A1
Numbers, and what happens after sixty
How French numbers work, the additions and multiplications above sixty, and the Belgian and Swiss forms that avoid them.
Up to sixty, French numbers behave.
| 1–10 | un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix |
| 20, 30, 40 | vingt, trente, quarante |
| 50, 60 | cinquante, soixante |
Then it turns into sums
There is no word for seventy, eighty or ninety.
| 70 | soixante-dix — sixty-ten |
| 71 | soixante et onze — sixty and eleven |
| 80 | quatre-vingts — four twenties |
| 90 | quatre-vingt-dix — four twenties ten |
| 99 | quatre-vingt-dix-neuf — four twenties nineteen |
Elle a quatre-vingt-treize ans.
she has four-twenty-thirteen years
She’s ninety-three.
This is a genuine listening problem rather than a curiosity. Hearing quatre-vingt and starting to write 80 leaves you wrong for the next two syllables, and phone numbers are read in pairs precisely this way.
Belgium and Switzerland fixed it
They use septante (70) and nonante (90), and Switzerland adds huitante (80). These are not slang — they are standard there, and worth recognising.
The s on quatre-vingts
Quatre-vingts takes an -s when it stands alone, and loses it when another number follows: quatre-vingts but quatre-vingt-un. The same applies to cent: deux cents but deux cent cinq.
un agrees
Un is the only number with a feminine form.
vingt et une pommes
twenty and one (f.) apples
twenty-one apples
vingt et un pommes
vingt et une pommes
Pomme is feminine, so un becomes une. No other number changes — deux pommes, trois pommes.