Problems with French Numbers - Numberphile

French numbers can pose problems for non-native speaker - especially when you move beyond 70. Also discussing problems with phone numbers and commas!
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Featuring Dr Paul Smith from the University of Nottingham.
The French and marks out of 20: • 19 out of 20 - Numberp...
A little extra unlisted bit from this interview: • French Numbers (a litt...
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[@vlogdemon]

It's not that the French didn't invent these words, it's that they removed them. These words existed in the father language of Latin, and exists in all their related languages such as Spanish.

[@kadjit10]

And we still a words in french for 70, 80 and 90 in switzerland an Belgium (Maybe more?)

[@fghsgh]

@@kadjit10 in Belgium only 70 and 90, not 80

[@kadjit10]

@@fghsgh I know

[@tyrnis]

​@@Percy84 It's very likely to be a legend, if you look at Breton language for exemple (a Celtic langage which was used in the western part of France): 40 is 2x20, 60 is 3x20, 80 is 4x20, etc. This way of counting is likely to have been also used in the "old" french in some parts of France.

[@xyzoub]

The vigesimal system (with base 20) makes sense if you think of agricultural societies that would rarely necessitate to compute large numbers. We may have ten fingers or ten toes, the basis for the decimal system (with base ten), but the addition of all fingers + toes = 20, thus making the vigesimal system the basic computing base for many primitive and antique cultures (the Maya and the Inca in South America for example). With a vigesimal system you can count all the way up to 400 (20 x 20). French people all the way up to the Middle Ages used the vigesimal system in everyday usage. If you found yourself in a market in Paris in 1350 and wished to buy 60 apples you would say : 3 20 (three twenty or trois vingt) apples. A heritage we have of this is the Hospital des quinze vingt (fifteen twenty or 300), because it held 300 beds. It's only in the Modern age that French scholars decided to create and impose some kind of hybrid counting system, (a mix of vigesimal and decimal), for what reason I am not so sure.

[@Sayu277]

I think the komma/decimal point Thing is more of a continental europe thing than just a french thing it is the same for german.

[@ElynevanOpzeeland]

yup, the dutch have a comma for decimals, and points for big numbers too! i was really confused when learning those english numbers the first time, nowadays i just stick with: "complete opposite of how my language does it" and i can work it out fairly fast! It even became normal for me now!

[@analisamelculo85]

In Spanish is the same way too. But in most Latin-american countries they do it like in English. So it's actually more confusing for us because we sometimes read numbers like the European system, with commas for decimals, and sometimes like in this American system, with points

[@MarcLombart]

The comma thing is also the standard for SI units. For example, I have 2 000,90L of coke in my fridge. 😜

[@ElynevanOpzeeland]

@@MarcLombart true ^ almost forgot it, thx for reminding ;-) PS. that's a lot of coke tho.....

[@sebastien_1237]

@@MarcLombart that's a big fridge !

[@insertstupidserialnumberhe2727]

"80" French person: lol blaze it

[@yasyasmarangoz3577]

xD had to think a bit, but understood.

[@SeanSpencersRedHotChilliSemen]

I just 5 to my knees

[@pojitapejito]

90 HAHAHA

[@DANNY40379]

99 quatre-vingt-dix-neuf 4 20 10 9.. easy peasy lol

[@juba868]

I'm French and you just blew my mind

[@batuhan_a_kocak]

In Circassian (a North-West Caucasian language), it goes similar to English until 30. Then it gets crazy. 30 = 20 +10 40 = 20x2 50 = 100/2 60 = 20x3 70 = 20x3 + 10 80 = 20x4 90 = 20x4 + 10

[@azzary8523]

How do you pronunce it ?! You say : Twenty-ten ?or for 50 ? Ohlala i'm french and it's such a mess x)

[@merry6671]

If you think of it as being base 20, with "Hundred" meaning in the twenties then this is actually very intuitive. 90 is "Four hundred and ten". This is exactly the same was it's done in English.

[@batuhan_a_kocak]

@@azzary8523 Pronunciation is a completely different mess because Circassian has approximately 60 phonemes. I can write it but I don't think anyone who is not familiar with the lamguage would be able to comprehend anything

[@Heimrik01]

@@batuhan_a_kocak What language is circassian, daghestani ? Ossetian ? Georgian ? Tchechenian ?

[@batuhan_a_kocak]

@@Heimrik01 It's Circassian. Sometimes called Adyghe (West Circassian) or Kabardian (East Circassian) but two varieties are mostly mutually intelligible. That's why I used the umbrella name Circassian.

[@EddieGooch]

I mastered this after staying a year in Nice. And then I went to Belgium..

[@bobiboulon]

+Eddie Gooch I feel you XD

[@maximeschmitt2094]

+Eddie Gooch The Belgian/Swiss words for 70 and 90 should be used in France.

[@UmVtCg]

+Maxime Schmitt Belgian is no language dude, the speak flemmish and french

[@maximeschmitt2094]

Rem ko Did I say that Belgian was a language? I just meant that the French-speakers in Belgium and Switzerland say septante (70) instead of soixante-dix, and nonante (90) instead of quatre-vingt-dix.

[@0Basterd0]

+Eddie Gooch Pour une fois, les belges relèvent le niveau :)

[@kadjit10]

In french we have Septante, Huitante and Nonante (for 70, 80 and 90). But the french don't use it. We use it in coutry like Switzerland and Belgium

[@neitsab8172]

kadjit10 so you are not french if you say it like this

[@kadjit10]

​@@neitsab8172 I speak french but I'm not french. Just like in usa, canada, australia etc... they speak english but are not english ^^

[@neitsab8172]

@@kadjit10 yeah you speak french but your arent french

[@neitsab8172]

OH NO NO yeah that’s pretty impressive

[@oliveranderson7264]

We don’t use huitante in Belgium just septante and nonante

[@RLutin]

this french way of counting is particular but when you learn it, you stop thinking at logic. great french accent btw

[@jasonhatt4295]

Thank you, but how did you know I had one?

[@MrZeDeathcaller]

@@jasonhatt4295 I'm French, and I can tell you : He got no English accent while he talks in French. Or maybe if you're looking(searching?) for it, you can hear it.

[@jasonhatt4295]

@@MrZeDeathcaller lol, no I was making a Joke saying I had a French accent but I don't

[@ectoplasma3387]

@@MrZeDeathcaller Mais si il a un accent, quand il dit soixante par exemple

[@peterferry1646]

Il a un léger accent anglais toute de même et puis il se trompe sur le sport…

[@daanytv1968]

The swiss use the wrong or the right numbers i dont know each one had is opinion, but french-swiss are the most logic. 60 = Soixante 70 = Septante 80 = Huitante 90 = Nonante :)

[@natashacassidy5500]

I feel smarter now. And I have a new appreciation for the Swiss.

