Could I chose freely which one to use or there are some circumstance need to be consider?
what is the difference between mille and millier de
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Deng B.Kwiziq community member
what is the difference between mille and millier de
This question relates to:French lesson "Expressing large numbers -thousands/millions/billions - in French"
Asked 8 months ago
Deng,
Link to a previous answer by Céline to similar question.
They are interchangeable terms, except when there is a complement following, in which case "mille" should not be used.
For example, ' ... de milliers de visiteurs' is correct, but not '.... de mille de visiteurs" - a limitation on the use of 'mille'.
See Larousse under Difficulties-Emploi
https://kwiziq.learnfrenchwithalexa.com/questions/view/mille-et-milliers
https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/mille/51453#difficulte
Adrian B.Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor
For those like me who thought Maarten's answer seemed to rule out "mille" altogether, the complement rule in the Larousse article is about usage following "des dizaines de...".
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