Is fluency in French among your goals? Do you want to learn French and wonder how to do it as quickly as possible with the limited time and financial resources you have? A big task like learning French deserves some planning at the beginning – if you set appropriate goals and choose suitable and effective tools, you can dramatically increase the probability of success and reduce the time you will need to become able to have French conversations and eventually become fluent in French.

Step 1: Set realistic but ambitious goals in learning French

Setting goals is the obvious first step in the planning process, but most people neglect it and simply think about trying to learn French as fast as possible. This can have fatal consequences like feeling overwhelmed, losing motivation, or not sticking to your schedule and making progress too slowly.

The well-set goals are both realistic and challenging. If you set them too low, you can fall into the laziness trap. On the other hand, if you overestimate your abilities and resources and underestimate the difficulty of learning French, you can end up frustrated and discouraged. It is important to think about your goals with the next step in mind – your resources.

Step 2: Decide about your time and financial budget

Most French learners have limited resources they can dedicate to the process of learning French.

• The most precious and most scarce resource for most people is time. You have your job or business, you may study other things besides French, and you have family, friends, daily chores… if only the week had 8 days or day had 26 hours. Think about the time you can dedicate to learning French on a regular basis. Keeping your studying regular is key – breaks are fine from time to time, but don’t make them too long. Make learning French a regular (ideally daily) habit and it will soon become a natural part of your life.
• The other important and limited resource for most people is money. It would be wonderful if you can buy that private course in Paris for X thousands of dollars or euros, but some tools for learning French may be outside your budget. If you are serious with learning French, don’t expect to become fluent at zero cost. While you can start with some free tools and free courses on the internet, you will also need other paid resources as you get more advanced in French. On the other hand, don’t fall into another common trap in foreign language learning: some people buy every course and every textbook they come across, but they never actually learn from any of them. The key is to balance time and money costs and choose the right tools with good quality at reasonable cost.

Step 3: Get the right tools for learning French

There is a wide range of tools for learning the French language: you can subscribe to live classroom French courses in your city or even spend a few weeks in France. You can buy textbooks, audio tapes or CDs, watch French TV or movies, or find a suitable online course if you prefer the individual and flexible way of learning French.

The tools which will be the most effective for you will depend on your situation which you were thinking about in steps 1 and 2. If your goals are very challenging (for example you need to be able to speak French in you work in a few weeks), you will need more intensive (and expensive) tools, for example a private French teacher. If your resources are very limited, you can opt for low cost solutions like free online courses and you can add more costly tools later.

Choosing the particular tools will also depend on your study habits. Ideally try to combine multiple resources for learning French, as different tools are better at addressing different dimensions of the French language, e.g. grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, or active conversations.

Step 4: Stop procrastinating and start learning French now

You can have all the previous steps sorted out perfectly, but here comes another common pitfall. Procrastination is the killer of dreams and goals. Many people keep planning forever, looking at additional resources and re-designing their schedule every day. Don’t. As soon as you have an idea about your goals and time allocation, and you have got the tools you want to work with, go start learning French now.

You may not be aware of it – people use numbers in French conversations on common topics more often than you would think. Besides the obvious situations like buying 5 French croissants in a shop, paying 24.60 euro for the items you are buying, or talking about today’s temperature not exceeding 22 degrees Celsius, we also talk about meeting 3 friends who are 24, 31, and 33 years old or having to finish 4 tasks. When you get lost in Paris or some other French city, you may be advised to take the third street to the left or take bus number 12. Numbers are everywhere and therefore learning French numbers is essential if you want to have conversations in French.

Learning French numbers: memorize first, then apply common rules

Let’s be honest: you will need to do some memorizing in order to learn the basic French numbers. Knowing other languages, especially those closely related to French like Italian or Spanish will help, but the differences and specifics of French numbers are significant enough, providing that guessing will not get you very far. Fortunately, as soon as you memorize the few basic French numbers and learn the rules (and exceptions) governing higher French numbers, you will be able to determine virtually any French number reaching up to millions.

Practice leads to automation, which leads to fluency

In order to gain absolute confidence with the basic French numbers, practice them from the lowest to the highest, from the highest to the lowest, and also in random order. Get to the state when you don’t need to think about the numbers for even a second and you will gain precious time for thinking about more complicated things in your French conversations like constructing complex sentences, using the correct tenses or correct irregular verbs. Your French conversations will appear more fluent as a result of this little thing – practicing French numbers.