[@jayleaf8333]

but some swiss-french say quatre vingt

[@1MarkKeller]

Belgique aussi

[@pistolatime2515]

wait shouldn't 80 be octante? soixante septante etc. comes from the old french and in old french 80 is octante

[@magitrop5336]

​@@pistolatime2515, because 8 is huit

[@avi8461]

In Switzerland, we say septante (70), huitante (80) and nonante (90). Much easier!

[@byRapt0r]

Lala Lulu But much awful to hear. :) soixante-dix (70), quatre-vingt (80), quatre-vingt-dix (90) > ALL

[@NininininimoCP]

Lala Lulu Kinda similar in portuguese: Setenta (70) Oitenta (80) Noventa(90) Let's decompose setenta Sete-ten-ta Sete, seven in portuguese, ten, (duh) ta, alsoways placed in the end of 30, 40, 50 and so on Oi-ten-ta Oi, comes from oito, eight , ten, (duh) ta, alsoways placed in the end of 30, 40, 50 and so on Nov-en-ta Nov, comes from nove, nine, , ten, (duh) ta, alsoways placed in the end of 30, 40, 50 and so on

[@omgkikoo]

LordDayne ça te semble awful uniquement parce que t'es habitué à entendre soixante-dix et compagnie hein... huitante, etc.. c'est beaucoup plus logique.

[@avi8461]

Oui c'est une question d'habitude! ^^

Lala Lulu it also was this way in old french. They changed it for whatever reason.

[@WeekzGod]

Swiss french use septante, huitante, nonante...because logic.

[@yobaloncesto]

In Geneva you stil say quatre-vingts instead instead of huitante. By the way, I remember that the first time I went to the Alpes for skiing, when I was a child, they told me to pick up the pair of skis that had the size 90. As they were French they had said quatre-vingts-dix... so I spent 5 minutes looking for the number 80 next to a 10. :(

[@WeekzGod]

yobaloncesto Depends on who you speak to I guess. I've heard it both ways but mainly the swiss way no the french way.

[@EvrendenNotlar]

Belgium is also the same in FR but only there is no huitante

[@MP444MP]

yeah, i'm french and my cousin are swiss, a monopoly party became crazy because of this différence with numbers ahahah.

[@nemesis6423]

Parle e français alors

[@foxtrooper34]

As a french person, i laughed a lot. x) The way numbers are built always astonished me..

[@chinois11]

I understand that the phone number can cause problem fro someone who doesn't speak french very well, but for us we never have any problem with it. The thing is that we tell each number very quickly. When we pronouce "soixante et onze" we have finish telling the number waaaay before you have writed a 6. As you said, we don't even realise that we're counting like this. Of course we all know that "quatre vingt" means "4*20", but we don't hear it, we hear 80.

[@CarbonRollerCaco]

Just like how when using a word of Greco-Latin derivation, you just treat the word as its own thing instead of as a compound.

[@derdenni6780]

It is the worst number system I ever heard of

[@youtubestyle293]

Well that was the whole point of the video, thus there was no need for your comment 😂 But thank you

[@TamaraWiens]

@@derdenni6780 you missed the comments elsewhere then about a language (Danish? I don't remember for sure) that uses "half 3 times 20" for 50, "half 4 times 20" for 70 and "half 5 times 20" for 90. It's hard to get because "half three" in this context actually means "takeaway half from 3" ie 2.5. In my mind, that is far more complicated than French.

[@Idorise]

That's revelant on how "langages makes us think"... Or how, at the same time every langage (even Mathematical) blind us about REALITY.

[@MarcDonis]

the way to say "99" in French is "4 times 20 plus 10 plus 9" this explains why there are so many great French mathematicians

[@EmanueleShows]

Most of europe uses a comma for decimals

[@joshuahadams]

ShowS it’s mostly an anglophone thing, I think, not uniquely English. We use periods for decimals in Canada, and use commas or spaces for separators. 1,234.5 or 1 234.5 instead of 1.234,5 If you’re aware of where the numbers are coming from it’s fairly easy to get used to reading it.

[@gaelquelennec4509]

@@joshuahadams we use more 1 234,5 than 1.234,5 also the . can be use as a x :2.2=4 I am in French Canada

[@Sphere723]

@@gaelquelennec4509 Do you remember what the Stanley Cup looks like, or have you forgotten? Maybe we'll let you look at it one of these days to refresh you're memory.

[@uwu_senpai]

@@gaelquelennec4509 Le point est pour le produit scalaire. Tu l'utilises normalement pour des variables exprimées avec des lettres (qui sont donc assimilable à des vecteurs ayant un produit scalaire dans leur espace vectoriel donné).

[@Mic_Glow]

Depends on the surface and how small your pen is. Points might be hard to make/ spot so people write commas instead. It doesn't really matter.

[@jonahfalcon1970]

Sort of like when English speaks say "w". They don't think "double U, oh, two u's." They just hear "double-U" and see "W".

[@Naponub]

Jonah Falcon In French we say « double-v » to say « w ».

[@snapshot9954]

As a french native speaker, I confirm I never hear "soixante-dix" as two words but like one word, like "seventy"

[@Tuschedz]

Treize Virgule Cinq!

[@SavageGreywolf]

it helps that no one will ever spell, for example, 'door' by saying 'dee double o arr'.

[@Prasen1729]

Same goes for French but they see it: double v and not u like the English people. :-D

[@red-clad-vlad]

Here in eastern Europe we use "," instead of a decimal point. It might really be different from place to place. In Bulgaria, we always use spaces to separate parts of big numbers (100 000 000), so it's easy to interpret the decimals regardless of whether a full stop or comma is used for it (3.14 would be read the same as 3,14 even though we are taught to use the later).

[@Leblribrbrrq]

It's also Western Europe and a lot of the world. The comma is far more widespread as a decimal point than just French. And so is the thousands separator is obviously just the other way around. This is also very common. Though, a thin space is preferable,in my opinion.

[@ChenSaboriNyan]

the French were smoking some dank baguets when inventing this 4 20s number system

[@JCisKing1337]

+Sabori sauce (Juan) I think im in love with you

[@raykent3211]

I'm not keen on national stereotypes, but I've found reponses to a question like "can I say it this way in french?" really amusing. (all usually accompanied by a shrug, of couse....) chais pas - I dunno chuis pas prof, moi - I'm not a teacher pourquoi pas - wotever... Love it!

