The French number system is, for the most part, straightforward — until you hit the seventies. From 70 to 99, France-French does something no other major Romance language does: it builds numbers by addition and multiplication on top of soixante (sixty) and quatre-vingts (eighty, literally "four-twenties"). The rest of the system is regular, but this one stretch of the number line is the single most famous oddity of European arithmetic, and the part you'll spend the most time getting right.
This page gives you the whole landscape: what cardinals and ordinals look like, the tricky middle band, how French writes prices and dates, and how the regional variants in Belgium and Switzerland sidestep the worst of the irregularities.
Cardinals: counting things
Cardinal numbers (one, two, three…) are the everyday counters. Full inventory on numbers/cardinal; here's the shape.
| Number | French |
|---|---|
| 0 | zéro |
| 1 | un / une |
| 2 | deux |
| 3 | trois |
| 10 | dix |
| 20 | vingt |
| 30 | trente |
| 60 | soixante |
| 70 | soixante-dix |
| 80 | quatre-vingts |
| 90 | quatre-vingt-dix |
| 100 | cent |
| 1 000 | mille |
| 1 000 000 | un million |
J'ai trois enfants : deux filles et un garçon.
I have three children: two girls and a boy.
Elle a soixante-dix-huit ans aujourd'hui.
She turns seventy-eight today.
The two big quirks to flag immediately:
- One has two forms: un (masculine) and une (feminine), and they agree with the noun being counted. Un livre, une table, trente-et-une pommes. Every other cardinal is invariable for gender.
- Hundred and thousand behave differently. Cent agrees in number in some configurations (deux cents with -s, but deux cent un with no -s). Mille is invariable. Million and milliard are actually nouns and require de before the counted noun (un million de personnes). Details on numbers/large-numbers.
The 70/80/90 problem
Here is the part that every French learner remembers. From 1 to 69, French is regular and similar to other Romance languages. Starting at 70, the system shifts to a base-20 (vigesimal) logic inherited from older French and Celtic counting.
| Number | France French | Literal meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 69 | soixante-neuf | sixty-nine |
| 70 | soixante-dix | sixty-ten |
| 71 | soixante-et-onze | sixty-and-eleven |
| 75 | soixante-quinze | sixty-fifteen |
| 79 | soixante-dix-neuf | sixty-nineteen |
| 80 | quatre-vingts | four-twenties |
| 81 | quatre-vingt-un | four-twenty-one |
| 90 | quatre-vingt-dix | four-twenty-ten |
| 91 | quatre-vingt-onze | four-twenty-eleven |
| 99 | quatre-vingt-dix-neuf | four-twenty-nineteen |
Mon grand-père a quatre-vingt-dix-sept ans.
My grandfather is ninety-seven.
Le billet coûte soixante-quinze euros.
The ticket costs seventy-five euros.
So 97 is, literally, "four-twenties-ten-seven" (4 × 20 + 10 + 7). To a Spanish or Italian speaker — even to an English speaker, after a moment's thought — this is genuinely strange. The grammatical historian's explanation is that medieval French used base-20 for counting things like livestock and currency (a system shared with Basque, Welsh, and old Danish), and the upper bands of the number line preserved it long after the rest of the language moved to base-10.
Belgian and Swiss French sidestep the vigesimal mess
Speakers in Belgium, Switzerland, and parts of eastern France (the Lorraine region) and western Switzerland use a more regular set of forms. These are not slang — they are the standard local forms taught in schools, used in administration, and printed in dictionaries.
| Number | France French | Belgium / Switzerland |
|---|---|---|
| 70 | soixante-dix | septante |
| 71 | soixante-et-onze | septante-et-un |
| 80 | quatre-vingts | quatre-vingts (Belgium); huitante / octante (Switzerland, regional) |
| 90 | quatre-vingt-dix | nonante |
| 97 | quatre-vingt-dix-sept | nonante-sept |
Il habite à Bruxelles depuis nonante ans.
He's lived in Brussels for ninety years. (Belgian usage.)
Le prof a septante élèves cette année.
The professor has seventy students this year. (Belgian/Swiss usage.)
Note that Belgium kept quatre-vingts for 80; only the 70s and 90s are different there. Switzerland goes further: huitante is standard in the cantons of Vaud, Valais, and Fribourg; the older octante is found in some texts but is now archaic. Quebec uses the France-French forms (soixante-dix, quatre-vingts, quatre-vingt-dix) like metropolitan France.
Ordinals: ranking things
Ordinals (first, second, third…) are mostly formed by adding -ième to the cardinal. The first three need attention; after that, the pattern is mechanical. Full detail on numbers/ordinal.
| Rank | French |
|---|---|
| 1st | premier (m.) / première (f.) |
| 2nd | deuxième / second(e) |
| 3rd | troisième |
| 4th | quatrième |
| 5th | cinquième |
| 9th | neuvième |
| 21st | vingt-et-unième |
| 100th | centième |
C'est la première fois que je viens à Lyon.
It's the first time I've come to Lyon.
Elle a fini troisième au marathon.
She finished third in the marathon.
Two things to know up front: premier and second are the only ordinals that agree in gender (premier / première; second / seconde). All the others — deuxième, troisième, quatrième — are invariable. And abbreviations in French are 1er (for premier), 1re (for première), and 2e, 3e, 4e for the rest — never 2nd, 3rd, 4th as in English.
Decimals and large numbers: the comma
French uses a comma where English uses a period for decimals. This is the same convention as the rest of continental Europe.
| Numeric | French reading | English equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| 3,14 | trois virgule quatorze | 3.14 (three point one four) |
| 0,5 | zéro virgule cinq | 0.5 (zero point five) |
| 2,50 € | deux euros cinquante | €2.50 |
Pi vaut environ trois virgule quatorze.
Pi is approximately 3.14.
Une baguette coûte un euro cinquante.
A baguette costs €1.50.
For the thousands separator, French traditionally uses a non-breaking space (or no separator at all in informal writing). Periods are sometimes used but are not the modern recommendation.
| Numeric | French convention | English convention |
|---|---|---|
| 1 000 | 1 000 (space) | 1,000 (comma) |
| 1 000 000 | 1 000 000 | 1,000,000 |
| 1 234,56 | 1 234,56 | 1,234.56 |
La population de la ville est de 1 250 000 habitants.
The city's population is 1,250,000 inhabitants. (Space as thousands separator, no comma.)
This convention reverses the English reading completely: a French reader sees 1,250 as one point two-five (1.25), not as one thousand two hundred fifty. A misplaced separator can multiply a number by a thousand. Full treatment on numbers/decimal-comma.
Numbers in context: dates, time, prices, percentages
French numbers appear in a few specific contexts that each have their own conventions:
- Dates: cardinal numbers throughout, except for the first of the month, which is le premier. Le 1er janvier (the first of January), but le 2 janvier, le 3 janvier, le 25 janvier. No ordinals for any other date. Detailed on numbers/dates-and-time.
- Time: 24-hour clock is standard in writing and official contexts. Le train part à 14 h 30 (the train leaves at 2:30 PM). In speech, both 12- and 24-hour forms are common.
- Prices: euros with the comma decimal, sign typically after the number. 3,50 €, read trois euros cinquante. See numbers/prices-and-money.
- Percentages: cinquante pour cent (50%). The symbol % is preceded by a space in French typography: 50 %. See numbers/percentages-fractions.
Le rendez-vous est le premier mars à 14 h 30.
The appointment is on March 1 at 2:30 PM.
J'ai eu 75 % à mon examen.
I got 75% on my exam.
Source-language comparison
For English speakers, the headline differences are:
- 70, 80, 90 are not single words in standard French — they are composed of additions and multiplications. Quatre-vingt-dix-neuf is one number, but five elements. This requires a different mental parsing speed: when someone says quatre-vingt-treize, you can't decode it until the last syllable.
- Belgian and Swiss French regularize this with septante, nonante, huitante. If you've only learned France-French, your first conversation with a Belgian will sound oddly tidy in this register.
- The decimal comma is non-negotiable. Writing 3.14 in a French context is a spelling mistake comparable to using the wrong currency symbol. The thousands space is more flexible — many informal writers omit it altogether.