French language is without doubt charming and beautiful, but it is also among the most difficult languages to master. The biggest challenge for many people is overcoming the difference between written and spoken French. Many French words are pronounced in surprising ways compared to how they are written. This makes understanding spoken French very difficult for a French learner. It also means that you can’t expect to successfully learn French from reading textbooks only. For learning French pronunciation and spoken French comprehension, practice makes perfect – and practice in this case means listening and speaking.

It is easy to listen to French radio on the internet

In the age of the internet, you don’t need to live in France in order to be able to listen to French radio. French radio stations of various genres are easy to find online. With French radio you will be listening to the French language during times when you would otherwise be unavailable for learning French. You can listen to French radio while you are cooking, cleaning, or just when you are too tired to do anything else than sit and listen.

Learn French with French songs

Furthermore, if you are like most people, you will probably like French music very much. Listening to French songs in the radio will not only make you exposed to spoken (well, sung) French, but also increase your motivation for studying French.

Try to find a radio station which combines music with news or other talking programs. Listening to songs only is fun, but its teaching capabilities are limited. On the other hand, listening to only news non-stop can make you tired quickly. Balance is key, as usual.

Other tools for improving French pronunciation

Besides French radio, there are other tools for effectively improving your French comprehension and pronunciation. French TV and movies have the advantage that you see the people when they speak. Watching their facial expressions and body language makes understanding them easier. Having a native French friend to practice with is even better than TV, of course.

French online courses with audio: sequential learning with explanations

There are also various French online courses with audio and video lessons widely available on the internet at low cost. Their advantage is that you don’t just listen to French audio, but you also get detailed explanation of the phrases and grammar used. This is helpful especially when your French level is not yet good enough to be able to independently understand French at the normal pace (when the speaker does not make a conscious effort to be understood by non-natives).

French online audio courses are usually structured in a way that you start with easier short interviews and the audio sessions get more difficult as you progress. This way you learn and improve gradually, instead of getting discouraged and leaving all French study efforts altogether after you have realized that you can’t understand a single word during your first French radio session.

Combine multiple tools to learn French successfully

If you are serious with your desire to be able to understand French and speak French actively, you will likely achieve the best results when you combine multiple tools: watch French movies, listen to French radio to get the feel of the real world French, and use an online course to bring some structure into your study efforts.

Have you decided that you want to learn French and now you wonder how to start learning the basics of French language? Are you not sure what to focus on at the very beginning? Should you practice pronunciation of individual French letters, memorize a few grammar rules, or jump immediately to conversations and not be afraid of making lots of mistakes? Here are a few thoughts on how to start learning the basics of French.

What you need to think about before you start learning French

First think about your goals and reasons why you want to learn French. Do you have a well defined and serious motivation (for example your employer sends you to France for several months)? Strong motivation and valid reasons for learning French are crucial, as they will make sure you won’t give up when you encounter difficulties – and you will, French language is hard to learn.

Think also about your time budget. How many hours can you dedicate to learning French every day? Every week? Try to be realistic in your planning. At the beginning you may have initial enthusiasm that will unfortunately leave you sooner or later. Setting a fixed “minimum” amount of study time and making learning French a regular habit works for many people. Avoid big gaps in your studying – they can take you off track.

Learning French resources: what to start with

You also need to pick a few effective resources for learning the beginner French. Don’t focus only on grammar, only on vocabulary, or only on speaking. The most effective way of learning foreign languages for most people, especially at the beginner level, is by improving all the skills simultaneously – reading, writing, listening, and speaking. You might see a faster progress at one particular skill if you focus solely on that one, but without having a strong foundation in all the skills you will most likely hit a wall later.

French classroom courses and online courses

It is difficult to organize the process of learning French if you are a complete beginner, especially when you have less experience with learning foreign languages in general. The best way how to start learning the basics of French is attending an organized course. Live classroom courses are best, even when they may cost a lot of money. A cheaper alternative can be found online. There are various French online courses, which can help you organize your learning and explain the basics of the French language. Some of them offer free trials or are completely free – take advantage of them.