[@McJe4nS]

I believe it comes from the middle ages where they were using base 20

[@pw274uk7]

Do you mean baguettes? How can bread be 'dank'? And how can you smoke a loaf of bread?

[@pw274uk7]

You're getting closer to the truth than Mr. Numberphile in the video - what the French have is a mixture of counting in tens (from the Romans) and in twenties (from the Celts) - yes, it's pretty odd that it has survived this way, and other languages evolved from Latin with just the tens (e.g. Spanish and Italian). Mr. Numberphile is wrong to say that the words for French numbers over 70 numbers are 'invented' - they evolved; no French committee ever sat down and said 'I know, let's invent some new number-words just to confuse the foreigners'...

[@Ohxoz]

En France, la forme l'emporte sur le fond (esprit > pragmatique). Soixante-dix sonne mieux que Septante, Quatre-vingt sonne mieux que Octante,etc... La langue anglaise est logique, la langue française favorise le goût, l'apparence. En ce qui concerne la virgule au lieu du point, cela est du au fait que dans la langue française, la virgule a une valeur symbolique inférieure au point. Elle est donc utilisée comme un appendice subséquent. Par contre le point, par sa symbolique majeure est utilisée pour signifier l'importance du nombre. Ne parlons pas du passé composé selon l'auxiliaire être avoir...:-) Beau travail en tout cas!

[@Ad-ho7hc]

Ah ? Moi je pense que c'est l'usage qui a fait que le nombre "quatre vingts" sonne mieux que "octante", pareil pour les autres nombres.

[@theopat3536]

Ce n'est pas que ces nombres sonnent mieux, c'est un héritage des peuples celtes qui avaient un système numérique vicésimal et non décimal. :)

[@TemplorKnight]

ca fait logtemps que j'ai pas vu de nombres depuis l'entrée en prepa mdr

[@Ziraffo]

Being a native french speaker, I'm quite amazed that I never realized this could be so complicated looking at it from the outside. I've never seen the point used to separate thousands though (from Quebec)

[@thomassutton3608]

The reason for this is that in Europe people used to count using all 20 fingers and toes, which gave birth to a base 20 system, which was replaced in favor of the base 10 system which we know, but traces still remain in the French way of counting.

[@wayfarer1101]

Are you saying the English wore shoes long before the French? Thiis could be a cultural studies subject: "The French Barefoot Numbers System." How do they say, "This little piggy went to market..."?

[@cfr06]

The belgians (who speak French) have invented a word to say 70, it is "septente"

[@RFC3514]

It's not just French; the majority of languages uses a comma (not a full stop) as the decimal separator.

[@goncarvandre]

Counting in German is great too, even of they dont usually use comas, the words are increibly large !

[@SangerZonvolt]

@André But at least in German the words are (mostly) consistend and build up logically. You can just increase the numbers and as long as you know the new word you need to use every time you add three 000 (from one to thousand to million to billion etc) you logically know how to call every number you read.

[@starPacific]

When I used to take french in school I remember a teacher telling the class that there were terms for 70, 80 and 90 but they were abolished after the French Revolution for some strange reason. They still exist, but they are obsolete terms now and not used anymore, except in some other french speaking countries as other commenters have said.

[@grahoulord]

En France, on a toujours été des génies pour faire chier nos voisins de Grande Bretagne

[@heritagekebek9979]

Ici aussi Mère Partie...

[@bulmaae]

C'est pour que personne ne nous comprennent XD

[@necrodefecator]

@@ahbono Bon gros patriotisme bien gras et égocentrisme à la francaise (les anglais se fichent pas mal du francais qui est completement tombé en désuétude) rime souvent avec grammaire défaillante, rien de nouveau sous le Soleil.

[@elrisitos9821]

Aux chiottes les rosbeefs !

[@ahbono]

@@necrodefecator à quel moment j'ai été patriotique?

[@buca9696]

Beautiful accent there dr. Most english speaking people suck at pronuncing words in other that their native language.

[@mr.gentlezombie8709]

Most people in general struggle with accents in their non-native tongue. It's just a matter of how much they practice.

[@Artahe]

We say soixante ET onze because of the grammatical rule that states that you can't link two words together if the first word ends with a vowel and the second starts with one. So, Soixante onze is not possible. Another example would be the translation of a sentence, let's say "what will we say about him after he's gone?". Litterally it would be " Que dira on de lui quand il sera parti?", but in reality, we write "que dira-t-on de lui quand il sera parti?". That -t- has actually no meaning at all, it's just there so the sentence doesn't sound awful to the ear. As to why put the word ET and not, for example, -T- ? Well, it's simply because soixante ET onze sounds not only easier to pronounce, but also better.

[@redbeam_]

"you can't link two words together if the first word ends with a vowel and the second starts with one" soixantE Et isnt this against the rule?

[@mr.gentlezombie8709]

Not an expert on French, but my thought is that linking is different than being next to each other. Linking is what happens when they combine to form a number.

[@sophiejones7727]

pretty sure that's not the reason b/c you don't say the 't' on "et".

[@pizzapm]

the French language has a ton of exceptions, in this case, saying soixante et onze sounds like 3 distinct sounds, soixante onze would either have to have a pause between the two when saying or would sound like all one word soixantonze.

[@dranxelaa6770]

There is a famous sentence in french that says: "the exception that confirms the rule"... I won't add anything

[@luka9843]

I'm from Georgia, and we have "not come up with words" for 30,50,70,and 90. for 10, 20, 40,60,80 we have words, for example 20 is "otsi" while 30 is "ots-da-ati" which literally means 20 and 10, and 31 would be 20 and 11 and so on. 80 is 4, 20's as well and 91 will be four twenties and eleven.

[@boletarianbread7349]

For a second I thought you meant the US state and I was really confused lol

[@LuisMartinez-xp6dv]

I'm from America and I thought you were talking about a state

[@rideswithscissors]

I was thinkin', wait a doggone minute, I never heard a that!

[@abolghasemamiri3342]

That's really interesting

[@mojojim6458]

AG So it's true. People in the South aren't as smart. What a terrible shame.

[@engrenagegear9497]

Just realized as a fench that my language is cancer to learn rofl

[@croicullagh7530]

N'est pas trop difficile, actuellement c'est l'un de les plus facile langes apprendre pour Anglephones, si n'est pas le plus facile.

[@pw274uk7]

Evidemment tu n'es pas français! Correct version of what you're trying to say: Ce n'est pas trop difficile, en effet c'est l'une des langues les plus faciles à apprendre pour les Anglophones, (même) si ce n'est pas la plus facile. N.B. 'Actuellement' does NOT mean 'actually'! (Look it up in a dictionary)

[@croicullagh7530]

pw274UK thanks!

