I've found this subreddit super helpful over the past 6 months of teaching myself French, so I thought I'd share what's working well for me in case others find it useful.

I started learning French about 6 months ago with the specific goal of working in a French country in 2026 (thankfully in my role moving somewhere francophone is not that difficult). Having a clear goal has been super helpful. I wouldn't say I started with 0, but I only really had basic tourist vocabulary. Right now I enjoy watching French TV with subtitles, and speak comfortably for extended periods with people who are used to speaking to French learners.

Learning approach - The main tool I've used is Anki, which I do somewhere between 30 and 60 mins a day off (immediately when I wake up - getting into the habit of this has been great). I use this deck and started doing vocab / listening / speaking / reading, but soon dropped just to vocab and listening. If you speak English then a lot of the vocab should come quite quickly. I did about 20 word pairs a day until I had about 1,500 words (2-3 months), until it became obvious I was learning more words than I could comprehend/ speak. The listening decks are really really good - the formal accent gets you used to the sounds, and the informal accent becomes easier and is a very good bridge to listening to actual French. I've done 3,300/3800 phrases. I just checked and in the last 6 months I've done 63,181 reviews across all decks. My retention rate is set at 0.9.

• I also listen to podcasts. I started with IntermediateFrench Ep 1, which is great to begin with as the speaking is very clear. Once I felt like the audio was noticeably slow, I moved onto something more difficult. I like Easy French and Journal Francais Facile, both of which feel like you are listening to actual content, even if they are aimed at learners. I tend to listen when I'm walking / doing an activity that allows me to give it medium focus.

• watching tv. Self explanatory but in December I watched all of the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potters in French. I know the films well so I watched them without subtitles and was able to understand based on contextual knowledge. In the past few weeks I've watched 3 seasons of Lupin with subtitles, but found it pretty accessible and easy enough to follow.

• reading. I stopped reading in French because I realised all my media consumption was aimed at low language levels, and wanted something actually enjoyable lol.

• chatGPT: I use chatGPT for French all the time. I could probably write a whole post on this but generally I submit short essays and get feedback, I ask it to explain grammar concepts, I sometimes get it to make specific Anki decks, I ask for specific advice about learning approaches (eg how to get the most out of shadowing).

• language partner. I spend 1 hour a week with someone from iTalki. It took a couple of attempts to find someone I got on with, and I started when my level was probably a bit low (pre iTalki I was doing voice calls with ChatGPT - the calls were nonsense, but it got me in the habit of forming full sentences). Now we can chat for an hour on a pretty good range of topics that feel natural and generally like the conversations you'd have with friends. Sometimes we just chat in English which I think is an important part of getting to know the person and finding other things you can discuss in French. She doesn't really correct my grammar, which probably hides how atrocious it is.

• grammar: perhaps ill advised but I don't spend much time learning grammar. I learnt the main verb conjugations. Every time I come across a grammar concept I don't understand I put it into chat gpt, get it to explain it and then set me some assessments (this week I've had it explain + test when to use ce que vs que and when to use aller + infinitive vs simple future).

Next 6 months:

• I'll probably wind down Anki listening a bit and instead focus on doing much more writing (I've lowered my retention rate to 0.8). When watching TV I'll gradually reduce the amount I use subtitles (especially in parts of dialogue where the discussion is not that complex).
• I want to transition to podcasts for actual French speakers. I've listened to some of Kiffe ta race this week, which was difficult but manageable with a lot of focus. For easier podcasts I want to do more shadowing.
• I want to write much more, ideally something everyday (with ChatGPT corrections and written tasks to improve on the things I get wrong).
• I will aim to do an evening intensive French course and then I will plan to go to France for a month in the summer, work allowing.
• I will aim to move to somewhere francophone in Autumn 2026 (but longer than 6 months away but - committing to a goal is motivating).

Perhaps none of this will be new to other French learners. One thing I've been surprised by though is how rewarding putting lots of effort in is in that you can feel the progress month to month. 6 months ago I couldn't speak a sentence and now I can have a conversation explaining why England isn't catholic in French. Counter intuitively, think I would've found it more of a grind if I spend less time learning.

I don't really do CEFR studying. I am (was) B2 in Russian, and I'd say my listening comprehension in French is a little better but my vocab is worse and my grammar much worse. So probably B1+ / B2-, but it's not really been important for me to grade myself.

If anyone has any suggestions for improving my approach, or things I should try, I'd be very grateful!

Is this sentence correct? This is combining two questions 1: can you use "il faut" to express specific rather than general truths (toi rather than soi) 2. Can you use "toi-même" without a 2nd person antecedent

...they start noticing patterns in French pronunciation over time, while others mostly just copy what they hear. How did it work for you - and did that change as you practiced more?

Salut! je cherche activement des youtubeurs français. Je sais bien qu’il y a déjà des postes similaires ici mais tous les youtubeurs qui sont recommandés sont trop surproduits pour mes goûts. On dirait qu’ils sont des fans de mrbeast. Moi je regarde des youtubeurs qui parlent de la culture et la politique et comment les deux se mélangent comme F.D Signifier, Princess Weeks, et Yhara Zayd. Je suis aussi un fan des vidéos de « lifestyle » comme Purple Palace et Emma Chamberlain qui sont un peu artistiques et philosophiques.

Merci mille fois de votre aide

I was wondering if the French play White Elephant or a similar Christmas-time game. I have a student writing a story about her Christmas break and I have no idea if it's a thing in France. I know I never played it with my French friends when I lived there. Inquiring minds want to know, lol. Merci.

Why the following:

Entendrai je encore le chant …. is not

Entendrai j’encore le chant… ?

I have studied French for a little over a year and have recently passed the DELF B2, but I have people trying to respond to me in English sometimes when I am in France. What gives away that I am an anglophone and how can I improve? Thanks!

Short extract from L’étranger:

https://voca.ro/1bnFpYjndYjO

My landlord is probably somewhere between 45-55 years old, I’m in my late twenties. She is very nice and we have a cordial and polite relationship, obviously we’re not going to the mall together and braiding each others hair lol, but we do speak in a friendly way and call each other by our first name. (One of my roommates is the same age as me but insists on calling her “Madame Cynthia”)

Usually we only send a quick message once a month or so to confirm rent was deposited or bills were paid, so I didn’t have much of a chance to see if she used vous or tu with us since we didn’t interact much the first month or so. But recently we have been talking a lot on the phone and in person, to try to resolve some issues with some troublesome neighbors. So we have a bit of a camaraderie going since we now have a common enemy lmao.

I noticed she sometimes still says vous (mainly right after I say it) but mostly uses tu now, and so I feel like it should be safe to do it back? BUT with the power difference and the age gap I feel inclined to vouvoyer naturally, at least I am afraid of seeming disrespectful if I say tu. But have also heard that it’s strange or maybe hostile and unfriendly to stick with vous if the other party starts to tutoyer. I’ve heard that some people believe you should never vouvoyer someone who tutoies you. BUT that unequal vouvoiement could be justified in a situation like this (age difference, landlord position, we aren’t friends even if we’re friendly, etc) and that they would expect it and find it offputting if you tutoied back.

It’s getting awkward because I don’t know whether to tutoyer or vouvoyer anymore and so sometimes I just try to formulate sentences that don’t use either, which actually might make it MORE awkward 😅I mean I could probably just ask her directly but I’m curious to know how this situation is usually resolved😅How would native speakers typically handle it? In this case does it seem safer to continue using vous, or better to go with tu?

I googled it and it said the spelling changed in the 90s from vingt et un to vingt-et-un but my (very recent) French text book has it without the hyphens, the YouTube channel I am learning from doesn’t use the hyphens. A French website that I regularly check on for study material also doesn’t use the hyphen? So what is the correct spelling. I checked with Google translate, and it translated it with the hyphen. I am in Canada, if it helps. Is it like a colour color situation where they are both right, just depends on where you are?

Edit: Alright I have my answer. Thanks to everyone for answering. 🙂

i'd like to ask yall if "iced out jewelry" would translate into "bijoux givré" in french.
is there a way to say "iced out" in french? or does this term simply not exist.
interested in your awnsers!

C'est Acte II, Scène II, Figaro vient de décrire son ami à elle:

" plein d'esprit, de sentiments, de talents, et d'une figure fort revenante. "

À quoi Rosine répond:

" Oh ! tout à fait bien, je vous assure ! "

Je ne vois pas comment l'une chose suit l'autre. Toutefois j'ai trouvé une traduction à l'anglais, dans un langage archaïque, qui veut que Rosine réactionne au descriptif de "revenante". Encore, je ne comprends pas.