One of the most difficult parts of learning the French language is French grammar. The French language has tons of various grammar rules and even more irregularities and exceptions to these rules. Mastering French grammar is a seriously big task – something you shouldn’t expect to learn in a week or in a month. Don’t try to learn all of French grammar at once and immediately. If you cut the vast universe of French grammar rules and exceptions to small pieces, the whole thing will look more manageable and less confusing.

Which pieces to start with if you don’t know much grammar yet

The good news is that when you are a beginner with French, you don’t need to know all those irregular verbs, subjonctifs, and other delicious French grammar features immediately. You can have the most basic conversations and learn the first steps of speaking French without complex grammar. At the beginning, focus on the more logical and unavoidable grammar problems like gender and articles (le, la, les), basic prepositions, word order in basic sentences, and other pieces of French grammar which you will find in virtually every simple French sentence. Learn how to say the basic phrases like I am …, You are…, I have… etc.

How to organize learning French grammar if you’re an individual learner

If you are a complete beginner in French and you have decided to learn individually (you won’t attend an organized French course with a teacher), it is hard to pick the important (but simple) grammar issues to start with. At this point, spending a little money on a basic French textbook or an online French course can be a good investment. With online French courses, you sometimes even don’t have to pay anything. Many of them have free trial versions, where you can learn the very basics of French grammar at no cost.

Learning French grammar can be done, but you need to work

The message of this article is simple: Learning French grammar, however complex and big task it may seem at the beginning, can be done. The less nice part of the message is that you need to put in the work. There is no course or resource which would teach you French grammar without significant effort on your side. Practice makes perfect – and it is also true for learning French grammar. Remember to cut it to small pieces, learn one little grammar problem at a time, sustain the effort, practice, and you’ll soon be a French grammar expert.

French pronunciation is extremely difficult. The underlying logic of how words are written and how they are pronounced is totally different in French compared to English. As a result, learning French pronunciation is one of the most challenging parts of an effort to master the French language.

There are many ways how to learn and improve French pronunciation and some methods are more effective than others.

1. French movies and French TV

One of the proven ways how to practice and improve French pronunciation is watching French TV and French language movies. If your level of French is not very good yet, you will find English subtitles useful – this way you will listen to the original French dialogues and still be able to fully understand what they are talking about.

Movies and TV are not only good for your French pronunciation. They will also improve your passive and active French vocabulary and make you familiar with commonly used French phrases and also with the French culture.

2. French language mp3 and radio

Another alternative is the audio. You can for example listen to French radio online or you can buy some French language mp3 to listen to in your mp3 player or computer. Compared to TV and movies, audio has both advantages and disadvantages regarding learning French pronunciation.

The biggest advantage is that it is much easier and more convenient to listen to mp3 than to watch video in many places and situations (e.g. on your way to work or while cooking your dinner). On the other hand, you can’t use subtitles with audio and the visual channel is completely unavailable. It is known that facial expressions and body language of speakers significantly facilitate understanding of spoken French (and any other language).

3. French native speakers

There is one language learning tool that beats even the movies. You can’t learn French pronunciation and improve comprehension any better than with a French native speaker. You may know some French people living in your city. If you try to communicate with them in French, you will both make them happy and practice your French pronunciation.

If you don’t know any French native speakers personally, you can search on the internet. There are many people who want to learn foreign languages and are looking for language partners to practice. Many of them are French natives who want to learn English.

4. Interactive French courses with audio

The advantage of interactive French online courses compared to practicing with the natives or watching movies is that these courses are structured. They are designed and taught by people (native or non-native) who not only speak French very well, but are also able to explain and teach French as a foreign language.

In fact the best French online courses include lots of mp3s and sometimes even videos, so you’ll get multiple channels of exposure to spoken French.

Combine all methods to improve your French pronunciation

These are some of the methods that work well for learning French pronunciation. The best advice is probably to try them all, as they are all widely available at little cost. If you combine French TV, audio, regular practicing with French native speakers, and a well designed French online course, you will see your French pronunciation and overall speaking ability to improve rapidly.

