Are you planning on studying or teaching in France? Do you know the most common classroom phrases in French for students or teachers alike? Whether you’re about to join a university as a foreign student or to teach your native language as a teacher in a French school, you will have to learn how to communicate in the classroom. If you’re a student, not only will you need to learn how to address your teachers, but also to understand their instructions. And vice versa if you’re in the teacher’s shoes! You will also need to learn some basic vocabulary, such as school subjects and supplies, as well as infrastructure.In this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know as a teacher or a student, from common phrases to vocabulary,... Show more

Going to a restaurant in a foreign country when you don’t speak the language fluently can be unnecessarily stressful for several reasons:  You don’t know French etiquette: how should I behave? How do things work? How do I address the waitress? Should I leave a tip?You don’t know the language: How do I ask for a drink? How do you say "Main course?" What’s the phrase to ask for more bread? Knowing the basic French restaurant phrases is one thing, but learning about the ins and outs of French dining beforehand will truly take you to the next level. In this article, we’ll go through the six steps of going to a restaurant, and, for each phase, we’ll list the most common and useful French phrases, as well as the restaurant... Show more

Are you an advanced French learner, or are you trying to become one? If you’ve decided to step up your game and start aiming toward content made for native speakers, such as French books or movies in their original version, I bet you’re getting more than a little confused. This is largely because advanced French phrases, necessary as they are to learn, are often put by the wayside.  Traditionally, when learning a language, we study new words and grammar structures. Then, we learn how to combine it all to make nice and sophisticated sentences. You might still be doing so at an advanced level, but that’s not enough anymore. Advanced French content tends to be full of idioms, slang, expressions, and weird structures that make... Show more

Are you having trouble bridging the gap from beginner to intermediate level? It can feel like a daunting task when you have to leave the comfort of simple structures in the present tense. This is especially true once you start treading the uncharted grounds of expressing complex ideas or subtle feelings. But once you’re confident with the basics and realize the only way is up, you’ll find a lot of satisfaction in honing your skills on something a bit more challenging (like the intermediate French phrases introduced in this article). And I say “a bit” because French has this weird tendency to look way more complicated than it actually is. The tenses, for example, are not nearly as overwhelming as they seem at first glance. With only a... Show more

Why settle for an intermediate level when you can reach the summits of advanced French? It sure takes guts, dedication, and a lot of brainpower, but once you pull it off, there is nothing as rewarding as using your limitless fluency with your French-speaking friends! Improving at an advanced level is no small feat, and few people have gone as far as you have. At this level, you’re getting hit pretty hard with diminishing returns: The more you learn and add to your vocabulary, the more difficult it becomes. It can also be difficult to find educational content advanced enough to challenge your skills, and this is where we come in! In this article, you’ll find a large collection of useful advanced French words and phrases, from... Show more

So, you’ve just reached the intermediate level, and nobody can call you a beginner anymore. Congratulations! You have already outdone most of your fellow students, who get some basics down and then lose interest, can’t find the time or energy, or can’t build a good learning routine. I should know—I’ve been an eternal beginner in too many languages! One of the first steps now is to learn some intermediate French words and how to use them. But first, a note: Reaching the intermediate level is an amazing achievement in itself, but this is also when it gets tough. As your fluency level increases, you’ll start experiencing diminishing returns and realize that your progress is no longer linear. The more fluent you get, the more time it... Show more

Do you know which animals the French love most? What about the most popular pets and common farm animals? How many species are there in the gastropod family, and what’s the life expectancy of forest-litter snails? We’re about to answer some of these questions. As I was gathering animal names, I came up with a fascinating theory: the more exotic an animal is in France, the easier it will be for you to learn its French name. Conveniently enough, there are several animal names in French that are identical to their English equivalents: lion, crocodile, panda, koala, giraffe, jaguar... They shouldn’t give you too much trouble! In this article, you’ll learn the names of different animals in French, from pets and farm animals to wild... Show more

Do you sometimes get anxious when the phone rings? For some, this anxiety arises due to the fear of being criticized or judged for what they’re gonna say. Telephone phobia can even make one afraid, by association, of the actual ringing. Even though this type of anxiety was not common for me, I noticed that taking phone calls in a foreign language could get me really tense. I would sometimes struggle to find the right words, and I was afraid I’d fail to understand what the other person wanted from me. As a learner, picking up some French phone phrases can relieve you of most of this apprehension. Equipped with the essential phrases and useful phone vocabulary, you’ll be ready to face almost any phone scenario.  In this article,... Show more

Do you know how many words there are in the French language? Come on, have a guess. Most French dictionaries list around 60,000. But Le Grand Robert, one of the most prominent resources, gathers more than 100,000 words for a total of 350,000 different meanings. Sounds overwhelming? Keep in mind that even native French speakers know merely a fraction of that! To start having basic conversations, you only need a few hundred basic French words for beginners.  Further down the line, you’ll be considered "proficient" in French upon reaching around 5,000 words. That’s only about 5% of the whole collection. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves! In this article, we’ll list all of the French beginner words that will allow you to handle... Show more

Have you ever started a conversation in a foreign language, believing you could handle it, only to end up puzzled and confused with the abundance of mysterious and seemingly unnecessary sounds that no academic learning could have prepared you for? Like all languages, real-life spoken French is quite different from what you learn in grammar books. It’s littered with weird "filler words" that easily get in the way when you’re trying to follow a complicated conversation. French filler words are short and meaningless words or sounds we use to fill the gaps. They can get rather irritating, but on the bright side, mastering these filler words in French will allow you to sound even ‘Frencher’ than locals. In this article, you’ll learn... Show more