Learning French — frequently asked questions
33 questions people really ask when learning French, with answers that stand on their own. Where there is more to say, the link comes underneath — not instead of the answer.
Getting started
Where to begin, how long it takes, which French to learn, and what the levels mean.
How should I start learning French?
With three things side by side rather than one after another: the present tense of the everyday verbs, starting with être and avoir; a first stock of nouns, each learnt together with its article; and the habit of saying whole sentences aloud. The last one matters more in French than in most languages, because the spelling regularly shows letters that are never spoken — ils parlent sounds exactly like il parle. Anyone who only reads builds a pronunciation of their own and later has to take it apart. Grammar on its own leaves you with nothing to say; word lists on their own leave you reciting word lists.
What do A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2 mean on this site?
They are the six steps of a widely used European scale, from first sentences (A1) to effortless command of the language (C2). The labels are free for anyone to use; the official wording that describes each step is not, and this site deliberately does not reproduce it. What you find here instead is its own sorting of the material, and the yardstick is stated openly: the question is not how difficult something is, but from what point you cannot get by without it.
How long does it take to learn French?
There is no honest figure in hours, and any page that states one as a fact has made it up: it depends on what you already know, how often you practise and what you need the language for. Two things can be said with confidence. English speakers start with a real advantage in reading, because a great deal of English vocabulary came from French or from Latin — la nation, important, la question, possible are recognised at first sight. And the ear lags behind the eye: spoken French runs its words together, so understanding speech trails reading for a long time. That is normal, not a sign that something is going wrong.
Is French hard for an English speaker?
Easier than it looks in the vocabulary, harder than it looks in two places: the sound and the grammar of the noun and the verb. Every noun is masculine or feminine, adjectives change to match it, and the verb has a different written ending for almost every person. French also insists on distinctions English does without — tu and vous, a passé composé and an imparfait where English often has one simple past, a subjunctive that is still in daily use. The effort comes early: once the sounds and the genders are in place, much of what follows is recognisable from English.
Which French should I learn: France, Belgium, Switzerland or Quebec?
The written standard is shared, and the differences lie mainly in vocabulary and sound. Belgium and Switzerland count septante and nonante where France says soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix, and parts of Switzerland also say huitante. In Belgium, Switzerland and Quebec le déjeuner is breakfast, le dîner is lunch and le souper the evening meal; in France the day runs petit-déjeuner, déjeuner, dîner. Quebec French sounds noticeably different and has words of its own, such as la fin de semaine for the weekend. This site follows the usage of France; start with one variety and add the local words for the place you are going to.
Grammar
The points at which French most often trips up an English speaker.
How do I know whether a French noun is masculine or feminine?
Partly from the ending, and otherwise by learning the article with the noun. Words ending in -tion, -té, -ure and -ette are nearly all feminine; words in -ment, -age, -eau and -isme nearly all masculine — la plage, la page and l’eau are among the exceptions. One practical tip: learn each noun with un or une, because le and la both shrink to l’ before a vowel and give nothing away. And the gender reaches further than the article: English says «it» of a table, French says elle.
How do I say «I am reading» in French?
Usually just je lis. French has no continuous tense: the ordinary present covers both «I read» and «I am reading», and a form like je suis lisant does not exist. When the «right now» really matters, there is être en train de plus the infinitive: je suis en train de lire. For something only just finished, French uses venir de: je viens de manger is «I have just eaten».
How do I say «I have been living here for three years»?
With the present tense and depuis: j’habite ici depuis trois ans. French looks at the situation from where it stands now — it is still going on, so the verb is in the present. The English tense copied word for word, j’ai habité ici depuis trois ans, is the classic mistake. The same goes for questions: «How long have you been waiting?» is tu attends depuis combien de temps ? The passé composé with pendant is for a period that is over: j’ai habité à Lyon pendant trois ans.
What is the difference between the passé composé and the imparfait?
English has one simple past where French has two, and the choice depends on what the past is doing in the story. The imparfait sets the scene, describes a habit or something in progress; the passé composé puts events into that scene. «When I lived in Paris, I went to the market every Sunday» is quand j’habitais à Paris, j’allais au marché tous les dimanches; «I lived in Paris for two years», a closed period, is j’ai vécu à Paris pendant deux ans. English does give two clues: «used to» and «was …-ing» almost always point to the imparfait. A plain «-ed» can be either, and that is where the thinking is needed.
