français · A1 · vocabulary · 4 minutes
Numbers from zero to one hundred
Handle prices, ages, addresses, and quantities aloud.
Understand the choice
French numbers become much easier when learned in structural blocks: teens, tens, soixante-dix, quatre-vingts, and quatre-vingt-dix. Practice hearing them in realistic prices because several final consonants change pronunciation before another number.
Core rule: Standard French builds 70 as sixty plus ten, 80 as four twenties, and 90 as four twenties plus ten.
Notice it in context
Il me faut soixante-seize euros et vingt centimes.
I need seventy-six euros and twenty cents.
Soixante-seize combines sixty and sixteen; centimes follows an ordinary plural number.
Ma grand-mère a quatre-vingt-deux ans.
My grandmother is eighty-two years old.
Quatre-vingt loses its -s when another number follows.
La chambre coûte cent euros.
The room costs one hundred euros.
Cent has no plural -s when it is exactly one hundred.
What to remember
- Quatre-vingts takes -s only when it ends the number: quatre-vingts but quatre-vingt-un.
- Belgium and Switzerland commonly use septante and nonante; huitante is also used in parts of Switzerland.
Common trap: Do not insert et everywhere: say vingt et un and soixante et onze, but quatre-vingt-un and quatre-vingt-onze.