Learn French for Beginners

Learning French for beginners is actually fairly easy: many basic French vocabulary words have similarities to their English counterparts, and simple sentence structure in French is almost identical to English. Here are some tips to get beginners learning as quickly as possible.

French Lessons for Beginners

• There are some excellent free podcasts that teach French, and a couple learn French for beginners courses are available in order and build upon each other, until you have the basics and can progress to the more intermediate level French podcasts.
• If you don’t mind spending a little money, a learn French in your car audio CD program will have you speaking and understanding common French words and phrases. These lessons are normally designed for people traveling to a French-speaking country, but they will also teach basic phrases that you should know, and also teach you to distinguish distinct words in French and get used to French pronunciation.
• A lot of your time as a beginner in French will be spent just learning basic vocabulary words, which isn’t very exciting, but the faster you work your way through them, the sooner you’ll be on your way to learning more interesting things. There are some excellent free French matching games online that teach you dozens of basic vocabulary words. If you sit down to learn 20 or so at a time, it shouldn’t take you more than a half hour, and review the words every few days to make sure you still remember them.
• When you start on French grammar, you don’t need to know every French verb tense, but learning present and the most common past tense, passé composé, will be important to understanding and being understood in French. Most French verbs have regular conjugations, but, as in most languages, the most common verbs are irregular. The verbs “to be” – etre, “to go” – aller, and “to have” – avoir, are the three most important verbs to know, but you should aim to learn at least 20 of the most common French verbs to get a general grasp of the language, and eventually 50.
• Watching videos or TV shows in French is a more entertaining form of learning, but you won’t get much value out of it until you have the fundamentals down. Once you have the equivalent of a semester of college-level French down, you can watch French kid’s shows online, or order a favorite TV show from your childhood in French (most popular American and English shows have been dubbed into French). Watch it in sections, making note of the words you don’t know, at the end of the episode, look up the unfamiliar words, and watch it again to see if you have a better understanding.