How to learn French?
- Stéphanie Berton
- Jan 17
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 21
How to learn French?
To make learning French enjoyable and easy, remember understanding the language is essential whether you're visiting or moving to France.
Signing contracts, renting a car or home, buying property, or seeking medical attention all require linguistic comprehension. Language barriers can lead to stressful situations, as many expats have experienced.
Therefore, prioritize learning French as part of your relocation plan and budget.
A textbook?
For centuries, books have been created and used to share information. All what you need to learn about the French language will be in any trustworthy educational book. Does it make you fluent in French? If it would be this simple, it would be great, would not it?
Textbooks provide heavy to digest lessons. Pages and pages of words. Sometimes grammar terminology you do not comprehend. One of the many teacher’s roles is to simplify the lessons so they are understood quickly. Concepts must be simplified and/or divided in different steps. A well structured class connect textbook parts with a more lively activity provided by the teacher. Nobody wants to stare at a textbook for hours. When I used to teach at the college level, I would always summarize the textbook lessons into a flashcard to be projected on the whiteboard. Visual memory is key in the learning process. Just a few words, an example and color codes. Your memory takes “photos”. Better be concise.
The Internet? Social media?
Online dictionaries are accessible anytime, anywhere. The audio function is a great improvement: hear the correct pronunciation when learning a new French word.
Le Larousse was used by many French middle school students, but its online version requires subscription or accepting hundreds of cookies.
Le Robert, also well-known, is free to use. Here’s the link for voiture (car in French). Click the audio icon to hear its pronunciation: https://dictionnaire.lerobert.com/definition/voiture
Alain Le lait's YouTube videos are great for vocabulary learning, even for adults. The music and words create a quick short-term memory effect.
Outside of reputable educational resources, it's hard to know if the information is correct, especially without existing French knowledge. This is the problem: millions of websites, and anyone can create one.
Anyone can claim to teach French online, and many do it well. However, I often see posts riddled with basic errors. Others focus on slang and informal French without context. These videos are often entertaining and popular. But will slang help you pass an official language exam or land a job?
I follow a few qualified teachers who are doing great work on social media. They are reliable and inventive. It takes exhausting hours of work to create online content. So, I invite you to support them as a few of them already paused their online work.
on Instagram
@Frenchwords, vocabulary and sentences to learn everyday
@frenchandparfait, Cecile Delarue - cookbook and French lifestyle
Still, learning vocabulary and taking quizzes alone won't make you fluent.
Ultimately, how many people have achieved fluency solely through social media?
Considering apps?
They are popular because they are often free and engaging.
However, nothing is free in life. Be aware of the data apps collect. Protect your privacy and information.
They're good for vocabulary and basic questions, but fluency often eludes long-term users.
Use them:
* To freshen up your French.
* To prepare for a trip, learning essential vocabulary.
* To progressively start your learning process.
"Repeat after me" methods mainly stimulate short-term memory, memorizing without understanding word order, conjugation, and grammar's impact on pronunciation. Memorized sentences rarely match native speech, making a basic understanding crucial for conversation.
Learning a foreign language takes as long as learning your native one, so if you live or plan to live in France, skip the apps to save time.
Immersion?
Living in a foreign country to learn a second language has been popular.
We all learn our native language by immersion, but how many hours a day, how many days, months, and years do we hear it before we can even formulate sentences and carry on a conversation?
Living in France and interacting with Natives for a couple of hours a week does not qualify as linguistic immersion. Therefore, any immersion experience must be about being exposed to the French language all day long.
In these conditions, it works great
o to expose the internal ear to new sounds
o to learn more vocabulary
o to learn expressions and culture
o to dare to speak
o to reinvest what you previously studied
Indeed, it is best for students who have already studied the language, its grammar, and conjugation. It's a perfect opportunity to reinvest knowledge more than to learn the language.
Go abroad for cultural exposure, daring to speak, and vocabulary improvement, but take classes first.
Living in France, you'll find communication challenging and native interaction limited, insufficient for language acquisition. Many expats overestimate immersion and French-speaking groups, becoming demotivated by a lack of comprehension. Immersion has benefits, but classes are essential.
Consider community colleges?
If you are American, community college French classes are structured, taught by qualified teachers, and offer expertise in the language.
You'll achieve advanced French proficiency, but expect a demanding academic environment with a rapid learning pace. Beyond classroom instruction, anticipate required language lab sessions, weekly online textbook exercises, quizzes, exams, and a final assessment. Plan for an additional four hours of study per week.
In short, significant progress is attainable, provided you have ample time and dedication.
Find a teacher?
Teacher or tutor?
However, research carefully: inquire about class format, enrollment size, and instructor credentials. Is the instructor a qualified teacher or a tutor?
The tutoring sector is now heavily investment-driven, with large companies sometimes employing inadequately vetted online instructors.
Teaching is a genuine profession demanding subject-matter expertise, academic credentials, and a grasp of pedagogy, the science of teaching. Lesson content requires careful preparation, each session building towards a larger, overarching objective.
Effective teachers understand brain and memory function, and analyze individual student learning styles and information processing. Students each possess unique learning methods.
Searching for language instruction reveals various titles: "teacher," "tutor," even "language coach."
Teachers directly impart the language; tutors clarify material not initially understood. Requesting tutoring implies existing enrollment in formal classes. In my fifteen years of business, 90% of clients request the inappropriate service. Remember this distinction when seeking assistance.
Choose your tutor or teacher carefully; not everyone is qualified.
Qualified teacher or self-proclaimed?
Economic crises inflate the ranks of self-proclaimed teachers. From social media ads to under-the-table work, they've always existed. Unfair competition with low fees is attractive, but will it truly benefit you? Large tutoring franchises charge expensive rates, hiring anyone from online ads. I've been in this business since 2000 and worked for them. Trust me. How do you ensure your time and money will build the "muscle memory" needed to understand and speak French?
If you seek a teacher/tutor, ensure they are qualified.
If you are part of the braves who read this article up to now and you would like to learn French, I would appreciate your business. Support a qualified freelance teacher.
Whether you need structured conversation or in-depth grammar study, I offer a class to suit your needs. I provide a calm, relaxed, and nurturing learning environment. I monitor your progress to optimize future lessons. Ready to begin? Contact me via the registration form.
In February 2026
Conversational group class. On Zoom. Special promotion starting at 50 euros/month (before 01/20/26) for the first ten students starting in February. Rate guaranteed after February for these students.
Short, 30-minute classes focus on daily life topics. Material taught with emphasis on speaking opportunities. Repetition is key for muscle memory.
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