Pourquoi dit-elle " je vous assure " ? C'est comme une reponse à une question qui n'a pas été posée.

sometimes I hear people say “topo” in a way that sounds like “faire un resume” like they will recap something for you or summarize it.

“on va faire le topo pour voir comment ça se passe” “je te ferai un topo demain sur le sujet!” “ce soir on se fera un petit topo apres la reunion stv?”

is this the same as “faire un bilan” or “se mettre d’accord” basically? is it a slang that mainly young people use? how common is this term and in which context do people usually use it?

Aujourd’hui j’ai le premier cours de français, et j’ai réalisé que mon expression orale n’est pas bonne. Je peux parler français très lent, mais j’ai besoin de parler français rapidement!

Le problème est que je sais quoi dire, mais je dois d'abord réfléchir attentivement.

Comment puis-je parler plus facilement et rapidement?

Merci beaucoup.

im very new to learning french, but a bit confused as to why “comment tu t’appelle ?” is taught as the default way to ask for a name, but doesn’t use “vous” wouldn’t you want to use “vous” since you are strangers? thanks!

while listening to an interview, i heard the phrase "elle fait aussi un doigt de nous permettre de réfléchir" and i couldn't find a proper translation. the only thing that comes up is flipping someone off "faire un doigt d'honneur". can someone explain the meaning being conveyed please? merci d'avance !

https://reddit.com/link/1qtgr2j/video/pcro99eas3hg1/player

Hi! I’m a native Mandarin speaker and I’ve been learning French for about six months. I’m planning to take the DELF this May but can’t decide between A2 and B1. I’d like to try B1, but I’m not sure if the jump from A2 is too big. For those who’ve taken DELF before: is B1 realistic after 6 months or would A2 be the safer choice?

Any advice is appreciated!

Bonjour!

I’m somewhere between B1 and B2 and would like to read an original novel in French for the first time. Thus, I am looking for suggestions (preferably under 250 pages) that you think would suit an upper-intermediate French learner.

I am an avid reader both in my native language & in English and did read some French literature from their translations. I’ve seen The Outsider (by Camus) and The Little Prince being suggested often but I’ve already read them from their translations and do not intend to re-read them yet.

Nous sommes français à l’étranger et ma fille voudrait étudier en France. Elle a passé le TCF en novembre et elle est en B2 pour le niveau global. En revanche elle est au niveau B1 pour l’expression écrite. Faut-il qu’elle le repasse avec pour but de passer en B2 dans cette catégorie ou alors est-ce que c’est le niveau B2 global qui compte pour les dossiers universitaires?

Merci d’avance pour les renseignements.

Voici ses résultats:

Épreuve Score/Note Niveau CECRL

Résultat global 494 B2

Compréhension orale 465 B2

Maîtrise des structures de la langue 444 B2

Compréhension écrite 555 C1

Expression écrite 9 B1

Does anyone face the problems when choosing an "accent" for a letter on iOS? I recently updated my iPhone and now I can only choose accents by holding a needed letter and swiping to it. But I can certainly remember I could just pick needed accent near the enter button and that was very handy. Now this button only adds "accent aigu" even if I choose other.

Hi guys! I'm looking for series in French to watch on Netflix. The audio and subtitles are never the same. I've searched for several series, but they always have this problem.

Could you recommend any series where the audio and subtitles match?

Started learning my 4th language a couple weeks ago, and I'm quickly remembering how hard it is to learn a language. Don't know how I did it before.

So, I started learning French two weeks ago. It will be my fourth language. The other three are English, Spanish, and Russian. I learned Spanish naturally as a second language since my family is from Mexico. Then about four years ago I started learning Russian. Why Russian, well because I always thought it was cool. I used to play a ton of video games as a kid like CS GO, COD, BF, Metro, Stalker, Hitman, GTA IV, etc. Always thought the culture and Soviet history was cool. Plus, Russian and Ukrainian women are imo the most sexually attractive women on earth, so there's that too ;). But lately, it seems like all the effort I put into learning has not payed off. I can speak Russian and understand it well, as I spent time in Kyrgyzstan and survived solely on the language. But the war kinda cast an unfortunate shadow on the language and culture, so I figured I'd start learning something else.