When does the passé composé take être instead of avoir?
English builds every perfect with «have»; French uses être with a short list of verbs of movement and change of state — aller, venir, arriver, partir, entrer, sortir, monter, descendre, tomber, rester, naître, mourir and their relatives — and with every reflexive verb. With être the participle agrees with the subject like an adjective: elle est partie, nous sommes arrivés, elles se sont levées. A few of these verbs switch to avoir when they have a direct object: je suis monté, but j’ai monté les valises.
Why does French say «du pain» where English just says «bread»?
Because a French noun almost never stands without an article. Where English says «I’m buying bread» or «some bread», French needs the partitive article: j’achète du pain, de la confiture, de l’eau, des pommes. After a negative it shrinks to de: je n’achète pas de pain. And when you speak of a thing in general, as with verbs of liking, it is the definite article: «I like bread» is j’aime le pain.
Where do the object pronouns go?
In front of the verb, which is the opposite of English. «I see her» is je la vois; in the passé composé the pronoun goes in front of the auxiliary: je l’ai vue. With an infinitive it sits in front of the infinitive: je vais la voir. Only a positive command sends it behind the verb: regarde-la, but ne la regarde pas. The order takes a while to become automatic because English offers no model for it; saying short sentences aloud until they sound right is quicker than working it out each time.
What are y and en, and why do I keep leaving them out?
Because in English the same sentence often has nothing in that place. «Are you going to Paris? — Yes, I’m going» is Tu vas à Paris ? — Oui, j’y vais: y stands for a place, or for à plus a thing. «How many brothers have you got? — I’ve got two» is J’en ai deux: en stands for de plus something, and for any quantity of it. Without them a French sentence does not sound wrong so much as unfinished — j’ai deux leaves the listener waiting for the noun.
Do I really need the subjunctive?
Yes — English has kept only traces of one («if I were you»), but in French it is part of everyday speech. It follows que after expressions of wanting, necessity, feeling and doubt, and after some conjunctions: il faut que je parte, bien qu’il soit tard, pour que tu comprennes. The English trap is «I want you to come»: French cannot copy that shape and says je veux que tu viennes. With the same subject it is the infinitive: je veux venir. And espérer que, despite its meaning, takes the indicative: j’espère qu’il viendra.
How do I ask a question without «do»?
French has no helper verb for questions, and there are three ways instead. The simplest is the voice: Tu parles français ? with a rising tone. The safest is est-ce que in front of an ordinary statement: Est-ce que tu parles français ? The most formal is inversion, verb before subject: Parlez-vous français ? In conversation you will mostly hear the first two; inversion belongs to writing and to careful speech.
When do I say tu and when vous?
Vous is always the form for more than one person. For one person, it is the polite form: for strangers, for people in shops and offices, and for anyone you would not call by their first name. Tu is for family, friends, children and, increasingly, colleagues of your own age. English lost this distinction when «thou» disappeared, so the choice has to be made consciously. When in doubt, start with vous and let the other person offer tu; French even has verbs for the two habits, vouvoyer and tutoyer.
Pronunciation
Why French writes letters it does not say, and the sounds English does not have.
Why are so many French letters silent?
Because the spelling stood still while the pronunciation moved on. At the end of a word most consonants are silent — petit, grand, temps, vous — while c, r, f and l are often sounded (sac, pour, neuf, sel), with the -er of infinitives such as parler as the big exception. A final -e is silent too, but it makes the consonant before it audible, and that carries meaning: petit ends on the vowel, petite on the t. Sounding the t always says the feminine. The plural -s and the -ent of ils parlent are not heard at all.
What is liaison?
A silent final consonant coming back to life when the next word begins with a vowel. Les on its own ends on the vowel; in les amis the s is sounded as a z and joined to the next word, so the two are heard as one. It is not optional: after an article, a number or a possessive, and between a pronoun and its verb (nous avons, ils ont), it is required; after et and before an aspirate h, as in les héros, it is not made; elsewhere it is a matter of style. It is also why spoken French can sound like one long word: the breaks fall in unexpected places.
How do I pronounce the French r?
