Starting French on your own
French rewards structure. The spelling looks unfair at first and then becomes predictable; the grammar looks heavy and then becomes a small set of patterns you reuse forever. The trick is meeting them in the right order.
Three things to accept on day one
- Every noun has a gender, and you cannot reliably guess it. Learn the article with the word — "la table", never "table". Retrofitting gender to 500 nouns later is miserable. Doing it from the start costs nothing.
- Written and spoken French are different systems. Final consonants are usually silent; "parle", "parles" and "parlent" sound identical. You are learning two related skills, and it is normal for reading to run ahead of listening.
- Politeness is grammatical. "Tu" and "vous" are not a style choice. Using "tu" with a stranger is a real mistake. Default to "vous" until invited otherwise.
Ten verbs carry most conversations
| Verb | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|
| être | to be | Irregular, unavoidable, learn it first |
| avoir | to have | Also used for age and for the past tense |
| aller | to go | "aller + infinitive" gives you the future with no new tense |
| faire | to do / make | Appears in dozens of fixed expressions |
| pouvoir | can / to be able | Turns any verb into a request |
| vouloir | to want | "je voudrais" is the polite form you will use daily |
| devoir | must / to have to | Obligation, and useful for guessing |
| savoir | to know (facts, how to) | Distinct from connaître |
| prendre | to take | Used for transport, food and drink |
| dire | to say | Needed to ask how to say things |
"Je voudrais" is worth memorising as a block, exactly like "quisiera" in Spanish. You do not need the conditional tense to order a coffee politely.
Learn vocabulary in themed groups
Isolated words are hard to review because nothing reminds you of them. Themed groups create their own cues.
- Kitchen — the things you touch every morning
- Street — directions, transport, buildings
- Work — whatever your actual day involves
- Weather and time — small, closed, high-frequency
Four groups of twenty-five is a hundred words, and every one of them will come up naturally.
The numbers that trip everyone
French counts in twenties above sixty. It is not difficult, but it is genuinely surprising:
| Number | French | Literally |
|---|---|---|
| 70 | soixante-dix | sixty-ten |
| 80 | quatre-vingts | four-twenties |
| 90 | quatre-vingt-dix | four-twenties-ten |
| 97 | quatre-vingt-dix-sept | four-twenties-ten-seven |
Belgium and Switzerland use the simpler septante and nonante. France does not. Drill 70–99 separately from the rest; they are the part that fails under pressure.
Politeness opens everything
"Bonjour" is not optional. Entering a shop, a bakery, a waiting room without saying it reads as rude in a way that has no English equivalent. Say it first, every time, and the rest of the interaction goes differently.
Which program is worth paying for — French
All three teach French well. What differs is whether the rules are explained to you, drilled into you, or left for you to infer. That preference matters more than any feature list.
| Programme | What it is | How you pay |
|---|---|---|
| Babbel | A subscription app built around short dialogue lessons with the grammar explained in plain English. | Subscription, billed monthly or for 3, 6 or 12 months at a lower rate. |
| Rocket Languages | Long audio lessons with recording drills, bought once per level rather than rented monthly. | One-time purchase per level, with payment plans. Access does not expire. |
| Rosetta Stone | The immersion method — you work out meaning from images and context instead of being given translations. | Subscription or a one-time lifetime plan, which covers all 25 languages. |
Babbel
A subscription app built around short dialogue lessons with the grammar explained in plain English.
How you pay. Subscription, billed monthly or for 3, 6 or 12 months at a lower rate.
Best for. Building a daily habit. Lessons are 10–15 minutes and the rules are spelled out rather than inferred.
Skip it if. You are learning Korean, Japanese or Chinese — Babbel does not teach them. Its 14 languages are European plus Turkish and Indonesian.
Rocket Languages
Long audio lessons with recording drills, bought once per level rather than rented monthly.
How you pay. One-time purchase per level, with payment plans. Access does not expire.
Best for. