Alright, let’s talk about figuring out how to spell “14” in French. It seems simple, but sometimes these little things trip you up, right? I had to look this up myself not too long ago.
I was actually trying to write down an address for a buddy who was heading to France. He needed to find a place on street number 14, and I wanted to jot it down properly for him, French style and all. My French is okay, but numbers, especially those tricky teens, sometimes make me pause.
So, my first instinct was to try and build it logically. I know four is quatre. And I know ten is dix. My brain initially went, “Maybe it’s like ‘quatre-dix’?” But that sounded completely wrong. That’s more like how you say 70 (soixante-dix, sixty-ten). Doesn’t work for the teens.
Then I remembered some other teens. Like, 16 is seize. That doesn’t sound much like six (six) plus ten (dix) either. It’s its own thing. So, I figured 14 probably had its own unique word too, not just a simple combination.
At this point, guessing wasn’t getting me anywhere fast. So, I did what I usually do when I’m stuck on a specific word or spelling.
My Lookup Process
- I grabbed my phone.
- Opened up a browser.
- Typed something straightforward into the search bar, probably like “how spell 14 french number” or “french word for 14”. Simple stuff.
- Hit search.
Instantly, I got results showing French number lists. Scrolled maybe half a second and saw it right there.
Quatorze
Q-U-A-T-O-R-Z-E. Ah, okay. ‘Quatorze’. It sounds a bit like ‘quatre’, you can hear the connection, but it’s definitely its own word. Not ‘quatre-dix’, thank goodness, because that would have been embarrassing to write down.
So, I confirmed it was ‘quatorze’, double-checked the spelling (that ‘z’ at the end is easy to forget sometimes), and then wrote it down for my friend. Simple as that, really. Just needed a quick lookup because my memory wasn’t quite serving me right on that specific number. French numbers from 11 to 16 are just unique words you gotta memorize, seems like. After that, it gets a bit more logical again… until you hit 70!