When you are learning French, you have a wide variety of resources and tools to choose from. The scale of resources for learning French expanded dramatically when the internet emerged as an integral part of our lives. It is easy and very cheap (sometimes even free) to learn French online. You can find entirely free French language courses online, at least at the very basic French level. If you’re not sure how and where to find online resources for learning French, read on.

Not all French language online resources are equal

The selection of French online courses is wide, which is double edged sword for a French learner. On one hand you can find French learning resources which suit almost any need and problem a student of French may have. On the other hand, finding the right French language online course or a learning tool can be quite tricky in the overwhelming supply on the internet.

Not all French language online resources are equal. Learning foreign languages has become a big multi-million market and many suppliers are in the game to make big money – unfortunately not all are offering good value and useful services in return.

How to pick the good French learning resources online?

Following are a few tips how to find the good quality online resources for learning French and not fall into the occasional traps.

• Don’t be afraid of simply using search engines and trying new and unfamiliar resources for learning French.
• Search for user reviews of individual French language learning resources.
• If you are serious with learning French, participate in a few online forums dedicated to learning French as a foreign language. You will meet other French learners online and you can share experiences with various resources for learning French. This is the best way to get unbiased information regarding usefulness and quality of individual French online courses.
• Take advantage of free trials. If you have the opportunity to try a French online course or a French language learning website for free (even if it’s a partial or time-limited access), take advantage of it and see if the course suits your needs before you pay anything for it.

We all know how beautiful it sounds when you hear French songs or French native speakers talking. But if you have ever tried to understand what they are actually saying, you also know that it’s nowhere near easy. French language has quite complicated pronunciation and uses many accents, while keeping some other parts of words completely silent. Mastering the rules of French pronunciation is necessary if you want to use the language in real life.

French language CDs and MP3s

The majority of people who are learning French as foreign language don’t have the luxury of being able to practice with a native French speaker on a daily basis. Most people also don’t have enough time and money for 1-1 sessions with a French teacher often enough.

Fortunately in these days there are many tools which can help you fill these gaps and enable you to practice listening to and speaking the French language every day from any place as little cost: French radio, TV, French language CDs, MP3s, and French online courses.

Listen to French conversations and try to repeat

Typically French audio courses are well structured and contain books or pdfs as well as the MP3s or CDs. This way you can read while you are listening, which is the fastest and most effective way to learn French pronunciation and learn new vocabulary on unfamiliar topics. It is important that you don’t just listen, but you also repeat what you hear aloud.

Audio courses and CDs are a good start, but…

While French audio courses are a great option for beginner French learners with limited natural French language exposure, they can’t fully substitute practicing French with real people, especially as your French speaking abilities become more advanced. As soon as you learn the basics and you are confident about your ability to understand and articulate the French sentences and interviews you hear on the CDs, make effort to meet other French speakers in real life on a regular basis. After all, talking to French speaking people is probably the reason why you wanted to learn French.

French numbers may not look easy at the beginning, especially when you see the sometimes strange rules of adding ten and multiples of 20 or when you struggle with learning the correct spelling and pronunciation, which just seem completely unrelated and random to a beginner French learner. Good news is that as soon as you learn (= memorize) the basic lowest French numbers from 1 to 10 and become familiar with a few rules, the higher French numbers will start to look more organized and more natural to you.

French numbers up to 100: full ten multiples recap

We have looked at French full ten multiples and common rules which govern them in the previous article. As a quick recap, the full ten multiples from 10 to 100 in French are: 10 dix – 20 vingt – 30 trente – 40 quarante – 50 cinquante – 60 soixante – 70 soixante-dix – 80 quatre-vingts – 90 quatre-vingt-dix – 100 cent.

Filling the gaps: other French numbers between 21 and 69

If you know the full tens, understanding all French numbers up to 100 will be easier, though the rules which apply here are not always the same. For most French numbers between 22 and 69 (as well as 82 to 89) you simply say the full ten multiple and then add the number between 1 and 9 which remains. For example, 45 in French is quarante-cinq (quarante is 40 and cinq is 5). There is a hyphen between the two parts of the number. This applies to all numbers with the exception of numbers ending with 1.

Numbers ending with 1 in French: replacing the hyphen with et

When you want to say a French number which ends with 1, you just replace the hyphen in the previous paragraph with the word et (and in French). The number is written as three separate words. For example, 21 is vingt et un (twenty and one) and 61 is soixante et un (sixty and one). However, the number 81 in French is quatre-vingt-un (no et here).