- First-of-the-month uses an ordinal, every other date a cardinal. Le premier janvier, le deux janvier, le trois janvier. English uses ordinals for every date in formal style; French uses one ordinal and then switches to cardinals.
Common Mistakes
❌ J'ai septante euros dans mon portefeuille.
Confusing for a French (France) audience — septante is standard in Belgium/Switzerland but not understood as the norm in Paris or Marseille. (Acceptable, but mark the variety.)
✅ J'ai soixante-dix euros dans mon portefeuille.
I have seventy euros in my wallet. (Standard France French.)
❌ La baguette coûte 1.50 euros.
Incorrect punctuation — French uses a comma for decimals. (Also: 'euros' goes after the symbol in standard French price notation.)
✅ La baguette coûte 1,50 €.
The baguette costs €1.50.
❌ Le 1 janvier, je suis allé à Paris.
Incorrect — the first of the month takes the ordinal 'premier', not the cardinal 'un'.
✅ Le 1er janvier, je suis allé à Paris.
On January 1, I went to Paris.
❌ Il a un million amis sur Instagram.
Incorrect — 'million' is a noun and requires 'de' before the counted noun.
✅ Il a un million d'amis sur Instagram.
He has a million friends on Instagram.
❌ La 2nd fois que je le vois.
Incorrect — French ordinal abbreviations don't follow the English pattern. Use 2e (or 2de for 'seconde').
✅ La 2e fois que je le vois.
The second time I see him.
Key takeaways
- French cardinals 1–69 are regular; 70 (soixante-dix), 80 (quatre-vingts), 90 (quatre-vingt-dix) are built by addition and multiplication on a vigesimal base.
- Belgium uses septante and nonante; Switzerland adds huitante; France and Quebec keep the vigesimal forms.
- One has gender (un / une); other cardinals don't. Ordinal premier/première and second/seconde agree in gender; other ordinals don't.
- The first of the month takes the ordinal premier; every other date takes a cardinal.
- French uses the comma for decimals and the space for thousands. The English-style 3.14 is a spelling mistake in French.
- Million and milliard are nouns; they require de before the counted noun.
- Ordinal abbreviations: 1er, 1re, 2e, 3e — never 1st, 2nd, 3rd.
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Start learning French→Related Topics
- Les Nombres CardinauxA1 — French cardinal numbers from zero to a billion: the regular 1-69, the vigesimal 70-99, the agreement rules on cent and vingt, the noun-like behavior of million and milliard, and the hyphenation rules under both traditional and reformed spelling.
- Les Nombres OrdinauxA2 — French ordinal numbers: premier/première (the only gender-marked ordinal), the -ième suffix and its spelling tweaks (cinquième with u, neuvième with v), deuxième vs second, the abbreviations 1er/1re/2e, and where French uses cardinals where English uses ordinals.
- Les Prix et l'ArgentA1 — How to read, say, and ask about prices in French — euros and centimes, the comma decimal, the way native speakers actually pronounce €12,50 at the till, and the polite formulas that keep a transaction smooth.
- La Virgule DécimaleA2 — Why French writes 3,14 where English writes 3.14 — the decimal comma, the thousands separator (a space, not a comma), how to read decimals out loud, and the small typographic differences that quietly cause large misunderstandings on invoices, recipes, and spreadsheets.
- Pourcentages et FractionsB1 — How French expresses percentages and fractions — pour cent with its mandatory space, the fraction nouns (demi, tiers, quart), agreement with verbs after percentage subjects, the difference between un demi and la moitié, and the gender quirks of demi(e) pre- and post-nominal.
- Dates et HeuresA1 — How French expresses dates and the time of day — the day-month-year order, lowercase days and months, le premier vs cardinal numbers, the 24-hour clock that dominates schedules, and the et quart / et demie / moins le quart phrasing that everyone uses in conversation.
- Les Grands NombresB1 — How French builds and pronounces large numbers — the agreement rules of cent (sometimes -s, sometimes not), the stubborn invariability of mille, the noun-status of million and milliard, the absence of 'and' in compound numbers, and the long-scale billion that quietly differs from English.