What Are Some of the Larger Numbers in French?

In this lesson we learn how to form some of the larger numbers in French, up to one million.

Watch the video as many times as you need, until you feel you can give the French translations as the video plays!

Now we can see what we’ve learned. Look at the English and see if you can provide the French for these words:

Part 1:

sixty-one	Show soixante-et-un
seventy	Show soixante-dix
seventy-one	Show soixante-et-onze
seventy-two	Show soixante-douze
eighty	Show quatre-vingts

Part 2:

eighty-one	Show quatre-vingt-un
ninety	Show quatre-vingt-dix
ninety-one	Show quatre-vingt-onze
one hundred	Show cent
one hundred and one	Show cent un

Part 3:

one thousand	Show mille
one million	Show un million

Notes on Usage

What Are the Numbers From 61 to 69 in French?

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

sixty-one	soixante-et-un
sixty-two	soixante-deux
sixty-three	soixante-trois
sixty-four	soixante-quatre
sixty-five	soixante-cinq
sixty-six	soixante-six
sixty-seven	soixante-sept
sixty-eight	soixante-huit
sixty-nine	soixante-neuf

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.

seventy	soixante-dix
seventy-one	soixante-et-onze
seventy-two	soixante-douze
seventy-three	soixante-treize
seventy-four	soixante-quatorze
seventy-five	soixante-quinze
seventy-six	soixante-seize
seventy-seven	soixante-dix-sept
seventy-eight	soixante-dix-huit
seventy-nine	soixante-dix-neuf

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:

eighty	quatre-vingts
eighty-one	quatre-vingt-un
eighty-two	quatre-vingt-deux
eighty-three	quatre-vingt-trois
eighty-four	quatre-vingt-quatre
eighty-five	quatre-vingt-cinq
eighty-six	quatre-vingt-six
eighty-seven	quatre-vingt-sept
eighty-eight	quatre-vingt-huit
eighty-nine	quatre-vingt-neuf

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.

ninety	quatre-vingt-dix
ninety-one	quatre-vingt-onze
ninety-two	quatre-vingt-douze
ninety-three	quatre-vingt-treize
ninety-four	quatre-vingt-quatorze
ninety-five	quatre-vingt-quinze
ninety-six	quatre-vingt-seize
ninety-seven	quatre-vingt-dix-sept
ninety-eight	quatre-vingt-dix-huit
ninety-nine	quatre-vingt-dix-neuf

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.

one hundred	cent
one hundred and one	cent un
one hundred and two	cent deux
one hundred and fifty	cent cinquante
one hundred and fifty one	cent cinquante-et-un
two hundred	deux cents
two hundred and one	deux cent un
two hundred and fifty	deux cent cinquante
two hundred and fifty-one	deux cent cinquante-et-un
five hundred	cinq cents

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:

one thousand	mille
one thousand and one	mille un
one thousand and two	mille deux
one thousand one hundred and fifty	mille cent cinquante
one thousand one hundred and fifty one	mille cent cinquante-et-un
two thousand	deux mille
ten thousand	dix mille
one hundred thousand	cent mille
one million people	un million de gens
two million people	deux millions de gens

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.

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