[@evanjames575]

Remember that when every child in Canada is forced to learn French numbers 1-100 in primary school xc

[@Leo-vr3bg]

I just learnt swiss French. Septante and such.

[@ChrisLee-yr7tz]

"This isn't a real number by the way?" "No, I just made that one up." That doesn't mean it's a not a real number though does it?

[@raney150]

Maybe it uses a specific code that is blocked? In the US, and number with an area code of 555 is blocked. So, for instance 312-555-7687 619-555-9274 723-555-1818 Are all blocked. I made up 2 of the area codes btw. I don't know if 619 or 723 numbers exist. 312 belongs to downtown Chicago, but only downtown.

[@ChrisLee-yr7tz]

@@raney150 Well I'm from Nottingham and it looks like a valid number to me. But that wasnt my point. Even if he used a blocked code, that would be the reason it wasn't valid, not the fact he made it up.

[@MusikschuleClavina]

Chris Lee it is an transcendental Nummber.

[@nathanielfink8866]

Maybe it's an imaginary number, like quatre-vingt-i.

[@MusikschuleClavina]

mybe it is an irational number like Phi ;-)

[@delduwathsargeras5189]

Hi I'm French and I want to add something to this, if we don't put the word "et" between "quatre-vingt" and "un" like we do for "soixante et un" is because there is already a "t" at the end of the word "quatre-vingt". In fact we put the "et" for avoid having two vowels following.

[@PitbullPearlyGates86]

In Belgium and Switzerland (my country), we find ILLOGICAL numbers with "soixante-dix" and "quatre-vingt-dix". We say "septante" for 70 and "nonante" for 90. With the number 80, Belgians say "quatre-vingts", and just a part of the French Switzerland says it too, but we mostly say "huitante" for this number (me too ;)).

[@EpicThe112]

What canton of French-speaking Switzerland are you from? These french numbers are quatre vingts (4 twenties Geneva Neuchatel and Jura possibly Berne) huitante Vaud Valais Fribourg/Freiburg or berne.

[@DurandJeeP]

2:48 The reason why 71 is the only one that has "et" (soixante et onze) is because "onze" starts with a vowel so we need to add that liason. The same is true for others numbers such as 51 (cinquante et un) and 52 (cinquante-deux)

[@kiouwax]

Actually, there are words for seventy, eighty ninety which are septante, octante (or huitante) and nonante. However, those words are only used in Switzerland and Belgium, so that's why lots of people think they don't exist, because only a minority of French-speaking actually use them. The others (France, Québec, French-speaking Africa...) count in France's way as described in the video.

[@19Vila]

Très bonne remarque, ces mots (septante, nonante, octante) ne sont pas connue (ou très peu connue) au Québec. Tu te demande de quoi ils parlent quand tu entend pour la première fois nonante-cinq :)

[@barvdw]

Well, almost correct, Belgians use septante ad nonante, while using quatre-vingts for 80. At least, the francophones do, in Northern Belgium, it's a different language altogether. The French do count in septante, huitante and nonante in the stock exchange, to avoid confusion.

[@carvehard]

If you listen however, the speaker repeatedly says "in FRANCE," not "in French." So he is correct because those words for 70, 80, and 90 are not used in France.

[@carvehard]

French numbers are CRAY CRAY. He didn't even mention the large numbers like 1.2M ("one point two million" in English). French say "one million two." Now, how do you know that's not 1,000,002? Because that would be "one million and two" (opposite of English, of course, where the "and" is grammatically wrong). So, to recap: 1,000,002 is "one million two," and 1.200.000 is "one million two."

[@carvehard]

Kévin Kira >1.200.000 is " un million deux-cents milles " Yes, that is the official number. But the shorthand, written like 1.2M (1,2M?), is commonly said "un million deux". Do you agree where you live?

[@ryanzarmbinski7446]

This is very similar to how numbers are treated in Spanish, except you have to wait until 1 billion for the numbers to start getting weird.

[@CarlosEduardo-gx1vm]

big number in spanish are very logical.. ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand, millon, ten millon, hundred millon, thousand millon, ten thousand millon, hundred thousand millon, billon ..

[@iwannabeanarwhal]

Ryan Zarmbinski The one billion thing is actually the traditional(and logical) naming. The USA thought it would change it because reasons and the world just went along... or at least the English speaking world. There's a video on this channel about it.

[@ryanzarmbinski7446]

iwannabeanarwhal That is true. Many Spanish dialects that have contact with English-speaking countries (i.e. US Spanish, Mexican Spanish etc.) tend to take on those different methods of saying big numbers. The traditional method is preserved in dialects like Castilian and Andalusian.

[@jorgelizaso978]

Odd is calling what it should be a thousand millions a billion.

[@tomf3150]

Billion, trillion, quadri....lions do exist in french iirc(never used that), but dont mean the same number of zeros as in U.S. english. For really big numbers we usually use xxx.10^yy.

[@WahranRai]

2:30 In swiss french, we say cinquante (50),soixante (60) ,septante (70) , huitante (80), nonante(90)... swiss french : specific tens...

[@normanpearson8753]

In Belgium , too .

[@milo-chan9687]

Et tu dis quoi pour dix-sept, dix-huit et dix-neuf ? J'ai rien contre mais si vous utilisez des mots spécifiques faite le pour tous les nombres

[@j9dz2sf]

In France, as child, we were told that π is about 3,1416 (well, actually 3,14159 but ok). But since some people group digits together, they sometimes pronounced it "trois virgule quatorze cent seize" (i.e. three comma fourteen hundreds sixteen). So they sometimes remember bad and later think it was "3,14116" (pronounced the same way in French but digits grouped differently). I saw that (3,14116) as a value of pi showed at French TV in an image, to speak about computer scientists having computed a billion of decimals of pi! A value of pi where the 4th decimal was false! :D

[@KnTGaming]

I've always been taught the truncated version ( 3.1415 ), and always read it as three fourteen fifteen Never hear anyone arround me refer to it as 3.14116 ( living in north-eastern France )

[@j9dz2sf]

@@KnTGaming : 1416 peut se prononcer "mille quatre cents seize" ou "quatorze cents seize" (même si ça se fait moins), d'où la confusion qu'ont fait les journalistes.

[@julien.s2002]

If you want to learn simple French, you can actually learn Swiss French, it's so much simpler for the numbers! For example: 70: septante (and not soixante-dix) 80: huitante (and not quatre-vingts) 90: nonante (and not quatre-vingt-dix) See? Swiss French is so much simpler for the numbers

[@aperson2591]

I thought Swiss french was like french from France.

