Hello friends, finally I learnt one thousand(1,000) in French - Mille!
Now I can understand whenever I listen to French podcasts, and when they refer to a certain year in the thousands, I can understand - mille neuf cent…….
As you all know it takes a while for French learners to get used to French numbers from 0 to 100. All that quatre-vingt… soixant-dix….
Apart from merely memorising them, I listened to this song many times, from waking up, during commute, going for a walk, waiting for a doctor’s appointment etc
When you finally come across a stage where you are confident enough to say numbers zero to hundred, of course, the next step is time to learn 1,000s!
But first let us touch upon a unique rule with cent(100).
Cent(100) and plurals
If you learnt hundreds in French, you might have come across a weird rule like…
When "cent" is not followed by another number and is used alone, it takes an "s":
100 = cent
200 = deux cents
300 = trois cents
When "cent" is followed by another number, it does not take an "s":
201 = deux cent un
235 = deux cent trente-cinq
399 = trois cent quatre-vingt-dix-neuf
Of course, I thought the same rule applies to thousands(mille), however…
Mille(1,000) and plurals
When "mille" is used as a numerical quantity to mean "thousand," it never takes an "s" regardless of the number of thousands:
1,000 = mille
2,000 = deux mille
10,000 = dix mille
23,999 = vingt-trois mille neuf cent quatre-vingt-dix-neuf
But I have seen ‘mille’ with ‘s’.
If you read ‘Le Petit Prince’, you have come across ‘mille’ with an ‘s’.
« je me trouvais à mille milles de toute région habitée. Or mon petit bonhomme ne me semblair ni égaré, ni mort de fatigue, ni mort de faim, ni mort de soif, ni mort de peur. »
Eng: I had crashed in the desert a thousand miles from any inhabited region. And yet my little man seemed neither to be staying uncertainly amongst the sands nor to be fainting from fatigue or hunger or thirst or fear.
As you might have guessed from the translation, ‘miles’ takes an ‘s’. Therefore, if you want to say,
two miles away - à deux milles
two thousand miles away - à deux mille milles
Fortunately, traditional French writes ‘mille’, whilst modern French writes as ‘mile’: with only one ‘l’ to avoid confusion.
If you are another learner like me who just mastered(?) French number from 0 to 100 and looking to further expand your numbers to thousands, remember the rule for ‘cent(100')’ does not apply the same to ‘mille(1,000)’.
One thing to remember: ‘mille’ stays ‘mille’ regardless 😊
I always have to remember Miller mercis not milles mercis.