Lesson Transcript

Hey, guys! It's Pierre from France. Welcome back for more videos on French learning. Today's lesson will be about “French numbers” les nombres en Français in French. So French numbers are infamous for being really really complicated and I have to admit that this is quite true. But with this lesson, you will know all the details and you will know everything you have to know about numbers in French and they will not be as difficult as you may think.
So first, on the whiteboard, you’ll see all the figures between 0 and 99 and I will explain how you can say all those numbers in French. So on this table, you will see blue numbers and black numbers. Blue numbers are numbers that you have to remember and black numbers are just compositions of blue numbers. So if you remember all the blue words, you will be able to say all the black ones if you know the logic behind the black ones.
So let's get started with the first ones, the units. This is quite easy. Like in a lot of languages, you have to remember all that by heart so let's get started with “0”. It's the same in English but you have to say zero, zero, zero in French.
So this is the first one and “1” is un. This is quite hard to say for a non-native French speaker but this U-N, you say it, un. This is quite hard. Don't worry if you cannot do it. As long as we can understand you, I'm always saying that, but as long as we can understand you, it's definitely okay. Try to do something that looks like an un and as long as we can understand you, it's fine so un.
The next one is deux. So here, you see there is an X and you don't have to say it, but there is a liaison in some cases. If you have a vowel after deux like deux oiseaux “two birds” deux oiseaux, you have to do the liaison with the X. Be careful with that. If you have troubles with the liaison, you can see one of the other videos I made so deux.
Next one is trois. Here again, you have to do the liaison if there is a vowel. Again “three birds” trois oiseau, but usually alone, you just say trois. So you don't say the S, trois, except if after that there is a vowel. But anyway, trois...zero, un, deux, trois.
Next one is quatre “4” quatre.
Then you have cinq “5” cinq. So here, you say everything.
This one six is like in English, but in French, you have to say six. This is quite unusual in French, but here, the X is like an S, six. So be careful here, there is no liaison that you have to do. It’s just the X you have to say S, six. So be careful with that, six. Okay, you're good? Okay.
Next one, “7” is sept. This one is a little tricky with the spelling because here there is a P and this P, you don't say it like not at all, only the T. So you have to say sept.
The next one is huit. So here like silent H and huit.
The last one is neuf.
So you know all the units so far. So I'm going to say them once again… zero, un, deux, tris quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, okay. So now you know all the ten first numbers if we include zero. So try to repeat that by yourself and that would be a good practice and you will remember it. You need to get your tongue used to those words so don't hesitate to repeat those words in front of your computer. It's really useful for a good training.
So this was quite easy. The second part is a bit more tricky, but still not that complicated. So from 10 to 19, you have new words that you have to remember and to be exact, it's only until “16” seize.
So here, when you want to say “10”, you say dix and as you can see or as you can hear, dix, again there is an X like 6 but I said S, dix so this one, six, dix. So you have to remember that with I-X in numbers like six, dix, it’s always an S, dix so be careful with that.
The next one, “11” onze. So here, this is sort of a transformation of un, onze, un, onze. If you have trouble to remember, you can still see some similarities between this and that, but it's better to learn by heart so onze.
Next one is douze. So here, you can see it looks like a bit like deux, but still different, but what is hard is sometimes with du, when you do the liaison like deux oiseaux, it looks like douze. So I'm going to say 12 birds and 2 birds and try to catch the difference - deux oiseaux, douze oiseaux; deux oiseaux, douze oiseaux. Can you catch the difference. It's quite hard, but you will learn with practice, but don't hesitate to repeat again what I just said. I'm going to say it once again - deux oiseaux, douze oiseaux. This is quite hard when you're not a native speaker so be careful with that. If there is no liaison, duex, douze, okay, you can catch the difference, but if there is the liaison, be careful.
So next one is treize. So here again, there is a T-R which is kind of the 3 mark so treize.
Next one is quatorze. So here, there is the quat. This is kind of Q-U, Q-U-A-T mark, quatorze. As you can see there, is always this Z-E at the end of those figures, those numbers.
So next one is quinze. Again, this is more tricky, but you can still think of the Q, but don't mistake with that so yeah. Be careful with that, quinze.
The last one of this series is “16” which is seize. So here, the S and the S, but be careful not to confuse with the 7, so yeah, seize.