[@sheilas1283]

Julos The Boss In Belgium too! When I lived there I found it so much easier than the traditional French method.

[@ninadeneve7785]

In Belgium they use septante and nonante, but not huitante. It is much easier for non-native speakers to use.

[@Snaake42]

It's mostly just a slightly different dialect, but different dialects do have slightly differing vocabulary as well. Standard French is/was originally Metropolitan/Parisian French that was taken as the national standard, but many other dialects still exist, afaik some with even more differences from standard French than what Swiss French has.

[@milou285]

I got points off because I learned French in Belgium but in France and the US they use soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix.

[@SeigneurSidious]

French kids learn every number from 0 to 100 as a new word. We don't try to find logic in numbers names.

[@ladym324]

Yes, as a French person who learned numbers like this I didn't realize that "quatre-vingts" was for 4×20.

[@thaik56]

Same here. No questions asked. Although I know now I would have if I had to learn the language for the first time. 🤣

[@fofotre8361]

@@thaik56 It's because in the Gaul, people were counting in base 20, forty was actually an equivalent for "2 times twenty" that remains in the french word for seventy, eighty (4 times twenty) and ninety (4 times twenty and ten). Swiss and Belgian didn't have this counting system, so they just put a word on seventy, eighty and ninety as English people does. I'm a French people too, and that's an amazing part of language history I think :)

[@davidr2421]

Would a French person have trouble if asked to count upward indefinitely?

[@SeigneurSidious]

​@@davidr2421 No, because the weird part is only for the tens. After that, it's : 100: cent 200: deux cent 300: trois cent as it is in english. We just don't put the word "and" before the tens. 680 is "six cent quatre-vingt".

[@onesandzeroes]

The comma used before decimal places is just the continental version, so English is the exception here, not French. However, the French numbers really are crazy :)

[@chocolatechocochoco]

Funny because I am french and I did not even realized how messed up our system is.. 80 was just "80" not "4 x 20", they sound the same but do not look similar in my mind.. I guess its the same for seven-teen -> people see 17 not seven + ten

[@Erik20766]

But it still has a name of its own even though it sounds similar

[@alanbouet-willaumez1390]

07:27 try to watch the olympics in French : most often than not, we say "dix soixante-neuf", the comma/Point might not even be spoken.

[@lucca7716]

Alan Bouët-Willaumez or here in Québec, we can say « dix point soixante-neuf »

[@geoffroi-le-Hook]

j'ai entendu huitante pour les centièmes de seconde ou de mètre en regardant les J.-O. au Québec

[@mcgoldenblade4765]

Oh boy, you think counting in French is difficult? Danish takes everything you think you know about counting and throws that all out the window.

[@alanbouet-willaumez1390]

McGoldenblade I learned quite a bit of Russian and counting and movements verbs was totally nightmarish. For movement verbs, you have different verb / verbal forms if you move often or not, if you put the emphasis on the destination or the movement itself, if it is a one way trip or not and even if you use a véhicule or some sort of transportation, or if you walk. After this, French numbers are easy as 1-2-3.

[@alikhantulessin9180]

@@alanbouet-willaumez1390 yo could you give some examples? I speak russian but cant seem to think up any instances of this (maybe i dont notice)

[@alanbouet-willaumez1390]

Alikhan Tulessin if you are fluent in Russian maybe you do not notice :) there are many ways to say "to go" in Russian ! Very interesting and quite subtle but really tough for many people ^^

[@alikhantulessin9180]

@@alanbouet-willaumez1390 oh ok i understand now haha

[@TSSC]

McGoldenblade: Spot on. 20 as base from 50 and reversed order (as in German): 91 is one and five minus a half score (1 + 4.5 x 20).

[@soukaina2597]

I've been speaking french since I was 3 and I am just now realizing how odd the french numbering system really is lol

[@NathanPlaysGames1234]

Soukaina yeah, you never really notice how weird your own language is (like how I didn't think that all of the exceptions in English were too weird until I looked at it from the perspective of someone trying to learn English)

[@garmzai]

i always wonder why they use eleven and twelve instead of oneteen and twoteen lol, i guess they just sound awful

[@Qladstone]

It would be firsteen and seconteen.

[@Gaspard832011]

This way of counting is french only. In Belgium and Swiss they have different words: septante, nonante.

[@Maserati7200]

You’re cute

[@terioze9]

I'm half French half Canadian (from the Francophone part of the country) but I think that we should say septante (70), octante (80) and nonante (90) as the French-speaking Swiss and Belgians do, for 2 reasons: it's more logical, and it's the way we used to count 400 years ago!

[@SJrad]

quatre-vingts le flamboyer 4 20s blaze it

[@MakoTism]

Accuracy 100

[@MakoTism]

@Genna Tuelz yeess euuuuh d'où you have a problème wit mi camarade

[@lopkobor6916]

@@MakoTism cwoissant

[@MakoTism]

@@lopkobor6916 pwease madwame je woudwai un C W O I S S A N T

[@lxxxvi8898]

In Switzerland they write 10'000 instead of 10,000 (or 10.000 in Germany)

[@Extys]

We must use the international notation at my school (EPFL).

[@duanesarjec6887]

yes in bleguim too and the frenchies forgive you .

[@albertopalomanes5660]

In Portuguese speaking countries (I think in Spanish speaking countries too, but I'm not sure) we use dots instead of commas in that case (for example: 10.000 instead of 10,000) and in the case of decimals, we switch them up as well (for example: 0,08206 instead of 0.08206)

[@PanduPoluan]

Though the official rule for my native language (Bahasa Indonesia) specifies the use of the period to mark the thousands, I personally use the tick/apostrophe.

[@mathieul4303]

French numbers are easy. Because I'm french

[@MrGalaktick51]

Au moins on roule du bon côté de la route nous :)

[@persis63]

Penser qu'il y ait un "bon" côté et un "mauvais" côté quand il s'agit d'une route relève de la pensée enfantine. Ce n'est jamais qu'une convention.

[@samuctrebla3221]

@@persis63 l'humour aussi est conventionnel, merci nous de le rappeler.

[@pinarozge6895]

Well yes but your syntax is a bit crazy because you keep putting the subject at the end as above! There is so much dislocation and it is not clear why you do it.

[@rainydeestar4806]

@@samuctrebla3221 Okay, c'était epic.

[@Cubionix]

@@pinarozge6895 sorry but you're wrong, the subject in the sentence was "on" Which simply means "nous" (us) The "nous" at the end of the sentence is only there to support the global meaning of the sentence.

