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Romance · France

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L'arithmétique commence à soixante-dix
12 minread
8sections
4 × 20= quatre-vingts
99
quatre-vingt-dix-neuf
00

The big picture

French is regular up to 69, and then the system goes off-script. 70 is built from sixty plus a teen, 80 is literally four-twenties, and 90 is four-twenties plus ten. Everything else flows from those three facts.

i
If you only remember one thing: French numbers above 69 do arithmetic out loud. Quatre-vingt-dix-neuf is 99, parsed as 4 × 20 + 19. Belgium and Switzerland disagree, and we'll get to that.
01

Zero to twenty

Like English, 0–16 are unique words. From 17 onward, French switches to dix-compounds.

0
zéro
1
un / une
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
dix-
17
dix-sept
dix-
18
dix-huit
dix-
19
dix-neuf
20
vingt
02

The tens (20 – 60)

These five are the only "tens" words you'll learn. Soixante (60) is also doing double duty for 70–79 — but that comes later.

20
vingt
30
trente
40
quarante
50
cinquante
60
soixante
03

21 – 69 & the et

Compound tens are hyphenated — vingt-deux, vingt-trois. But when the unit is 1, French slips in et ("and"): vingt et un. This happens at 21, 31, 41, 51, 61 — and one more time at 71, for reasons we'll see in the next section.

et un
21
vingt et un
22
vingt-deux
25
vingt-cinq
29
vingt-neuf
et un
31
trente et un
38
trente-huit
et un
41
quarante et un
47
quarante-sept
et un
51
cinquante et un
56
cinquante-six
et un
61
soixante et un
69
soixante-neuf
!
Two orthographies, both correct. Traditional French writes vingt et un (no hyphens around et); the 1990 spelling reform allows vingt-et-un (fully hyphenated). Either is fine; you'll see both in the wild.
04

70 to 99 — the math

French ran out of "tens" words at 60, so the rest is built by adding. 70 = 60 + a teen. 80 = 4 × 20. 90 = 4 × 20 + a teen. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

70 – 79: soixante + (10 – 19)

60+10
70
soixante-dix
60+11, et
71
soixante et onze
72
soixante-douze
75
soixante-quinze
76
soixante-seize
60+19
79
soixante-dix-neuf

80 – 99: quatre-vingt + (0 – 19)

4×20
80
quatre-vingts
no s
81
quatre-vingt-un
82
quatre-vingt-deux
85
quatre-vingt-cinq
89
quatre-vingt-neuf
4×20+10
90
quatre-vingt-dix
+ onze
91
quatre-vingt-onze
95
quatre-vingt-quinze
99
quatre-vingt-dix-neuf
4 × 20 + 10 + 9
!
The disappearing s. Quatre-vingts (80) takes a final s when it stands alone. The moment another digit follows — quatre-vingt-un, quatre-vingt-dix — the s vanishes. Same rule applies to cent, which you'll meet next.

Why is 71 different?

?
The et rule from section 03 applies anywhere a compound ends in 1 — including 71, where 1 is hiding inside onze (11). So 71 = soixante et onze, but 81 = quatre-vingt-un (no et, because 80 isn't a "tens" word; it's already a product). 91 follows the 81 pattern: quatre-vingt-onze, no et.

Belgium & Switzerland take a shortcut

France · Standard
soixante-dix · quatre-vingts · quatre-vingt-dix
70soixante-dix
80quatre-vingts
90quatre-vingt-dix

The math version. Universal in France; understood everywhere.

Belgium & Switzerland
septante · huitante · nonante
70septante
80huitante (CH only) / quatre-vingts (BE)
90nonante

The Latin-derived forms — what English speakers might guess. Huitante is heard only in parts of Switzerland; Belgium keeps quatre-vingts for 80.

05

Hundreds & thousands

Cent follows the same disappearing-s rule as quatre-vingts: it takes a final s when it stands alone, drops it when another number follows. Mille is invariable — no s, ever.

no un
100
cent
101
cent un
s, alone
200
deux cents
no s
201
deux cent un
243
deux cent quarante-trois
500
cinq cents
800
huit cents
900
neuf cents

Thousands

no s, ever
1 000
mille
2 000
deux mille
10 000
dix mille
10 498
dix mille quatre cent quatre-vingt-dix-huit
1 984
mille neuf cent quatre-vingt-quatre
i
Thousands separator. French writes 1.000 with a space or a period (1 000 / 1.000) and uses a comma for decimals (2,5) — never the English convention. So 1,500 in a French text means one-point-five, not fifteen hundred.
06

Millions & billions

Million and milliard act like nouns, not number-words. They take -s in the plural, and they need de when followed by a noun.

1 M
un million
2 M
deux millions
10⁹
1 B
un milliard
2 B
deux milliards
3 800 107
trois millions huit cent mille cent sept
!
The de bridge. Followed by a noun? Add de: un million de dollars, trois milliards d'étoiles. Followed by more digits? No de: trois millions cinq cent mille.
i
Long-scale Europe. Like Italian, German, and Spanish, French milliard = 10⁹. The cognate billion exists in French but means 10¹² — same false-friend trap as Italian bilione.
07

Things to remember

Five rules that will save you from the most common mistakes.

1.
70 = 60 + a teen. Soixante-dix, soixante et onze, soixante-douze, …, soixante-dix-neuf.
2.
80 = 4 × 20. Vigesimal residue. Quatre-vingts takes an s alone; drops it when followed by a digit: quatre-vingt-un.
3.
et before un at 21, 31, 41, 51, 61, 71. Not at 81 or 91 (those are quatre-vingt-un, quatre-vingt-onze).
4.
Disappearing s. Cent and vingt (in quatre-vingts) take s when standing alone, drop it when followed by another digit. Mille never takes s.
5.
Belgium & Switzerland talk straight. Septante, nonante (and Swiss huitante) replace the French math. Use them outside France; everyone understands either form.
Drill it

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