I Was Good at Math but French Numbers Made Me Feel Stupid

I've always been good at math. So when I started learning French, I assumed numbers would be easy. They were not.

If you don't know, French numbers are strange. Seventy is “sixty-ten.” Eighty is “four-twenties.” Ninety-two is “four-twenties-twelve.” Hearing them spoken at normal speed is a nightmare, even if you understand the logic perfectly.

For more than three years, I just avoided them. When I was in France and had to pay with cash, I just held out cash and let the merchant pick. When they gave me change, I never checked. I was too embarrassed to check.

After conquering my biggest weakness in French (conjugation, partly thanks to the first app I vibe coded), I finally decided to tackle my second weakness. I told one of my French teachers on italki, “Next lesson, let's just practice numbers.” She agreed and started by saying full sentences containing numbers. Too hard. I asked her to just say a number and I'd write down what I heard.

It worked, sort of. But the pace was naturally slow. She had to think of each number before saying it. And in those pauses, I never built any momentum. Two things hit me: one, I'm paying a teacher to do something a machine might do faster. Two, speed is the point. If I could hear numbers fired at me rapidly, over and over, I'd start to develop a feel for them. The slow pace was actually working against me.

So after the lesson, I vibe coded a practice app. It generates random French numbers, plays them aloud, and I type what I hear. No pauses, no thinking, just repetition at my own pace. Version 1 took about 30 minutes. I was surprised how well it worked. The momentum was everything.

Now I use it for a few minutes whenever I have a spare moment. It's free, it's fast, and it works. While I'm far from getting them all right, I can tell I have a better feeling. But more importantly, I dread less.

The thing I didn't expect: building the tool forced me to understand exactly what kind of practice I needed. Not more effort. Not more discipline. A method tailored to me.