I'm going to say them once again so dix, onze, douze, treize, quatorze, quinze, seize, okay. So you've got all the figures, all the numbers from 10 to 16, but then, here, it's a bit different.
For 17, you have to say dix-sept. So here as you can see, there is this dix “10” dix and “7” sept. If you add up 10 and 7, you get 17. This is kind of logical, but harder than in other languages, “17” dix-sept. So usually when you speak French, because here there is the dix, the X that you have to say S and there is also the S here so usually you just say once the S because it would be too hard to say both, dix-sept. You can say that, but it's better and faster and easier to say dix-sept. So as you can see, I'm just saying dix-sept. I'm saying the S only once, okay? So try again to repeat those numbers. That would be a good practice for you. So dix-sept, 10+7, dis-sept. Don't forget to add the dash here. It's really important and when you compound, you do composition with numbers, you always have to add the dash so be careful with that, dix-sept.
Next one is dix-huit. Again same logic, 10+8, dix-huit. So usually, sometimes, it's a bit like a /z/, a /z/ sound, dix-huit. Can you catch the difference? If you just say dix and huit, you hear dix-huit, but as it is easier and faster in French, usually we say dix-huit. So the the /s/ sound of the dix here becomes a /z/ sound, dix-huit.
The next one is 19. So here no tricks, dix-neuf. It’s like you say this and that, dix-neuf.
So you say dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf. Here, dix-sept, remember it’s S, just one S. Here, dix-huit so it’s like a /z/ sound here, dix-huit. The next one is dix-neuf. So here, same situation, you can say a /z/ sound instead of the /s/, but it's okay if you don't say it. It’s just easier and faster and that's what French people say a lot.
So let's sum it up. Here, you just say S, dix-sept, just like if it was only one S. Here, you can say dix-huit and here, dix-neuf, dix-huit, dix-neuf, but don't be surprised if you see here some sort of a /z/ sound, dix-neuf, dix-huit, dix-neuf, dix-huit. So with an S, dix-huit. So here, be careful. Maybe you cannot catch the difference but it's okay. It's good to know that you can hear some difference in the pronunciation, but be careful.
So this was from 10 to 19. As you can see, from 10 to 16 new words that you need to remember. Here, you just need to do some additions. So with 10 and 7, 8, 9, sept, huit, neuf.
So let's move on to the next one and it's still not that hard. You need to remember those numbers, vingt, trente, quarante, cinquante, soixante. So it’s like 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60. So this is kind of easy. You need to remember those figures. So again, you can see some similarity between the figures so here T-R, T-R, trente, but don't be confused with treize. It’s trente. Here again, quarante. Here, really easy, you can see “5” cinq, you can see exactly the same, cinq, cinquante. Here like the S and the I-X which is kind of close to the 6, six in French, six.
If you're sometimes confused with the first tens digit, just remember that for those ones, it's always with -ze at the end, and for those ones, it's always with -ente at the end, even though here, it's an E and here it’s an A, it’s always the same pronunciation, -ente except for 20. But remember that when it's -ente, it means like it's a multiple of 10. So trente, quarante, cinquante, soixante.
So you know how to say those figures, but maybe you want to say 21, 22, 33 and those types. So here are the rules for that. It's quite easy. Again, you just add up numbers. It's like in English. There is just one little rule that you need to remember. This little rule is with 1, you have to add this keyword et, it’s like “and” in English. So vingt-et-un. So here, some specificities of that, vingt. When you say vingt, this is silent G-T, you don’t say it, just vin. It's like the drink, vin. It's like “wine” in French, vin. But here, if you want to say 21, you add et because you do the addition 20 + 1, but since it's a 1, in French, you have to say this “and”. so just remember that. Here, you've got the dashes again, but as you can see here, there is a T and here there is an E so T, silent T + vowel, this is a case of a liaison, so you have to say vingt-et-un. So here, this T is not silent and you have to repeat it, vingt-et-un. Here, remember in the lesson about liaison, we said that you never do the liaison with the et and here it's et so you don't do the liaison, vingt-et-un.
So this is the same for all those ones so trente-et-un. It’s not written here but for 41, you say quarante-et-un, then cinquante-et-un, soixante-et-un. Soixante-et-un, quarante-et-un, cinquante-et-un.
