French Vocabulary: Numbers

French numbers are not very difficult to learn: they follow a similar pattern to naming numbers in English.

However, there are a few little quirks to French numbering that you should be aware of.

• 21, 31, 41, etc: numbers like these that end in 1 (excluding 81, probably because it’s so many words already) are said with an et-un at the end, not just un. All the other numbers are just like how we say them in English, such as vingt-trois (twenty-three) not “vingt-et-trois” (twenty-and-three).
• 70: Poor seventy doesn’t get its own word in traditional French (though other French-speaking nations use the word “septante“); instead, it’s called, literally, sixty-ten. From 71-79, the numbers follow this same pattern: soixante-onze for 71, soixante-douze for 72, etc.
• 80-99: Again, the numbers 80 and 90 both get neglected and don’t get their own words in French. 80, quatre-vingts, is literally “four-twenties” and 90, quatre-vingt-dix is “four-twenties-ten.” (Other French-speaking nations may use “huitante” for 80 and “nonante” for 90.)
• Be careful with the numbers for “billion” and “trillion” in French. For American English, where one billion is 1,000,000,000 and one trillion is 1,000,000,000,000, these need to be thought of in reverse: one “billion” is un milliard, and one “trillion” is un billion. (In UK English this is switched around, so the French words make sense if you speak British English. )

0	zéro	22	vingt-deux
1	un	23	vingt-trois
2	deux	24	vingt-quatre
3	trois	25	vingt-cinq
4	quatre	26	vingt-six
5	cinq	27	vingt-sept
6	six	28	vingt-huit
7	sept	29	vingt-neuf
8	huit	30	trente
9	neuf	40	quarante
10	dix	50	cinquante
11	onze	60	soixante
12	douze	70	soixante-dix
13	treize	80	quatre-vingts
14	quatorze	90	quatre-vingts-dix
15	quinze	95	quatre-vingts-quinze
16	seize	100	cent
17	dix-sept	200	deux cent
18	dix-huit	1,000	une mille
19	dix-neuf	1,000,000	un million
20	vingt	1,000,000,000	un milliard
21	vingt-et-un	1,000,000,000,000	un billion