Module 2 of the free French course (CEFR A1, completed), lesson 12 of 30: From thirty the pattern is steady: tens word + hyphen + ones. On this page: 7 words with their genders and respellings, the rule, a watch-out line and the audio — the study notes behind the workbook's lesson 12.
| French | English | Say it |
|---|---|---|
| quarante | forty | kah-RAH(n)T |
| cinquante | fifty | sa(n)-KAH(n)T |
| soixante | sixty | swah-SAH(n)T |
| trente-deux | thirty-two | trah(n)t-DUH |
| quarante et un | forty-one | kah-rah(n)-tay-UH(n) |
| cinquante-cinq | fifty-five | sa(n)-kah(n)t-SA(n)K |
| soixante-neuf | sixty-nine | swah-sah(n)t-NUHF |
Respellings follow the course’s say-it key; the stressed syllable is in capitals. Print this lesson’s flashcards (PDF) — the words on the front, the English and respelling on the back.
Each word is read twice — say it back in the gap. Computer-generated voice; credits on the course page.
From thirty the pattern is steady: tens word + hyphen + ones, with et un at each 1: trente et un, trente-deux… quarante (40), cinquante (50), soixante (60).
Say your street number, your grandparents' ages, the page numbers of this book — numbers stick when they are yours.
et un only at 21, 31, 41, 51, 61 and 71: trente et un, but trente-deux. Everywhere else it is a hyphen and nothing more.
This free course is the reading half. The writing half — write-in lessons, daily practice pages with built-in review, self-checks and a full answer key — is the companion workbook series, The French Ladder: one workbook per module, fifteen in all, released band by band with the Basic band (Modules 1–5) first.
Turn this lesson’s words into flashcards, then space your reviews — the two habits the research behind our study guides backs hardest.
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