[@Cubinator73]

Well, we Germans also count very strangely. For example the number 123. In English it would be _one hundred twenty three_ (first the hundreds, then the tens, then the ones). In German it would be _Einhundertdreiundzwanzig_ (literally _one hundred three and twenty_, first the hundreds, then the ones, then the tens). But we pronounce every single digit of the fractional part, that we separate with a comma from the integer part: _123,456_ would be _Einhundertdreiundzwanzig Komma Vier Fünf Sechs_ (literally _one hundred three and twenty comma four five six_) A _million_ in English stays a _Million_ in German, but _billion_ becomes _Milliarde_, _trillion_ becomes _Billion_, _quadrillion_ becomes _Billiarde_ and so on...

[@hansmuller4338]

+Rhinosaurus Do you know if the americans also used the long scale system? And why the UK switched over to the short one? The other really confusing thing is aluminium and aluminum :D

[@Knyex]

"The French have not invented a word for 70" Well actually we do have one, but it fell out of use centuries ago. It's "septante"

[@alwaysdisputin9930]

just start using it again?

[@pokeretro7456]

No, French never started to use it, only Swiss and Belgian.

[@screw7841]

@@pokeretro7456 Actually they did. These terms came from some Eastern regions of France, like Haute-Savoie.

[@pokeretro7456]

@@screw7841 No, very few people in Haute-Savoie use "septante". They almost always use "soixante-dix".

[@screw7841]

@@pokeretro7456 Currently the indeed don't, but decades ago they did. We often forget that even if Switzerland and France are two different countries, some regions of both are still attached together. If you go in canton Jura, you will hear that the local accent share a lot of similarities with the french Jura accent.

[@trebvvv]

Me at 11pm: oh man time to go to bed Me at 4am: SOIXANTE-DEUX

[@sylvainbernier6230]

Fun video, thanks. Being French Canadian myself, it's quite easy for me to switch between the two writing systems. We get used to the English way of writing at least through pocket calculators which are all based on it. But I had never realized the issue with French pronunciation for native English speakers... I think the French speaking Swiss and Belgians have it best though. They do have words for 70, 80, 90 which are "septante", "octante" and "nonante". They also sound closer to English, interestingly, though I don't know the history behind that.

[@FlavioPannizzo-un7nq]

They sound similar to English's ones because they come from latin or old French. In fact Italian ones also sound similar because they came from latin (settanta, ottanta, novanta)

[@KasabianFan44]

For thousands, I like to use an apostrophe: e.g. 10'695.67 No-one is then confused.

[@Para0234]

Little history tip: The French 70,80 and 90 comes from our Gallic inheritance. The Gaulls actually didn't count in a base 10, but in base 20, and it stayed afterwards.

[@Fyozzz]

Is he French or English ? His accent is so perfect

[@la_gej_]

Fyo_B He is actually English but he must have been in France and/or listening to french many times

[@crackedemerald4930]

HE'S A SPY!

[@maxonmendel5757]

Maybe natively bilingual? Is that a thing in the UK? I know here in the US a lot of kids are bilingual and really seem to have two mother tongues.

[@eternaldeagold8280]

Maxon Mendel Lol of course it’s a thing

[@maxonmendel5757]

@@eternaldeagold8280 gotcha. I wasn't sure how much UK and France traded people.

[@godqueenbidoof]

As a native French Speaker I just love how confusing our numbers are. Although that was never an issue to me unlike E and I (where in French I is called "E") as well as J and G which's names are the opposite in French. The numbers thing may not be an issue for me since I'm from Quebec though

[@brennaturton6891]

Also Canadian but in BC. I went through the French Immersion school system for my entire 13 years (inc. kindergarten). I worked the front desk at a hotel and helped an ESL Francophone Gentleman book a room. He was giving me his email and I clarified with "J come jaune, ou G come gorille?" He stopped for a second and laughed. I don't recall, but that might have been the moment when he realised I am bilingual. It was a sweet interaction. I recall him sounding more relaxed when he found that out.

[@MrKylljoy]

Wow this guy has an impressive French accent !

[@polygondwanaland8390]

Meanwhile in Canada we use a random mishmash of both, except we never use a comma for a decimal. I've seen both 10,000 and 10 000 used in the same textbook for the same number however.

[@KarthikeyanDuraivel]

Same here in India!

[@Smaxy_]

char whick same in france

[@chabtheman8444]

In Quebec we use a comma for decimal!

[@eric69571]

youve clearly never been to quebec where in a french school, you are taught to use a comma as a decimal and in english schools you are taught to use the point. I went to english school as a kid and later on went to french school in college and it drove me crazy!

[@TheDeathdragon401]

Pi = 3, eh... Infinity.

[@benoitm2810]

Well actually we can say it as we want but we mostly say "3. 14-15-92-.." and so on

[@cocagamingvideo]

Just for the big numbers in French, dots between three numbers (123.888.555) is rarely used. We tend to use spaces (123 888 555) but most of the time we write it as (123777888654), something to get used to. Great video by the way.

[@GRBtutorials]

Here in Spain, phone numbers are usually said digit by digit. Much easier! And the comma and point issue is the same as in France. Except we usually say "con", literally "with" or "and" instead of "coma", which obviously means "comma". It depends on who you speak to.

[@Laurent69ftm]

I's easier to remember a phone number if you group the numbers by two instead of saying each digit one by one.

[@contravariant_functor]

Even though I knew that the French are nuts before this video, but this is just too damn insane.

[@VulcanTrekkie45]

The thing about soixante dix actually doesn't apply in countries like Switzerland and Belgium. There, they use septante, huitante/octante, and nonante.

[@thiantromp6607]

Dictante?

[@Cipher_Paul]

For the commentators saying "dix virgule soixante-neuf", I would add that they can also say : "dix soixante-neuf" or "dix secondes soixante-neuf" or "dix secondes (et) soixante-neuf centièmes"

[@paolorubenmastretta]

Same in italian

[@persis63]

La virgule ne se prononce pas. Je sais que "tout le monde" le fait, mais ce n'est pas correct.

[@GaelFP]

In Belgium and Switzerland, soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix says "septante" and "nonante", like in English.

[@Darlynn]

Full stop is used in Germany too. 10.965.210 in Germany is 10,965,210 in England.

[@gilbertquintereaudelachanc4906]

Son accent et sa prononciation française quand il énumère les nombres est absolument impeccable, presque celle d'un natif francais !!

[@RamzaBeoulves]

Perfectly explained Thanks for pointing out that we don't picture "four twenties" but rather its own thing like in other languages

[@Cheedillow]

Belgian & Swiss french-speakers made up seventy and ninety (septante - neunante). Just stubborn French sticking to their archaic ways.

