Learn French: Nous en avons exactement quatre-vingts.

In French, object pronouns like en must be placed directly before the verb they modify. Even though we say 'eighty of them' at the end of the sentence in English, the French structure is more like 'We of them have exactly eighty.'

If I just wanted to say 'We have exactly eighty', do I still need to use en?

Yes! In English, we can often drop 'of them' and just say 'We have eighty.' But in French, you cannot leave a number or quantity hanging by itself. If you don't name the object you are counting in the sentence, you absolutely must use en to represent it.

Why is there an 's' at the end of quatre-vingts?

The French word for eighty literally translates to 'four twenties' (quatre + vingts). Because there are multiple twenties, vingt takes a plural -s. Just keep in mind that it drops this -s if another number comes right after it, like in 81 (quatre-vingt-un).

Are there any liaisons (linking sounds) between the first three words?

Yes, there are two important liaisons here! The -s in Nous links to en with a 'Z' sound, and the -n in en links to avons with an 'N' sound. When spoken, Nous en avons flows together smoothly as one continuous phrase.