note about these numbers.
First, you will notice that there are two words for “one” – un is used with masculine nouns while une is used with feminine nouns, like this:
Un cochon (One pig)
Une vache (One cow)
The same word is also used for “a” – in French, there is no distinction between “a” and “one”, but the meaning is always clear from the context.
Second, there are three possible ways to pronounce six and dix, depending on the word that follows.
When used alone (like when counting), the French pronunciation of six is very similar to the English word “cease”. Dix sounds the same – except that it starts with a ‘d’.
However, if the number is followed by a word beginning with a consonant, the ‘x’ is not pronounced, so they are pronounced “see” and “dee”:
Six vaches (sounds like ‘see vash’) (Six cows)
Finally, if the French number is followed by a vowel or an unaspirate ‘h’, the ‘x’ at the end of the number is pronounced like the ‘z’ in ‘sneeze’, so they sound like ‘seez’ and ‘deez’:
Dix animaux (sounds like ‘deezanimo’) (Ten animals)
With neuf, if it comes before ans (years) or heures (hours), the pronunciation is like a ‘v’ – but before other words beginning with a vowel or unaspirate ‘h’, it is pronounced as an ‘f’.
French Numbers 11-19
Now you can count to 10 in French, let’s move onto 11-19. Here they are:
Onze
11
Douze
12
Treize
13
Quatorze
14
Quinze
15
Seize
16
Dix-sept
17
Dix-huit
18
Dix-neuf
19
French numbers 11-19
There’s nothing too difficult about these numbers in French. The numbers from 11 to 16 all have a unique word in French, but 17, 18 and 19 are formed by combining the word for “ten” and the word for “seven”, “eight” or “nine”. This means you are literally saying “ten-seven”, “ten-eight” and “ten-nine” – although it’s best just to remember them as single words.
Notice that when written, dix-sept, dix-huit and dix-neuf are hyphenated.
Counting To 69 In French
French counting up to 69 is easy in French, but from 70, things get a bit more complicated – so let’s do the easy part first. Here are the French numbers by ‘tens’ from 20 to 60:
Vingt
20
Trente
30
Quarante
40
Cinquante
50
Soixante
60
French ‘tens' 20-60
And here’s how to count in French from 20 to 29:
Vingt et un(e) 21
Vingt-deux 22
Vingt-trois 23
Vingt-quatre 24
Vingt-cinq 25
Etc.
As you can see here, these numbers are made by simply adding the “unit” to vingt – and attaching the words with a hyphen when written.
The exception is 21 – for this, instead, you add et un (with no hyphen) – so literally, you say “twenty and one”. Also, notice that 21 agrees with the gender of the thing you are counting:
Vingt et un cochons (21 pigs)
Vingt et une vaches (21 cows)
With vingt, the ‘t’ is usually silent, but it is pronounced when followed by a vowel or unaspirate ‘h’. The exception to this rule is when expressing dates:
Vingt-huit (sounds like ‘vantweet’) 28
Vingt animaux (sounds like ‘vantanimo’) 20 animals
Le vingt avril (‘le vang avril’ with a nasal ‘ng’) The 20th of April
The numbers in French follow the same pattern, like this:
Trente et un(e) 31
Trente-deux 32
Trente-trois 33
Quarante et un(e) 41
Quarante-deux 42
Cinquante et un(e) 51
Cinquante-deux 52
Etc.
70, 80 And 90 In French
The numbers for 70, 80 and 90 in French are a bit strange.
70 in French is soixante-dix, which literally means “sixty-ten”. Following this, 71 is soixante et onze – literally, “sixty and eleven” (with no hyphens).
Then you have soixante-douze (sixty-twelve), soixante-treize (sixty-thirteen), soixante-quatorze (sixty-fourteen) and so on, all attached by hyphens.
In a way, this follows the same logic of the numbers from 20 to 60 – but it still might take a bit of getting used to at first.
