"Il a des dizaines de livres."

[chnoubis]

where is the ENglish in the french sentence. ANd is it dizaine or douzaine?????

[knovs]

In another example, "dizaine" means "about ten" while here, it means "dozen." Which is it?

[Sitesurf]

I believe that this usage comes from the fact that the French are metrics: "dizaine" is based on 10, while the English have been rather based on 12, so "dozen".

[chnoubis]

in the local market in Paris they say douzaine for a dozen eggs...or am I mishearing them. They certainly give me 12 eggs

[Sitesurf]

I think this is one of the rare exceptions to the metric system. Actually, I was rather thinking about money, measures, etc.