Telling Time & Counting in French

You're standing at a train station in Lyon, squinting at the departure board. Your train leaves at quinze heures quarante — and for a second, your brain goes completely blank. Is that 3:40 in the afternoon? Yes. But you had to do the math, and the math took too long. That's the moment most people realize they never actually learned how French handles time.

This page covers the building blocks: numbers from zero to a billion, how to read a 24-hour clock the way French speakers actually use it, days and months, and how to talk about age and dates in a conversation. Each section is short and focused. You won't find every possible number here — you'll find the ones that come up when you're buying a ticket, booking a table, or telling someone how old you are.

The page is organized by situation rather than by grammar rule. Start with numbers if you're a beginner, jump straight to dates if you have a trip coming up, or use the search to find exactly what you need.

Every phrase has been checked against native-speaker audio. If something sounds off to you, the feedback link is at the bottom of each card.