We use numbers to count and indicate how many nouns are being described. The main challenges in writing numbers involve the forms, the use of hyphens and where and where not to add -s.
Let's first consider the words French uses for cardinal numbers:
*this is masculine, e.g.: un million;
*the word million is considered a noun and does take an -s, e.g; deux millions cinquante
*modern French doesn't use the word billion
*the word milliard is considered a noun and takes an -s in the plural
Ordinal numbers allow us to establish an order or rank, e.g.: "first", "second", "third" (premier, deuxième, troisième). The main ordinals in French are:
As illustrated above, the main process for forming an ordinal is to add -ième to a number. The main exception is premier/première. Note also that for neuvième the "f" changes to a "v".
It is common in French to abbreviate ordinal numbers. For example,
As we can see above, all abbreviations other than 1er and 1re are simply formed by adding "e" to the number.
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