Did you know that even native French speakers make lots of mistakes when using their own language? Some grammatical mistakes are so common that they become the new normal. Idiomatic expressions such as au temps pour moi have been incorrectly spelled autant pour moi for so many decades that most people don’t even know they’re doing it wrong. And don’t get me started on speakers improperly using the conditional case instead of the indicative.  My point is that it’s no big deal to make French mistakes, as long as you can express yourself. As you come closer to fluency, you’ll have time to figure out what mistakes you’re still making and how to address them. And this is exactly what this guide is about. In this article, we’ll list the... Show more

Just imagine: You’re going out with a group of native French-speakers. This is the perfect opportunity to make friends and practice your French in a real-life situation! But how do you break the ice? What should you say if you run out of topics, or if your French isn’t solid enough to fuel the conversation? The universal answer is: ask questions! Among countless benefits, being able to ask questions in French will help you avoid awkward silences by keeping the conversation going. It will also make the other person feel like you want to know more about them or value their opinion, thus making you more likeable. Asking questions you’re genuinely interested in opens a world of new information and cultural insight!  Another... Show more

What’s the best way to learn a foreign language? To speak it as early as you can! Are you going to achieve this by stuffing yourself with tedious grammar rules, barren conjugation tables, or endless vocabulary lists? Not likely.A smarter approach is to quickly pick up on the most common and useful French sentence patterns—the kind that will allow you to communicate effectively in most day-to-day situations with your local friends or colleagues. Sure, it won’t allow you to express subtle thoughts on complicated topics. But it should cover a wide range of interactions and help you practice on a regular basis without being frustrated when you can’t say something as vital as "I like cheese." In this article, you’ll learn everything about... Show more

Could you imagine a novel written without any adverbs? It would feel terribly bland and boring, devoid of flavor and lacking substance. You wouldn’t have characters walking awkwardly or talking softly; they couldn’t stare suspiciously or ambiguously. They could only gaze upon the world with flat eyes. Luckily, writers as well as speakers have a wide collection of adverbs at their disposal to spice things up. French adverbs describe where, when, how, and much more. They can express the feelings and perspective of the speaker and make any description tremendously more lively and colorful, just like adjectives do in their own way—starting with this very sentence! French adverbs are not particularly tricky, but they still hold a few... Show more

Haven’t we all heard that we should live in the present, soak in the moment, and avoid dwelling on the past or fearing the future? Well…forget about all that as you jump on the conjugation train! You’ll learn how to talk about the past and tell cool life stories, and how to shape the future by planning for dates or festivities. French conjugation can seem overwhelming at first, and it’s undeniably more complex than English conjugation, but once you start getting the inner logic, it will all make sense. With three groups, lots of tenses, and literal truckloads of exceptions, you’ll have plenty of material to stay busy for a while. But fear not: You really just need to learn the most useful verbs and how to handle regular verbs, and you... Show more

Did you get the chance to read our previous articles on 100 Nouns and 100 Adjectives? In that case, I guess you saw this one coming! To complete your French arsenal, I present you with the most common and useful French verbs.  They’ll greatly expand your capacity to build interesting phrases, as well as enhance your reading and listening skills. More importantly, they’ll get you through most of your daily interactions and you’re not likely to be caught off-guard once you’ve mastered them.In this article, we’ll cover everything from French verb conjugation—including -er and -ir verbs—reflexive verbs, and of course, a list of the top 100 verbs for you to add to your vocabulary. Table of Contents Mastering French Verbs The 100... Show more

Do you feel like your French is awkwardly congested with unnecessary repetitions? Wish there was a way to make these go away, and replace them with…let me think…beautiful pronouns? Oh, hey, what a coincidence! French pronouns are what keep you from repeating the same things over and over when it’s already been mentioned, or when it’s just plain obvious. For example, you wouldn’t call your friends by their names in every single sentence. It’s better to use personal pronouns, such as tu, il, or elle. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. In this article, we’ll talk about the ten main categories of French pronouns—direct and indirect object pronouns all the way to the relative pronouns.  There’s a lot of French pronouns rules to... Show more

Do you sometimes get the impression that time is flying away, riding a winged clock out of your reach, or is it just me? Flying or not, time is the single most precious thing we have, and being able to discuss it will prove useful within your first few days in France. Whether you want to talk about your day, plan something, talk about schedules, or just answer someone on the street asking you for the time, learning about telling time in French is essential. You’ll have to know the basic vocabulary for "hour" or "minutes" in French, some numbers, and a variety of valuable time-related phrases and keywords. In this article, you’ll learn everything about telling the time in French, from the units to the AM / PM system, common questions... Show more

Do you know that the sun, a world, or a spider are guys, while moons, tables, and legs are girls? And these are only a few family-friendly examples of the French nouns genders’ oddity. Wait until you learn about the male and female genital words and their counter-intuitive genders. Figuring out which are the feminine nouns in French is one of the trickiest aspects of the language, and so is the formation of plural nouns, but bear with me for a little while and you’ll learn a collection of useful tricks to help you wrap your head around it! In this guide, you’ll find a list of the 100 most common and useful French nouns and how to use them. For each of these words, I’ve included the gender, plural form, translation, and example... Show more

Have you ever stopped to ponder on how much our lives revolve around defining moments? These could be happy or tragic, once-in-a-lifetime or recurring events, and depending on where you live, you might experience them in dramatically different ways. If you live in France, have French friends, or have an interest in French culture, you need to know how major life events are handled there, and how to talk about them. You’ll need to know how to wish a happy birthday in French, a Merry Christmas or New Year, and how to offer condolences or wish for a swift recovery. Further, you’ll wish to know how to congratulate friends on their new degree, spouse, or offspring. In this article, we’ll go through the ten major French life events and their... Show more