So here, you have always the et that you have to say. But, it's only with the 1. For the others, it's really easy. You just say one of those and then you add the unit. So for example “45”, you just say quarante-cinq, “40” quarante and “5” cinq, quite easy for now. So you can say that for all the numbers here. So let's get to the last one of this series, soixante-neuf “69” soixante-neuf. So just put the “60” here, soixante and neuf, soixante-neuf, quite easy.
So to sum it up for this part, you learned 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 - vingt, trente, quarante, cinquante, soixante. Then, you just add the unit, except in one situation, if you want to add a 1, you need to add the et. So here, it's like you learned this word like for 20. If X is a 2 or 6 or 5 or 4 or 3, here, you use vingt and 1 and you add this et and for the other ones, you just use one of those and you add the unit. So for 22, 23 until 29 and again the same for those ones. So quite easy. A new word to learn and then you add up except for 1 where you add the et.
Okay, how do you find French numbers so far? It's not that hard right? You just remember that and it's okay. You just do addition except for this situation that you have to do the addition for those three numbers; dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf. It's not that hard, but this is where it starts to be more tricky in French.
So let's move on to the next section from 70 to 79. This is kind of weird. Here for 70, you have to say soixante-dix which is the addition of soixante and dix, 60 + 10. So as you can see like this and this, soixante-dix. So here, it's like you take this here, you use the soixante and you add up all the numbers so soixante; soixante-et-un, soixante-deux, soixante-trois, soixante-quatre, soixante-cinq, soixante-six, soixante-sept, soixante-huit, soixante-neuf and then you keep doing that, soixante-dix and then you do the same, soixante-et-onze. Here again, there is the 1 so you have to add the et, soixante-et-onze, soixante-douze, soixante-treize, soixante-quatorze, soixante-quinze, soixante-seize, soixante-dix-sept, soixante-dix-huit, soixante-dix-neuf. So here for this one, you have to keep counting until dix-neuf, until “19”. So here, you add up just from 1 to 9, but for soixante, you need to add up until 19. So soixante-dix, soixante-et-onze, soixante-douze, soixante-treize, soixante-quatorze, soixante-quinze, soixante-seize, soixante-dix-sept, soixante-dix-huit, soixante-dix-neuf, okay. So kind of weird because we didn't stop… we stopped at 9 here and here, you have to stop at 19. Then if you remember, here it's already an addition, 10 + 9, so here when you say soixante-dix-neuf, it’s like an addition of 60, 10 and 9. It's kind of weird, but for French people when you learn that at school, you just don't ask question. You're just learning that by heart so you're just used to it. But if you think of the logic behind, it's kind of weird even for me. So just remember that for this one, you need to add up 10, 11, until 19, until dix-neuf.
The next one is completely crazy, quatre-vingts “80”. We don’t have a word to say 80. What we say, we say quatre-vingts which is 4 x 20, 4 x 20 = 80, but in French, just say 4 - 20, quatre-vingts. Quatre so here quatre, vingt so here vingt. Why? I don't know. You just need to remember that, quatre-vingts. Try to repeat again your numbers so quatre-vingts. Here, it’s like 4 x 20. Try to repeat it, quatre-vingts.
Here, you can see that there is in red this S because again, French is kind of annoying, I know, I'm sorry for that, but there is this plural here. You do 4 x 20 and if you do 4 x 20, you need to add an S because they are not just one vingt but four vingts, four 20. It’s like four 20s so you have to add the S, but what is again tricky is that's the only case where you add the S because if you move on to the next one because then, if you remember quatre-vingts, you just need to add numbers again. So here quatre-vingt-un so you take this quatre-vingt and you add 1. But here if there is a dash after vingts, you just get rid of the S so the S is only for this case when you say quatre-vingts, when you say 80. It’s just here that you have to put the S then there is no S. There is no logic behind it. I'm so sorry for you guys because it's really difficult to learn, but if you get used to it, that's going to be fine. So quatre-vingt-un. So here, you do 4 x 20 + 1, quatre-vingts, quatre-vingt-un.
As you can see here, there is no et. In this specific situation with quatre-vingts, there is nothing that you have to add and here, there is no liaison that you have to do with the T. Quatre-vingts is kind of really annoying so quatre-vingts is like a unique word. There is no S if you add something after that and you never do the liaison with this specific quatre-vingts. But here, you have to add the et and you have to do the liaison, but not here, quatre-vingts. Just remember that it's like some sort of isolated word, but there is still the dash.