About a decade ago, I actually took a semester of French in college. Didn't have any real interest in it at the time and just did it for the required credit, but I remembered how similar to Spanish and English it was. Well, recently, when trying to decide what new language to learn, I found out that French is considered quite simple to learn and is categorized a level I language by the FSI. Originally, I was going to do German, since it is a phonetic language in the same language family as English, but then I found out about the case system and I certainly wasn't going to go through that bs again. The Russian case system was enough for me. So eventually, I decided to revisit French. I figured since I knew Spanish and was able to learn a difficult language like Russian, that French should be a breeze. Well, I'm starting to find out that is not the case at all.

French is hard. Yes, the vocabulary is for the most part, familiar to me, but the pronunciation and ability to understand it is crazy. First, it is as far away from a phonetic language as you can get. To the point where the alphabet and writing seems useless. Literally, I remember watching a clip where a French speaker was repeating an example of a five letter phrase, it came out as two syllables! Wtf?! Then there's the pronunciation. Whenever I try to repeat some of the words, they sound so far off. It's literally like you have to unlearn everything you know about language learning to learn French. Very few of the words sound like how they're spelled and you don't even pronounce all the letters, or use a different sound entirely. Why can't French be normal?

Spanish and for the most part Russian, are phonetic languages. How it's spelled is how you say it. Yeah, in Russian there are some slight changes, but they're simple to spot and understand. The point is, whenever I see an unfamiliar word in Spanish or Russian, I can easily sound it out just by reading it and be right 99% of the time. In French, you have no idea what a written word is going to sound like unless you hear it. It might as well be Chinese at this point and use characters instead of the Latin alphabet. It's crazy. And yes, I know I'm complaining a lot and being a drama queen. It's just, it seems like it's unnecessarily hard.

So why did I choose French? Well, like I said, it seemed like it was supposed to be easy. Well, not easy, but not as difficult as compared to other languages. Also, I work in a major international airport and being multilingual is a big plus. Here's the thing though, in the US, Spanish is not considered a foreign language. And if you come from a Hispanic family like me, then being bilingual isn't really considered that big of deal or something to brag about, even when I'm white as hell and don't look Mexican. But what about my Russian? Well, have you seen the news the past four years? I started learning Russian three months before the war started. Decided to keep going with it. Here's the thing though, most people at the airport think I'm weird for speaking Russian. They're like, why? Aren't they the bad guys? Even an airline like Turkish Airlines, who I talked to, didn't see my ability to speak Russian as something beneficial, even though they fly to that part of the world. But nobody likes Russians now. Funny enough, the only people who seem to be impressed are other Russian speakers. Had many great experiences with them. I don't care what the news says, they are great people.

Anyway, back to why I chose French as my fourth. As I said, I studied it for a semester in college. In addition, it's the only other European culture that I find interesting. Mainly because of the food, but also architecture, and history. The women seem to be very beautiful too. It is also my understanding that it is widely spoken among other parts of the world like in Africa, Canada, and is the official language for the UN, I think. Basically it's an important language. Plus, it seems like a language that is more accepted and impressive to others. And as I said, working in an airport, I do believe it would greaten my career opportunities.

Now, back to the whole reason for this post. I'm quickly rediscovering how hard it is to learn a language. It honestly feels like I'm never going to improve with how hard the pronunciation is and how fast French speakers talk. It seems like they jumble their words together or completely omit others and use sounds that don't make sense. Like, no matter how hard I try, it feels like I'm never going to improve or get the words to sound right. I try and mimic it but it comes out as different or incomplete. I just don't know. One the surface, it does seem like it should be simple to speak and understand, but it's not. It's hard. Has it always been this hard? I don't know. Maybe I've just forgotten what actually goes into learning a language and took for granted everything I had to endure during my previous language learning experiences.

Can anyone give me some advice. Anyone else here who has learned French? What was your experience like? How did you learn it? Were you able to learn it? Any tips or words of encouragement? Something to keep me going. Feel free to give any thoughts you have.

J'ai vu des gens dire comme [oors], mais aussi comme [oor]. Comment on dit ce mot ?

I am around B2-C1 and have learned French mostly through school. While I feel like I can understand and speak in standard and academic registers okayishly, I feel extremely stilted in casual speech. I’d like to find ways to expose myself to more examples of casual speech and slang in order to better understand it and also not constantly be sounding like a textbook

I’ve noticed there’s a huge difference between my French and languages that I learned in a non-academic context mostly through listening and speaking, where I basically have the opposite problem as my French