Next, let’s look at 80, which, in French, is quatre vingts (no hyphen) – or literally, “four twenties”. Again, slightly odd, but in old fashioned or literary English, you might sometimes see “four score”, so it’s not totally strange.
After this, 81 is quatre-vingt-un, 82 is quatre-vingt-deux and so on. Notice that the ‘s’ is dropped from vingt and that all the words are joined by hyphens. Also, notice that there is no et in quatre-vingt-un – this time, it’s just the same as all the other numbers.
Remember too that quatre-vingt-un agrees with what you are counting:
Quatre-vingt-uncochons (81 pigs)
Quatre-vingt-une vaches (81 cows)
With the ‘eighties’, the ‘t’ in vingt is NEVER pronounced – and the same is true of the ‘s’ in quatre vingts.
Finally 90, which, in French is quatre-vingt-dix. This literally means “four-twenty-ten”, and at this point, you might start wondering if the French didn’t set out with the deliberate intention of creating the most perverse way of counting they could come up with. Well maybe, but that’s just how it is, so there’s no point in complaining!
From there, 90 is quatre-vingt-onze (four-twenty-eleven), 92 is quatre-vingt-douze (four-twenty-twelve) and so on, all hyphenated.
Remember to pay attention to the pronunciation of French numbers. With the ‘nineties’, the ‘t’ is also not pronounced.
Here are all the French numbers we’ve just covered for reference:
70
Soixante-dix 70
Soixante et onze 71
Soixante-douze 72
Soixante-treize 73
Soixante-quatorze 74
Etc.
80
Quatre vingts 80
Quatre-vingt-un(e) 81
Quatre-vingt-deux 82
Quatre-vingt-trois 83
Etc.
90
Quatre-vingt-dix 90
Quatre-vingt-onze 91
Quatre-vingt-douze 92
Quatre-vingt-treize 93
Etc.
French Numbers Belgium, Switzerland And Canada
The system above is used in France as well as in Canada, but if you’re thinking this way of counting seems a bit contrived, maybe you’re not alone – because French speakers in Belgium and Switzerland don’t use it either!
Instead, they use more sensible words for 70, 80 and 90.
In Belgium, they replace soixante-dix with the much more reasonable septante, and nonante is used instead of quatre-vingt-dix.
French speakers in Switzerland also have octante instead of quatre vingts – although Belgians use the same number for 80 as in France.
However, the system you should learn is the regular/international version we covered above – unless you are living in Switzerland or Belgium where the alternatives are used.
Note that all the other rules apply to these numbers, so it works like this:
Septante 70
Septante et un(e) 71
Septante-deux 72
Etc.
Bigger Numbers
The bigger numbers written in French are simple. Here they are:
Cent
100
Cent un(e)
101
Deux cents
200
Deux cent un(e)
201
Trois cents
300
Trois cent deux
302
Mille
1,000
Deux mille
2,000
Cinq mille huit cent trente-deux
5,832
Un million
1,000,000
Deux millions
2,000,000
Un millard
1,000,000,000
Deux milliards
2,000,000,000
Bigger French numbers
Points to note here are that mille doesn’t take an ‘s’ but million and milliard do – this is because, technically speaking, million and milliard are nouns.
Cent takes an ‘s’ only when not followed by another number – deux cents but deux cent un(e).
Also, there is no un before cent or mille – but it is used with un million and un milllard.
Million and milliard also need de (‘of’) if followed directly by the thing being counted:
Un million de livres (1,000,000 books)
But
Un million cinq cent mille livres (1,500,000 books)
Unlike in English, there is no et after cent, mille, million or milliard:
Cent un (One hundred and one)
Deux mille deux (Two thousand and two)
Etc.
Ordinal Numbers
Ordinal numbers are the numbers like “first”, “second” and “third”. Ordinal numbers in French are very easy – you just add -ième to the cardinal (‘regular’) number. If the cardinal number ends with an ‘e’, you also need to remove that first.
There are just three exceptions – premier (first) (or première because it agrees with the noun it is used with), cinquième (fifth) and neuvième (ninth).