[@Arthur-Escom]

oh sorry we are an old country with strong habits, excuse us

[@Arthur-Escom]

so what he said is even more wrong

[@Cheedillow]

Escom French pride is worst pride

[@jeremydarveau4362]

+Cheedillow Excuse me, but french aren't alone, people from Québec (Canada) says it like french do.

[@HazardousMoose]

+Cheedillow Swiss even made up a word for 80, huitante...

[@sanderd17]

Septante (70) and nonante (90) do exist in Belgian French. And iirc, huitante (80) is used in Swiss French.

[@FrankHarwald]

+Sander Deryckere also used in Canada

[@Newbzor]

+Sander Deryckere Maybe not for all of Switzerland, but when I went to visit family they say 80 as otante, but it might be a dialect of some sort. And to Frank, I'm french canadian and have never heard that used in Canada, we say it as soixante-dix, quatre-vingts and quatre-vingt-dix

[@pwningnoob100]

+Frank Harwald Really? I live in Montréal, i've studied in francophone schools all my life, french is my first language and i've never heard septante being used. Where did you hear it?

[@sanderd17]

+Noobzor Could be too, I don't know Swiss French that well as I'm Belgian.

[@ChafradorGaming]

+Frank Harwald I'm French Canadian and that ain't true.

[@piguy314159]

When saying phone numbers, how would you distinguish between "soixante-douze" (72) and "soixante, douze" (60-12)?

[@DontpushtheBbutton]

***** I guess pause in between.

[@HotelPapa100]

***** The melody is also different. "soixante-douze" obviously sounds like one word, with the pitch on "douze" going down.

[@sarka3558]

***** soixante douze is one number : 72 and if for 60 that would just be soixante and for 12 would just be douze, hope that make sense?

[@lilgreyalien3693]

***** The way it's pronounced and timing. In my case, and I'd guess quite a lot of other people I pronounce 72 Soixandouze, the "t" and the "d" tend to fuse.

[@R4V3-0N]

HotelPapa100 what if your accent gets in a way?

[@zukaka84]

I just realized my language, Georgian, is similar to French when it comes to numbers - Comma for decimal, same style to pronounce phone numbers. 30 is twenty and ten, 40 is two twenties 61 is three twenties and one 95 is four twenties and fifteen.

[@guduko]

C'est pourtant très simple !^^ ;)

[@kcjv1895]

Là, il n'a pas parlé de toutes les règles qui concernent les ordinaux français : -le s après les mots "vingt" et "cent" si, et seulement s'ils se trouvent à la fin du nombre ; -Le tiret entre les ordinaux de valeurs inférieures à cent; -Le mot "mille" est invariable, mais "millier" prend un s au pluriel ; Mais en fait, la langue française est beaucoup plus complexe que ce qu'on pense.

[@celivalg]

Aliquid Nightmarish surtout pour les decimaux, perso entre dire 69 ou 6 9 je fait sa de manière aléatoire x)

[@kcjv1895]

Ben, perso quand le nombre de décimales est fini (0,125 par exemple), je groupe les nombres, mais quand il y a une infinité de décimales, la je fais n'importe quoi : le nombre d'or par exemple : Ça donne: Φ=un virgule six cent dix-huit zéro trente-trois neuf cent octante-huit septante-quatre... Enfin, c'est n'importe quoi XD

[@avasam06]

Killian Le Matheux Au moins depuis récemment il est permit de mettre des traits-d'union entre chaque nombre. Ça facilite un peu la vie.

[@cenamderithebest908]

Je ne peux même pas parler français réels sans l'aide d'un traducteur. Je suis vraiment un échec à la langue française , non?

[@B4K4xNi]

I wanted to flip a table when I leaned this in French class. :I

[@clinker85]

Part of those problems are also present in italian. 10.69 is written 10,69 and it's read "ten comma sixtynine" (dieci virgola sessantanove) but it's odd to group three numbers after the decimal point (the virgola). In that case usually we return to split the numbers. BTW, another difference in italian is that we still separate the concept for numbers from the concept for ciphers. Let's make an example, in the number 2,102.695 (written in italian as 2.102,695 or more frequently as 2102,695) 6, 9 and 5 are also numbers in this contest, but are strictly ciphers in italian, not numbers. The different use of comma and decimal point tend to become a problem in IT when you have to deal with data sources that use different standard, from the simple copy and paste from a table inside a web site to an excel spreadsheet to the merge of different database.

[@hansmuller4338]

In casual german a lot of people say "ten comma sixtynine" too. But we luckily learn in math class that this is a bad thing to do and that the correct way of doing it is to saying the numbers seperately.

[@hansmuller4338]

I'm a programmer myself and the really annoing part about that comma/point thing is that on the german keyboar there is of cause a comma on the num-pad not a point the point is actually above the right "alt" key. Really annoing when entering numbers in code.

[@gracecorinsnow1798]

Lived in France my whole life and still have never seen someone use a dot when dealing with thousands. Always a space.

[@leila_de_hautjardin]

*laughs in French* My finance teacher told me about a trader who lost a lot of money because he confused points and commas 😂

[@Furthermore26]

This was a very interesting watch. I highly enjoyed it from start to end.

[@Dreams_Of_Lavender]

The way numbers get broken down reminds me of how year numbers are done in the states, especially in the 21st century. There's a thing I noticed where English people will say "two thousand (and) twenty-two" while in the US you'd be a lot more likely to hear "twenty twenty-two"

[@YoyoNes]

Being french i've never even seen that we were adding stuff for numbers, i guess it's just the fact that we learn how to say soixante - dix like you would learn how to say seventy, then add the number behind just like you do in english. Ends up being exactly the same, learn a new word for something (we french just have a meaning behind it..). i just don't see where this is actually bothering. weird, but, hey same process as if you were asked to learn a new word for it.

[@darenlee8987]

It bothers the people who try to learn the language. Obviously it doesn't bother natives speakers.

[@guillaume5313]

We say soixante ET un because it starts by a vowel

[@jeremieherard2166]

3:42 Haha, because "quatre vingts un" is 4x20+1=81 , whereas "quatre vingts et un" would (if it had any sense) mean 4x21=>84 :p

[@Bisley56]

@Monsieur Herard That's an amusing observation, I never thought of it that way but four twenty ones DOES make 84. - made me smile.

[@wayfarer1101]

@@francoisdelarochefoucauld7298 Merci, ça m'aide beaucoup!!!

[@jamesblunt006]

Go to Switzerland. Or Belgium. French there makes more sense than in France :)

[@chucku00]

But it sounds way worse. JK.

