A Guide to All Numbers from Twenty to One Million in French

What Are the Numbers From 21 to 29 in French?

All these numbers use the base number for twenty – vingt – plus the numerals from one to nine. You’ll notice is that twenty-one is ‘twenty-and-one’ in French (emphasized in the table below). The others do not use et in their formation, so the numbers from twenty to twenty-nine run like this:

What Are the Numbers From 30 to 39 in French?

These follow the same format as the numbers in the twenties, with ‘thirty-one’ requiring the linking word et. The numbers therefore are:

What Are the Numbers From 40 to 49 in French?

The numbers forty to forty-nine follow the same pattern as the numbers in the twenties and thirties.

What Are the Numbers From 50 to 59 in French?

Here we have the same pattern again, so the numbers in the fifties run as follows:

What Are the Numbers From 60 to 69 in French?

Here are all the numbers from sixty to sixty-nine:

What Are the Numbers From 70 to 79 in French?

From seventy onwards, counting in French becomes a bit more interesting. Traditionally, the number would have been septante and then the subsequent numbers would have been formed in the same way as the previous examples that we have just seen – and, indeed, you may hear such numbers using septante in Belgium or French-speaking Switzerland.

However, in France, it became customary from around the eighteenth century onwards to refer to seventy as soixante-dix – ‘sixty-ten!’

After that, we have ‘sixty-eleven,’ ‘sixty-twelve’ and so on. Note that you still need the linking word et for seventy-one, as highlighted in the table below.

What Are the Numbers From 80 to 89 in French?

When we reach eighty, we use the base quatre-vingt to continue counting. This is the equivalent of ‘four twenties.’ Historically, counting in batches of twenty was common – this used to be referred to as a ‘score’ in English and you may be familiar with the archaic English phrase ‘four-score.’

There are a couple of pitfalls to avoid in the numbers from 80 to 89 in French. For example, note that 80 adds an ‘-s’ to the end to make quatre-vingts, but the numbers after that do not, they revert back to quatre-vingt.

Also, there is no linking word et for eighty-one.

The numbers from 80 to 89 therefore run as follows, with the aspects to watch out for highlighted:

What Are the Numbers From 90 to 99 in French?

Just as we saw for the numbers in the seventies, all based off of sixty, similarly the numbers from 90 to 99 use the base for eighty and then add ten, eleven, twelve and so on. So ninety is literally ‘four-twenties-ten,’ ninety-one is ‘four-twenties-eleven’ and so on, up to to ninety-nine.

Note that the linking word et is not used for ninety-one.

Again, you may occasionally hear an alternative word, in this case nonante, used in French-speaking areas outside France.

How To Count in the Hundreds in French

In English, we say ‘one hundred,’ followed by ‘one hundred and one,’ and so on. You do not need to say ‘one’ or ‘and’ in the French equivalents. ‘One hundred’ is simply cent and ‘one hundred and one’ is cent un.

How To Count in the Thousands and Millions in French

The French for ‘one thousand’ or ‘a thousand’ is simply mille. It is invariable, so it never changes its form.

‘One million,’ on the other hand, must be preceded with un and followed by de. It will take an ‘-s’ in the plural, as highlighted:

The best way to learn the conventions for writing numbers in French is to practise recognizing them and writing them as much as possible. Try our quizzes to help commit the numbers and rules governing their spellings to memory.

Where Did These ‘Unusual’ Forms Come from?

You may be wondering why the counting system in French is so different, and what caused this to be the case. If so, we delve into the reasons in a bit more depth in this article. When you know the history, it becomes slightly (slightly!) more understandable!

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