Language/French/Grammar/Years
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Rate this lesson:
Years in French
In referring to years in a date, cent is obligatory (while 'hundred' is often omitted in English):
- 1945 : dix-neuf or mille neuf cent quarante-cinq
nineteen (hundred and) forty-five
- le 2 mai 1993 : le deux mai dix-neuf cent quatrevingt-treize
the second of May nineteen (hundred and) ninety-three
- 'BC' is av. J-C (avant Jésus-Christ): 50 av. J-C
- 'AD' is ap. J-C (après Jésus-Christ): 500 ap. J-C
If mille is used in AD dates, it can be written optionally mille or (very rarely) mil:
- en mille neuf cent quinze or en mil neuf cent quinze
in nineteen fifteen
an is used in Van 2000 'the year 2000', en Van 1789 'in the year 1789', etc.; but année is used in les années 60 'the 60s', les années 30 'the 30s', etc.
Don't miss the chance to check out these pages as you wrap up this lesson: Possessive determiners, Omission of the article, Adjectives which normally follow the noun & Masculine and feminine forms of adjectives — No change in written or spoken French.
Other Chapters[edit | edit source]
Other Lessons[edit | edit source]
- Proper nouns
- Directly transitive verbs without objects
- Coordination of stressed pronouns
- Emphasizing me, te, se, nous, vous by adding a pronoun + même
- Regular plurals in French
- Demonstrative pronouns with —ci and —là
- Stressed pronouns with même, aussi, seul, autres, tous and numerals
- il or ça alternating with clauses or infinitives as subjects
- Ditransitive verbs
- Homophones
- « de » or « du », « de la », « des » after quantifiers
- Verbs with prepositions
- Subjunctive versus indicative in clauses dependent on a superlative adjective
- Verbs whose stems end in c— or g—
- Pronominal verbs, the auxiliary “être” and the agreement of the past participle