You’re in Paris and want to order 53 baguettes when suddenly you realize you don’t know how to say “53.” What a horrible faux pas! You’ll have to order only trois, because that’s the only one of the French numbers you remember. Yes, that’s probably not something that’ll actually happen, but numbers do come up a lot in regular life. You’ll definitely want to learn the numbers up to at least a hundred before you make your trip to a French-speaking country. Here’s a quick guide to French numbers up to 100, which should help you along.
We could just list all of the French numbers 1 to 100, but that wouldn’t explain the logic behind it. So instead, we’ll start with the numbers you need to know, and then show you how to put it all together.
Counting From Zero To Twenty In French
Why count to twenty instead of ten? Well, like many languages, the teens work differently. In English, for example, “eleven” would technically make more sense if it was called “ten-one” to mirror “twenty-one.” With French numbers, a similar thing happens.
zero — zéro
one — un
two — deux
three — trois
four — quatre
five — cinq
six — six
seven — sept
eight — huit
nine — neuf
ten — dix
eleven — onze
twelve — douze
thirteen — treize
fourteen — quatorze
fifteen — quinze
sixteen — seize
seventeen — dix-sept
eighteen — dix-huit
nineteen — dix-neuf
twenty — vingt
The Rest Of The Tens
thirty — trente
forty — quarante
fifty — cinquante
sixty — soixante
seventy — soixante-dix
eighty — quatre-vingt
ninety — quatre-vingt-dix
one hundred — cent
French Numbers: Putting It All Together
French numbers can be a little tricky for English speakers. Up until 69, it progresses pretty normally. The number 32 is trente-deux, which is similar to the English fifty-seven. There is one exception before 69 which is that when there’s a “one,” or an un, you can attach it as et un or -et-un. Because of that, twenty-one is vingt et un or vingt-et-un.
Once you get into the 70s, it’s a little trickier. Seventy is soixante-dix, which literally translates as “sixty-ten.” Then it continues to soixante-onze “sixty-eleven” all the way up to 80. Then it transforms once again, because 80 is quatre-vingt, or “four-twenties.” Then it continues with quatre-vingt-un (81), quatre-vingt-deux (82) and on and on. Then 90 rounds it out as quatre-vingt-dix, or “four-twenty-ten.” Like the 70s, this goes through the teens like quatre-vingt-onze (“four-twenty-eleven”) until finally you reach 100, cent.
This can sound like a lot of rules, but there’s method to the madness. It’ll take some getting used to, but soon French numbers will be as easy as un, deux, trois.