Here are the first ten ordinal French numbers:
Premier/première
First
Deuxième
Second
Troisième
Third
Quatrième
Fourth
Cinquième
Fifth
Sixième
Sixth
Septième
Seventh
Huitième
Eighth
Neuvième
Ninth
Dixième
Tenth
French ordinal numbers
And it’s the same for bigger numbers too:
Centième (Hundredth)
Trois mille quatre cent dix-huitième (3,418th)
Like with English, there are abbreviations for these numbers. You simply add a small ‘e’ next to the number to indicate an ordinal number – or a small ‘er’ (or ‘ère’) for ‘first’:
1er/1ère 1st
2e 2nd
3e 3rd
Etc.
Finally, note that a less common alternative to deuxième is second/seconde.
Fractions And Decimals In French
In French, “a half” is un demi, “a quarter” is un quart and “a third” is un tiers. For other fractions, it’s the same as in English – the number on top of the fraction is said as a cardinal number and the number on the bottom as an ordinal number:
Un huitième 1/8 (An eighth)
Cinq huitièmes 5/8 (Five eighths)
Deux tiers 2/3 (Two thirds)
Note that if the top number is higher than 1, the bottom number is plural, like in English.
Don’t confuse demi with demie. The first means “half” and is attached to what it describes with a hyphen. The second means “half an hour” and is used when expressing “half past the hour”:
Une demi-heure (Half an hour)
Une heure et demie (Half past one)
Deux heures et demie (Half past two)
However, in normal speech, to express half of something, you use la moitié:
La moitié du temps (Half the time)
La moitié d’un gâteau (Half a cake)
“Quarter to” the hour and “quarter past” the hour are expressed as moins le quart and et quart:
Six heures moins le quart (A quarter to six)
Six heures et quart (A quarter past six)
You use a comma – virgule- for decimals in French, rather than a dot:
1,2 Un virgule deux (1.2 One point two)
To separate thousands, you use a space – although before, it was normal to use a dot (so the opposite of English):
1 000 000 1,000,000
The French word for “zero” is the same as English, zéro.
Using French Numbers
Finally, let’s have a look at a couple of examples of when the usage of English numbers to French differs.
Dates
When saying the date, you use the French cardinal number rather than the ordinal number. The exception is for the first of the month, when you use premier:
Le premier juin (the first of June)
Le quatre mai (May 4th)
With dates including the numbers 8 and 11, the le is said separately:
Le huit septembre (The 8th of September)
Le onze septembre (The 11th of September)
For years, you just say the number – you don’t split the number in two, unlike in English:
Mille neuf cent quatre vingts 1980 (we say ‘nineteen eighty)
Deux mille un 2001
Deux mille vingt et un 2021
Telephone Numbers
When saying numbers 1-10 in French on the telephone, the numbers are said in pairs, so the telephone number 12345678 would be spoken like this:
Kings and queens follow the same pattern as dates – premier/première is used for “first”, and after that, you just use the cardinal number. In French, you don’t use le.
Guillaume I Guillaume premier (William I)
Henri VI Henri six (Henry IV)
Not So Hard After All
As you can see, when counting in French, there are a couple of tricky points to remember – but on the whole, it’s still relatively easy to learn French numbers. The best advice is just to try to remember things like 70, 80 and 90 as individual words rather than trying to ‘work them out’ each time you say them.
With numbers, it’s one thing to be able to count when you have time to think, but it’s something else to be able to produce them on the spot. For this reason, I recommend you practise all the numbers in French by creating drills for yourself – and then when you find yourself in a situation where you need them, you will be able to produce them quickly and naturally.
At the same time, you'll also learn how to pronounce numbers in French as as you immerse yourself in French daily, whether that's by reading and listening to a short story in French, listening to French podcasts or watching French movies. Count on numbers coming up as you make contact with the language!
Olly Richards
Creator of the StoryLearning® Method
Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.
Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.
When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.
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