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French is not actually that weird; it's just weird from 80-99. From 10-79, it's just like English handles it. They just never came up with single words for 80 a
by Bud 5y ago
French is not actually that weird; it's just weird from 80-99. From 10-79, it's just like English handles it. They just never came up with single words for 80 and 90.
- MauranKilom 5y agoIt's also weird for 50-59. English does not say "fourty twelve" ("quarante-douze").
- CorrectHorseBat 5y agoNeither does French, you're confusing 50 with 70. https://frm.wiktionary.org/wiki/quarante-douze https://frm.wiktionary.org/wiki/quarante-douze Edit: 50, not 60.
- bramjans 5y agoAt least in Belgium we fixed that with "septante"
- CorrectHorseBat 5y agoBut making things completely logical would have been too much for us so we kept quatre-vingt.
- Lamad123 5y agoIt's weird form 70-79 as well! To say 79, you need to say sixty-ten-nine!
- CorrectHorseBat 5y agoBut they actually did! Septante, huitant/octante and nonante are real French words. Only the French don't want to use them.
- GistNoesis 5y agoNote that you cannot use heptante for septante.
- smoe 5y agoI think various french speaking regions outside France do use single words for those. E.g. in neighboring Switzerland I learned 70, 80, and 90 as septante, huitante and nonante if I remember correctly (I'm from the german speaking part)
- Bud 5y agoYes, they do. Belgian French has "nonante", for instance, which would be better, but which just never caught on in "standard" French. It appears in my Cassell's French Dictionary, but it's marked "dial." for dialect.