- Each field is optional. You get the English and the French writing of whatever you enter.
🔒 What you type never leaves this page. The formatting runs in your browser: nothing is sent, stored or logged.
The rules side by side
What changes between the two languages, following the Canada.ca content style guide and the Office québécois de la langue française.
| Item | English | Français |
|---|---|---|
| Long date | July 31, 2016 | 31 juillet 2016 |
| First of the month | November 1 | 1er novembre |
| Numeric date | 2016-07-31 | 2016-07-31 |
| Time of day | 4:30 pm | 16 h 30 |
| On the hour | 9 am | 9 h |
| Thousands | 1,234,567 | 1 234 567 |
| Decimals | 3.14 | 3,14 |
| Money | $227,703.22 | 227 703,22 $ |
| Percent | 20% | 20 % |
The English day has no ordinal (July 31, not July 31st), and French never puts a comma before the year. French groups digits in threes with a non-breaking space on both sides of the decimal comma. The page does not write month abbreviations, whose French form we could not confirm.
Frequently asked questions
Is what I type sent anywhere?
No. The formatting is a few lines of JavaScript on this page. Nothing is sent, stored or logged.
Why does French write 1er but English does not write 1st?
French uses “1er” for the first day of a month and plain numerals for every other day. The Canada.ca style guide asks English writers to drop ordinal endings, so it is November 1, not November 1st.
Why 16 h 30 instead of 4:30 pm?
Canadian French uses the 24-hour clock with the letter h between hours and minutes. English uses the 12-hour clock with am or pm, written in lower case and without periods.
What is a non-breaking space and why does French need it?
It is a space that does not allow a line break. French puts one between digit groups, before the $ and % signs, and between a day and a month, so “227 703,22 $” is never split across two lines.
How does it read 1,234 or 1.234?
A single separator with exactly three digits after it could be a thousands separator or a decimal. The page reads it as thousands and tells you so.
Is this the only correct form?
It follows the Canada.ca style guide and the OQLF pages listed in the sources. Other organisations set their own house style, so check yours.
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Sources
How we check it
The tests use the examples in the Canada.ca style guide (July 31, 2016 and 31 juillet 2016; 4:30 pm and 16 h 30; 20% and 20 %) and the OQLF spacing examples, including grouped decimals.
We also compare against the browser’s own Intl formatting for en-CA and fr-CA: all twelve month names, French long dates (except 1er, which Intl does not write), French times, dollar amounts and 5,000 random numbers. The comparison ignores which kind of space is used, since Intl uses a narrow one and the style guide a normal non-breaking one.
Money is rounded half up on decimal digits, not floating point; the tests check cases such as 1.005 and a 19-digit amount.
Limits: Intl is a second reference, not an independent statement of the style rules. We do not write month abbreviations or weekday names, and we do not read free-text dates.