[@thorwaldsunier1508]

Most definitely

[@yangzixiang6605]

commas and points are also inverted in german. or maybe english is the odd one out

[@bestpizzabakker]

So do the dutch..

[@Matticitt]

+yang zixiang pretty much the entire Europe uses a comma instead of a point. It's inverted in English.

[@jubbe063]

same thing in Swedish, Danish, finnish and Norwegian

[@poryg5350]

Czech does it too and Slavic languages in a whole as well!

[@msmacavideos]

+yang zixiang yep the same happens in Spanish; being a native Spanish speaker, it took me while to get used to the English way whenever I saw a number written like that in an English-speaking context, because my natural tendency was to interpret it the opposite way :P

[@samshongwe]

Ironically in South Africa we use comma instead of point at school, even though colloquially everyone says point. It's quite odd.

[@Treblaine]

So for the French, the "80's" (quatre-vingt) lasted all the way till 1999.

[@Xonetou1]

Milles neuf cent quatre vingt dix neuf

[@Mazered20]

Xonetou1 les années quatre-vingt, et les années quatre-vingt dix

[@thomashughes4859]

7:47 - In Spanish, we use "virgulilla" for the "doubled 'n'" in words like año. The etymology is from the Latin for "stick", and in horology, the "verge" escapement as well has the same etymology ... hm ... languages are fun stuff!

[@Doarri]

In Breton it is also confusing, we have 10,20,30 and then we directly go as 2*20 for fourty, 100/2 for fifty, 3*20 for sixty, 10 and 3*20 for 70, and as you probably have guessed 4*20 for eighty and finally 10 and 4*20 for 90. Also we have our own 'teen' for numbers between 10 and 19 except for 18 which we literally say 3*6 (that's a confusing one and I used to skip it while counting when I was younger)

[@apollineportable5909]

What? Never heard of that (i live nearby Bretagne )

[@Doarri]

@@apollineportable5909 Learn breton, you will see :p

[@pistachel2021]

ce qui importe, c'est les valeurs :)

[@Masteriousification]

Oooh, you guys haven't seen the worst, i'm Danish and trust me, the French system is simple compared to our! :O

[@ekiri_dreams]

another thing is that, when we tell phone number, we don't say "virgule", so something confusing is when telling a phone number, if you hear "soixante seize", it can either be 60 16 or 76 and if you hear for exemple "quatre-vingt dix soixante quinze", you can't even count the number of digits to help yourself out because you can end up with 90 60 15 or 80 10 75

[@hippocelestial4306]

In Brazil we also use points/spaces and commas like the French do.

[@skyiloh7460]

CARALHO

[@jcortese3300]

You guys should check out how the Welsh do it: one-on-ten, two-ten, three-on-ten, four-on-ten, five-ten, one-on-five-ten, two-on-five-ten, two-nines, four-on-five-ten, twenty. Then it gets even more fun. :-)

[@Yadeehoo]

Wow, really? That's even worse indeed. But how do they count sober? Still same?

[@turmuthoer]

Numberphile: France are our closest neighbours Republic of Ireland: Am I a joke to you?

[@turmuthoer]

@@peterseabourne5156 Yes. But you seem to have forgotten that England is part of the United Kingdom, which shares a _land border_ with the Republic of Ireland.

[@Xerxes2005]

I suppose the Brits still consider you "part of the family."

[@turmuthoer]

@@Xerxes2005 No. We only consider you part of the family if you're in the -Cool Kids Club- Commonwealth of Nations. Ireland and the United States are the wayward children we try not to talk about at our family reunions.

[@00LucasAshBrainz00]

80 = blaze it

[@Vivi-xn9iz]

80 is not same as 420

[@SomeGuy-hh7te]

In French it is

[@Vivi-xn9iz]

Quatre-vingt Quatre CENT vingt

[@SomeGuy-hh7te]

It isn't pronounced four-hundred and twenty, it's pronounced four-twenty.

[@Vivi-xn9iz]

420 is pronounced four-hundred and twenty

[@MeGaFaNdEzElDa]

80 blaze it

[@xrayban2]

In very old french you had : vingt et dix (30), deux vingt (40), deux vingt et dix (50), trois vingt (60), etc. It's a base-20 system - probably from the total number of fingers and toes. One of the oldest hospital in Paris is the Hôpital des Quinze-Vingts, because it had 15 x 20 = 300 beds.

[@paolorubenmastretta]

The comma thing is quite common outside of english speaking countries, in Italy is the same.

[@raydeen2k]

Kinda surprising as French is a derivation of Latin, as is Italian and Spanish, and those languages all have words for the all the Tens.

[@teundilles]

The whole western world decided to ditch the Latin numbers, and went for the arabic numbers instead. So I'm guessing that it's there where the differences came to life. Also, some varieties of French, such as the Swiss, Belgian and Canadian (?) have words for the missing numbers.

[@lapincealinge2]

That's because the celts living in France used to count like that.

[@JamesCub88]

I heard that in Belgium they have words for the tens. I'm not entirely sure on this, but if it's true, then it's not a French (language) issue, it's a French (nationality) issue. Either way, I find it very interesting and it does train your brain a bit.

[@lapincealinge2]

Diogo Castro Belgians have a latin equivalent for 70 and 90 (septante & nonante) but still say 4x20 for 80. In some regions in Switzerland they have a latin word for 80 (huitante). I guess it just depends of how romanised the area was back in the day. In some places in France (near the borders mostly) they would say septante huitante or nonante.

[@FodderMoosie]

I loved the excellence of both your accents! Of course, maybe you don't consider the English bit to be accented, but it is to a Canadian. Also, your example of the women's 100-m dash world record was only long by .2 seconds!

[@lo2740]

Your french is really excellent. By the way we never use decimal point for thousands as they do in US.

[@Irifios]

No we do, at least wo were doing it before, when I was little in CP or CE1 (First and second grade) there was often a point for thousands, but once I entered 6ème (6th grade, but don't get confused, we don't go to 7ème we go to 5ème after that, 5ème = 7th grade) I never saw it again the thing between brackets is for american to understand which year I'm talking about

[@Stallya]

I've seen it, it's just uncommon, as he pointed out.

[@PaleMist]

What do you mean "decimal point for thousands as they do in US"?

[@PaleMist]

@@Irifios What brackets?

[@hebneh]

The US does not use "decimal point for thousands". We use a comma between each group of three digits: 123,456,789 (123 million, 456 thousand, 1 hundred 23). The decimal point is only used for fractional numbers below zero: 123.456 (the last three digits being fractional.)