French Number translation

French number translation – don’t let those numbers flummox you when you have to spell them, for instance writing a cheque in France or filling in forms.

The table below that gives you the numbers in English, French and advises how to pronounce them.

KEY POINTS

Numbers 20-69

Tens and units are joined with a hyphen. So, 22 = vingt-deux, 45 = quarante-cinq etc. If the unit is a 1, then the word et is inserted between tens and units: 21 = vingt et un, 31 = trente et un etc.

Numbers 70-79

Number  70 is basically 60+10 = soixante-dix, 71 = soixante et onze, 72 = soixante-douze, 73 = soixante-treize etc. Notice the et in 71 which mirrors the behaviour of 21, 31 etc.

Numbers 80-99

Number eighty is four twenties = quatre-vingts. Numbers 81-99 consist of quatre-vingt- (minus the -s) plus a number 1-19: 81 = quatre-vingt-un, 82 = quatre-vingt-deux,

Number  90 is basically four twenties and ten = quatre-vingt-dix, 91 = quatre-vingt-onze etc.

Hundreds

The French for ‘(a) hundred’ is cent.  Multiples of a hundred are deux cents, trois cents etc with an -s on cents.

If the number is not an exact multiple of 100, then the number representing the last two digits follows cent, which loses its -s: 101 = cent un, 201 = deux cent un, 202 = deux cent deux etc. Notice that in French there is no word for ‘and’ between the hundreds and the tens/units, unlike in English, and that “a hundred” is just cent, not un cent.

Thousands

The French for ‘(a) thousand’ is mille. This word never adds an -s, and there is never a word for ‘and’ between the thousands and the hundreds/tens/units. So: 1000 = mille, 2000 = deux mille, 2001 = deux mille un, 3079 = trois mille soixante-dix-neuf.

Millions, billions etc

The French for ‘million’ is million; ‘a million’ translates literally as un million. After the million comes the remainder of the number without any intervening word for ‘and’: 1000650 = un million six cent cinquante, 4008000 = quatre millions huit mille. Note that millions does take an  ‘s’ in the plural. When followed by a noun, numbers like million must be used with the preposition de. So the French for ‘a million people’ is un million de personnes; the French for ‘three and a half million animals’ is trois millions cinq cent mille d’animaux.

Billion and trillion behave the same way to million: they behave more like nouns, in that they are preceded by un or take a plural ‘s’, and are followed by de … when used with a following noun.

Billion in French is milliard

Trillion in French is billion

Useful vocabulary – French numbers in words