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Canada uses the same numbers as France. Only Belgium and Switzerland use other words for 70 and 90, and just a few parts of French-speaking Switzerland use huit

Canada uses the same numbers as France. Only Belgium and Switzerland use other words for 70 and 90, and just a few parts of French-speaking Switzerland use huitante for 80, but most say quatre-vingt like in France.

grawprog 7y ago
Yup can concur it is like that in Canada. I never understood it. The 10's are weird two. Onze, douze, treize, quatorze, quinze and seize for 11-16(sorry the spelling's likely wrong.) Then dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf(10 7, 10 8 10 9) for 17-19. Then the 20's and up just the 10's column number style.
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
That's funny. I learned French from a Belgian woman and I called 80 "octante" until I was formally taught French and switched to quatre-vingt to avoid sounding like a hick. Did I somehow come up with "octante"? Is it not used in Belgium, or anywhere else? It's true that it sounds a lot more Greek (my native language) than "huitante".
- seszett 7y ago
  Octante was taught for a while in France at the beginning of the 20th century, but it never really caught on. Old people in Brittany used to use it sometimes as well, but it has completely disappeared everywhere now. It does sound nicer and more natural to me than huitante. Many French people believe that it is used in Belgium and Switzerland though, for some reason, but as far as I know that's not true (I live in Belgium, although not in a French speaking region).
  - YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
    Thanks. At least I know I didn't imagine it. I make a disservice to Pascale, the first lady who taught me French, and who was, herself French, by saying it was a Belgian woman who taught me French. The Belgian lady, Catherine, taught me _most_ of my French but I first started speaking French with Pascale. Which is to say, it's possible I learned "octante" from Pascale, although she was far from old enough to have learned it in the early 20th century. So I'm guessing "octante" is still used in some French-speaking places, although not that widely. And I'll probably sound rather quaint if I use it myself :) [For the record, I'm Greek but I learned French very early on because my dad had cousins in the Greek diplomatic corps and he wanted me to get a job there and he thought French is the language of diplomacy. I was not interested in that, of course. But at least, thanks to my dad's silly ambitions, I grew up practically billingual.]

grawprog 7y ago

Yup can concur it is like that in Canada. I never understood it. The 10's are weird two. Onze, douze, treize, quatorze, quinze and seize for 11-16(sorry the spelling's likely wrong.) Then dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf(10 7, 10 8 10 9) for 17-19. Then the 20's and up just the 10's column number style.

YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago

That's funny. I learned French from a Belgian woman and I called 80 "octante" until I was formally taught French and switched to quatre-vingt to avoid sounding like a hick. Did I somehow come up with "octante"? Is it not used in Belgium, or anywhere else? It's true that it sounds a lot more Greek (my native language) than "huitante".

seszett 7y ago
Octante was taught for a while in France at the beginning of the 20th century, but it never really caught on. Old people in Brittany used to use it sometimes as well, but it has completely disappeared everywhere now. It does sound nicer and more natural to me than huitante. Many French people believe that it is used in Belgium and Switzerland though, for some reason, but as far as I know that's not true (I live in Belgium, although not in a French speaking region).
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
  Thanks. At least I know I didn't imagine it. I make a disservice to Pascale, the first lady who taught me French, and who was, herself French, by saying it was a Belgian woman who taught me French. The Belgian lady, Catherine, taught me _most_ of my French but I first started speaking French with Pascale. Which is to say, it's possible I learned "octante" from Pascale, although she was far from old enough to have learned it in the early 20th century. So I'm guessing "octante" is still used in some French-speaking places, although not that widely. And I'll probably sound rather quaint if I use it myself :) [For the record, I'm Greek but I learned French very early on because my dad had cousins in the Greek diplomatic corps and he wanted me to get a job there and he thought French is the language of diplomacy. I was not interested in that, of course. But at least, thanks to my dad's silly ambitions, I grew up practically billingual.]