At the back of the mouth, with the tip of the tongue resting behind the lower teeth. The back of the tongue rises towards the uvula, at the very back of the soft palate, close to where the ch of Scottish «loch» is made, but the French sound is voiced and softer. The English r, with the tongue tip curled up, is the wrong place entirely, and so is a rolled r. At the start of a word it is clearly heard; at the end of a word it is often little more than a breath.
What are the nasal vowels?
Vowels in which the air flows through the nose as well as the mouth. They are written as a vowel plus n or m at the end of a word or before a consonant — an, on, in, un — and the n itself is not pronounced. English speakers tend to add one, saying bon with an n or an ng at the end. The test: if the tip or the back of the tongue closes anything off, it was not a nasal vowel. When a vowel follows the n, there is no nasal at all: bon is nasal, bonne has a plain vowel and a real n. Many speakers in France no longer distinguish un from in.
How do I say the u in «tu»?
English has no such vowel, and it matters because it separates words: tu and tout, rue and roue, dessus and dessous. Say the «ee» of «see», keep the tongue exactly where it is, and round your lips as if for «oo». What comes out is the French u. If the tongue slides back as the lips round, you are saying ou instead.
Where does the stress go in a French word?
Not on a particular syllable of the word, as in English. French gives its syllables roughly equal weight and lengthens the last one of each group of words: in un restaurant the end is slightly longer, and in un restaurant italien the lengthening moves to the end of the group. English speakers who stress the first syllable, as English does in «restaurant», sound foreign even when every sound is right. Keeping the rhythm even is one of the quickest ways to sound more French.
What do the French accents do?
They do not mark stress. é is a closed e, è and ê an open one; the accent on à and où changes nothing in the sound and only tells à from a and où from ou; ç is an s sound before a, o and u (ça, garçon). The circumflex often marks an s that French lost and English kept: la forêt and «forest», l’hôpital and «hospital», la fête and «feast», l’île and «isle».
Vocabulary
What English already gives you, which words come first, and which likenesses mislead.
How much does English help with French vocabulary?
A great deal when reading. After 1066 French was for centuries the language of the court and the law in England, and English took in an enormous number of words from it: «justice» and «government», or «beef», «pork» and «mutton» beside bœuf, porc and mouton. Much of the learned vocabulary came into both languages from Latin as well. What English does not give you is the pronunciation — the shared words sound quite different — and it does not guarantee the meaning, because many of these words have drifted apart since.
Which French words look like English ones and mean something else?
Actuellement means «currently», not «actually». Éventuellement means «possibly». Une librairie is a bookshop; a library is une bibliothèque. Sensible means «sensitive», rester means «to stay», attendre means «to wait», and «to attend» a meeting is assister à. Large means «wide», and la monnaie is the change in your pocket. These words are more dangerous than unknown ones, because nobody looks them up.
How many French words do I need?
Fewer than you might fear to get started, and the order matters more than the total. A fairly small number of very frequent words makes up most of any ordinary conversation or text, and each word after that adds less. So begin with the words that come up everywhere, learn each noun with its article and each word inside a sentence, and let the rarer ones come when you need them.
Do I have to memorise the irregular verbs?
Yes, and the four most frequent verbs of all — être, avoir, aller and faire — are among them, so there is no way round. It helps that most irregular verbs follow a pattern of their own: learn the je, nous and ils forms together, and the others fall into place — je dois, nous devons, ils doivent; je bois, nous buvons, ils boivent. Say them aloud as a sequence rather than reading them from a table.
Why is «I’m hungry» «j’ai faim»?
Because French describes many states as something you have rather than something you are. «I’m hungry» is j’ai faim, «I’m cold» j’ai froid, «I’m afraid» j’ai peur, «I’m right» j’ai raison, and «I’m twenty» j’ai vingt ans. Copying the English with être produces sentences that do not exist, such as je suis faim. The weather, for its part, is made: «it’s cold» is il fait froid. Learn these as whole phrases; none of them can be worked out from English.
How do I avoid sounding like a translation?
By learning the phrases French actually uses as blocks instead of building them word by word from English. «I miss you» is tu me manques, with the person missed as the subject. «It doesn’t matter» is usually ce n’est pas grave, and «you’re welcome» de rien or je vous en prie. None of these can be worked out from their parts, and none needs to be: learnt once as a phrase, it is there when you need it.
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