Today we learnt numbers in French class which just made me say in an obelix style “ The Gauls are crazy!”

It all starts innocently until you reach fifteen as each number has a distinct name. Then they begin to be called ten and six, ten and seven and so on. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty and sixty also mercifully have their own names but the range of numbers between them still get called as twenty and one to nine, thirty and one to nine and so on - just like english you say and begin to relax thinking you have it all figured. And then comes the big blow! Seventy has no name – so the numbers 70 to 79 get called as sixty and ten to sixty and nineteen and just while you are about to say sixty and twenty for eighty you hear a new name for eighty – four times twenty! And so the madness goes on until 99 which is described as four times twenty and ten plus nine! And then hundred gets its own name – Cent!

Imagine a child of 4 looking at a number like 78 and figuring it out as sixty and ten plus eight - phew!



Hey ...but to come to think of it, 60 plus 15 sounds younger than 75 and four twenties does sound smaller than eighty - may be that is why they use these!!!!