French Level 1
    Unit 14: Leçon 3
    Les Nombres: Cinquième Parties
    Bonjour! Madame Charon has done a wonderful job of introducing you to the vocabulary in this Unité! Later, she is going to teach you more about how and where to buy clothing in Paris. To help you with these future leçons, I am going to give you the next few numbers that you will need to know, just in case you should want to spend LOTS & LOTS of money in some of our beautiful boutiques! Now I know what you are thinking, "I'll bet that Mlle. gets a, how you say, "kick-back" from the boutiques that will be mentioned. Well, I don't. It is purely for information purposes that I, ou bien, we (that's Mme. Charon and myself), share this wonderful information with you!

    Now I know that you may already remember from Unité 7, Leçon 1, how to count from 100 to 999, however, let us review quickly starting with 100:


    100
    cent

    Let's move on! Do you remember how you would say 101? 102? 103? 104? and so on...? I have chosen some numbers at random. Try to say the numbers BEFORE you listen to me.

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    101 112 123 134 145
    cent un cent douze cent vingt-trois cent trente-quatre cent quarante-cinq
    156 167 178 189
    cent cinquante-six cent soixante-sept cent soixante-dix-huit cent quatre-vingt-dix-neuf

    I am sure that you are seeing a pattern here. To use numbers that are greater than one hundred, we simply add the word "cent" or "hundred" in front of the number. The remaining numbers do not change.

    Let us move on to the next group of numbers: 200-900:

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    200 300 400 500
    deux cents trois cents quatre cents cinq cents
    600 700 800 900
    six cents sept cents huit cents neuf cents


    These numbers work in exactly the same way as the numbers do with 100+. Here, see what I mean:


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    201 312 423 545
    deux cents un trois cents douze quatre cents vingt-trois cinq cents quarante-cinq
    656 767 878 989
    six cents cinquante-six sept cents soixante-sept huit cents soixante-dix-huit neuf cents quatre-vingt-dix-neuf


    Notice that with all quantities of hundreds above 100, the word "hundred" or "cent" is spelled with an "s" on the end. As we have seen in previous leçons, when writing in French, the letter "s" is placed at the end of words to show that there is more than one of whatever it is of which we are speaking. The same happens "en français" with hundreds whenever you have more than just one hundred. Make sense? If not, well, you know how it goes. Just memorize this rule!

    One nice thing about all this "hundreds stuff": Since there isn't a vowel after the "s" in "cents", it sounds exactly the same as "cent" when spoken.

    One more thing. I hope that you noticed that we do not say the letters "q" (in cinq), the letter "t" (in huit), or the letter "x" (in dix) when it is followed by another word that begins with a consonant (like the word, "cents"). The other numbers such as "sept" and "neuf" are exceptions and we DO say the "t" at the end of "sept" and the "f" at the end of "neuf" whether these words, even when they are followed by a word that begins with a consonant.

    **Special Note: "En français", when words such as "dix" that end with the letter "x" and "neuf" that ends with a letter "f" are followed by a vowel sound, the sounds of these letters change. "X" changes from an "s" sound to a "z" sound and "f" changes from an "f" sound to a "v" sound!



    Finally, we come to our last group of numbers, the thousands! The French words for one thousand is "mille". Here is our "thousands" tables:


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    1.000 2.000 3.000 4.000 5.000
    mille deux milles trois milles quatre milles cinq milles
    6.000 7.000 8.000 9.000 10.000
    six milles sept milles huit milles neuf milles dix milles

    These numbers work the same way as the "hundreds" do, that is, the word "mille" is spelled with an "s" on the end for numbers above 1,000. Also, you notice that we do not say the letters "q" (in cinq), the letter "t" (in huit), or the letter "x" (in dix) because the word "milles" begins with a consonant.

    You also should have noticed that the "thousands" numbers are followed by a "." (period) instead of a "," (comma) as they are in English. Why? Because that is how we do it in French!

    I am not going to bog you down by going through all of the numbers between 1.000 and 1.000.000 (I am sure you are VERY happy about this!)

    Go now to the next leçon.