So let's move on to the next ones. I guess you can say, if you know the logic, you understood the logic so you can try it by yourself. Just try by yourself before I try to say it. So the next one is 82 so quatre-vingt-deux. Quatre, vingts so 4 x 20, quatre-vingts...deux, quatre-vingt-deux and you do that so on and so on until quatre-vingt-neuf, quatre-vingt-neuf so 9. But again here, in fact you don’t stop until 9. You keep going until 19. So here, it's like here with the soixante where you say soixante-dix. Here, you say quatre-vingt-dix. It’s like 4 x 20 + 10. Quatre-vingt-dix, quatre-vingt-onze, quatre-vingt-douze, quatre-vingt-treize, quatre-vingt-quatorze, quatre-vingt-quinze, quatre-vingt-seize, quatre-vingt-dix-sept, quatre-vingt-dix-huit, quatre-vingt-dix-neuf. The last one is like completely crazy. You say quatre-vingt-dix-neuf which is like 4 x 20 + 10 + 9 = 99, kind of weird.
But if you have trouble with that like the math, we don't care about the math here. Just remember that quatre-vingts is like the way you say 80. You don’t care like it's 4 x 20. You just remember that it's quatre-vingts.
Then when you understand this quatre-vingts, you just add the numbers, quatre-vingt-un, quatre-vingt-deux… just remember that. You have to add that up until 19. So quatre-vingt-un, quatre-vingt-deux, quatre-vingt-trois, etc. until quatre-vingt-dix-neuf.
So here, you just remember that quatre-vingts. You can try to remember that as a single word and then you add up. So if you can remember that, that's going to be perfectly fine - quatre-vingts.
When I was young, personally, I didn't realize that this one was quatre-vingts. I just learned quatre-vingts as a unique word like trente, quarante, cinquante, quatre-vingts. I just thought that quatre-vingts was like some sort of unique word. Then, what I had to do is just add up.
So to sum that up, here you know the unit right? Here, you remember that you have those new words that you have to remember and then these additions. Then, it’s always the same logic. You have to remember like the first one like with the zero, but then, you just add up with numbers. There is this little exception with the 1, et, then here, you just remember 20, 30, so vingt, trente, quarante, cinquante, soixante and you can remember quatre-vingts as a sort of number. So here, see that as a blue one. You should remember that as a blue one; vingt, trente, quarante, cinquante, soixante, quatre-vingts and you remember that. Here, you count like from 0 to 9, here again, here again, here again. Here, you have to count from 0 to 19; soixante, soixante-dix-neuf, from 0 to 19 and it’s the same for this one. If you remember that quatre-vingts is some sort of unique word, you have to remember that you count from 0 to 19. So 20, from 0 to 9, from 0 to 9, from 0 to 9, from 0 to 9, from 0 to 19, and this one, from 0 to 19.
Here, you know how to count in French. Maybe you want to know how to say like hundred or thousand so I'm just going to give you that to finish. So here, this one is cent, quite easy and for this one, it's mille, then it's really easy with those two ones. If you want to say 110, you just say cent-un, sorry I said 10 so cent-dix, cent-cinq, cent-quatre-vingt-neuf “199” cent-quatre-vingt-neuf.
Then, it’s the same for mille like if you want to say mille-un like 1001, you say mille-un, mille-dix “1010”, mille-quatre-vingts “1080”.
So you can remember those ones then the additions are really easy. If you want to say 2000, you just put the 2 here and you add like deux. Don’t focus too much on the dashes. Originally, the rule is you don't put dashes, but nowadays, you can put dashes so don't focus too much on that. If you want to remember one rule, just remember that between all the numbers, there is a dash, but we don't write a lot of numbers in letters so don't focus too much on that. So here, deux-mille.
So now, you know how to count. Those ones are not that important, just remember that. This is all for French numbers. This is kind of hard, I know. I hope that you manage to understood that and if you didn't manage, you can try to see the panel like the whiteboard and try to repeat again and again. It's a good practice for you. I was only introducing you to French numbers from France because in Belgium for example, you have some different rules, but this is some sort of standard French. So remember that and you will be fine.
That's all for today and I really hope you liked this video and that's all for me. It was Pierre. I'll see you on next time.

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