| French Roman Numerals - Chiffres romains |
| When to use Roman numerals in French |
Roman numerals are used quite often in French, as both cardinal
numbers and ordinal numbers. They are commonly used
to express all of the following:
| Dates, especially in official documents and on monuments | |
| établi MCMXLVI | established 1946 |
| © MMIII | © 2003 |
| Time periods | |
| le XVIIIe siècle | the 18th century |
| trimestre II | second quarter* |
| IIIe millénaire | third millenium |
| Proper names | |
| Pope John Paul II | Pope John Paul II |
| Louis XIV | Louis the 14th |
| Governments | |
| la Ve République | the 5th Republic |
| la XXe dynastie | the 20th dynasty |
| Events and assemblies | |
| les jeux de la XXIXe Olympiade | Games of the 29th Olympiad |
| IIIe Sommet de l'Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie |
Third summit of the APF |
| Arrondissements | |
| le IIe arrondissement | the 2nd district |
| le XVIIIe arrondissement | the 18th district |
| Books - title page dates - introductory page numbers - illustration numbers - section, installment, volume, and appendix numbers |
|
| introduction p. vi | introduction, page 6 |
| volume I | volume 1 |
| appendice III | appendix 3 |
| titre xi | title 11 |
| Music and poetry: verse and stanza numbers | |
| couplet II | verse 2 |
| strophe VI | stanza 6 |
| Divisions of plays | |
| Acte I | Act 1 |
| Scène III | Scene 3 |
Note: I'm not necessarily saying you can't use Roman numerals in English in these examples - they are just less common in English than in French. And it is very rare to use Roman numerals as ordinal numbers in English; terms like Xe siècle will virtually always be translated as "10th century."
*Trimestre is a false cognate - it means quarter, not trimester - French number expressions
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