--- title: Numbers 0 to 20 — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Numbers 0 to 20», a lesson of the french course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Counting to twenty in French is like learning a new playground chant: un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, and soon your mouth does it on its own. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/) / Numbers 0 to 20 # Numbers 0 to 20 Lesson 6 of the french course of Mova's primary school: 15 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/0/) — Counting to twenty in French is like learning a new playground chant: un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, and soon your mouth does it on its own. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/1/) — Several numbers hide silent letters: sept sounds like "set" because the p is asleep, and vingt sounds like "van" because the g and the t are asleep. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/2/) — Eleven to sixteen each have their own word ending in -ze (onze, douze, treize, quatorze, quinze, seize), a bit like English eleven and twelve, which don't say "one-one". - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/3/) — From seventeen French builds the number: dix-sept is ten-seven, dix-huit ten-eight and dix-neuf ten-nine, joined with a hyphen. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/4/) — Picture a bakery in Lyon: hold up your thumb and pointing finger and the baker gives you two croissants, because the French start counting on the thumb. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/6/) — 6 to 10: six ("seess"), sept ("set", the p is silent), huit ("weet", the h is silent), neuf ("nuhf"), dix ("deess"). - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/7/) — The x of six and dix changes: "ss" on its own, silent before a consonant (six pommes, "see POM"), and "z" before a vowel (six amis, "see-za-MEE"). - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/8/) — In France people usually start counting on the thumb: thumb is one, thumb and pointing finger are two. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/10/) — 17 to 19 are built with a hyphen: dix-sept ("deess-SET"), dix-huit ("deez-WEET"), dix-neuf ("deez-NUHF"); in dix-huit and dix-neuf the x sounds like z. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/11/) — vingt means 20 and sounds like "van", through the nose; the g and t are silent letters left over from the old Latin word viginti. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/12/) — zéro means 0 and sounds like "zay-RO", because é says "ay". - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/13/) — "One" has two forms: un for masculine words and une for feminine words, so it is un livre (a book) but une baguette. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/14/) — Jacques a dit ("zhak a DEE") is the French Simon says; sautez dix fois means "jump ten times". - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/15/) — La marelle ("la ma-REL") is hopscotch, and children often call out the number of each square as they land. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/6-numbers-0-to-20/16/) — Slang here: "lowkey" means a bit; "pure mental" (Glasgow) means totally mad; "yeah nah" (Australia, New Zealand) means no; "salty" means annoyed; "tidy" (Wales) means good; "butt" (Wales) means mate; "wicked" (Maine) means very. - ← previous: [Tu or vous? Manners in French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/5-tu-or-vous-manners-in-french/) - next →: [Numbers 21 to 69](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/7-numbers-21-to-69/) - ↑ back to [French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/)