Saying the 70′s and 90′s in French

Another slight modification applies to the 70′s and 90′s in French. Remember, 70 is soixante-dix and 90 is quatre-vingt-dix – you are virtually adding ten to the previous full ten multiple (sixty plus ten or eighty plus ten).

71 is then not said as “seventy and one”, but as “sixty and eleven”, soixante et onze. 72 is soixante-douze and so on. 79 is soixante-dix-neuf (sixty-nineteen, or literally sixty-ten-nine). Then you continue with 80 normally – quatre-vingts, 81 quatre-vingt et un, 82 quatre-vingt-deux etc.

The numbers between 91 and 99 and constructed in the same way as the 70′s by adding 11-19 to 80. These are the most illogical and unfamiliar of the French numbers for most French learners. Notice that 71 is soixante et onze, but 91 is quatre-vingt-onze (without the et).

Cardinal numbers in French 21-99: examples

• vingt et un = 21 (twenty-one)
• vingt-deux = 22 (twenty-two)
• vingt-trois = 23 (twenty-three)
• vingt-quatre = 24 (twenty-four)
• vingt-cinq = 25 (twenty-five)
• vingt-six = 26 (twenty-six)
• vingt-sept = 27 (twenty-seven)
• vingt-huit = 28 (twenty-eight)
• vingt-neuf = 29 (twenty-nine)
• trente = 30 (thirty)
• trente et un = 31 (thirty-one)
• trente-deux = 32 (thirty-two)
• trente-trois = 33 (thirty-three)
• …
• quarante et un = 41 (forty-one)
• quarante-deux = 42 (forty-two)
• quarante-trois = 43 (forty-three)
• …
• soixante et onze = 71 (seventy-one)
• soixante-douze = 72 (seventy-two)
• …
• quatre-vingts = 80 (eighty)
• quatre-vingt-un = 81 (eighty-one)
• quatre-vingt-deux = 82 (eighty-two)
• …
• quatre-vingt-dix = 90 (ninety)
• quatre-vingt-onze = 91 (ninety-one)

Let’s make it clear: You can’t have effective French conversations without being confident with using French numbers correctly. Many common everyday situations like shopping and getting/giving directions or time require talking about numbers. Therefore, learning French numbers early in your French study process is a useful thing to do.

French numbers are similar to Spanish or Italian numbers

It is known that French language is closely related to Italian or Spanish. This can also help you with learning French numbers if you already know one of the other languages. French numbers are very similar to Spanish or Italian numbers in many cases, though exact spelling or pronunciation may differ considerably. In previous posts we have explored French numbers from 1 to 10 and from 11 to 20. Let’s continue with the following numbers.

French cardinal numbers: full ten multiples from 20 to 60

The similarity to Spanish and Italian is most apparent in French numbers between 30 and 69. In general, these numbers are constructed by adding the ending -ante (or -ente with the 30′s) to the core, which is always a modification of the respective 1-10 number. For example, 30 in French is trente (taking and modifying the number 3 – trois – and adding -ente). 40 in French is quarante (modifying quatre + adding ante). All French full ten multiples between 20 and 60 follow.

• vingt = 20 (twenty)
• trente = 30 (thirty)
• quarante = 40 (forty)
• cinquante = 50 (fifty)
• soixante = 60 (sixty)

Multiples of 20 in French numbers: 70-99

From 70 to 99 the French numbers follow a somehow strange logic of adding ten and multiples of 20. Forget about -ante or -ente now. Number 70 in French is said as “sixty and ten” – soixante-dix. Notice the hyphen between the two parts of the number. To make things even more complicated, 80 is “four times twenty” in French – quatre-vingts. Finally, the 90′s are the most complex. Number 90 in French is in fact “four times twenty plus ten” – quatre-vingt-dix. Don’t forget the hyphens. To sum up, French full ten multiples from 70 to 90 are:

• soixante-dix = 70 (seventy)
• quatre-vingts = 80 (eighty)
• quatre-vingt-dix = 90 (ninety)

Let’s conclude with a final note that number 100 in French is simply cent.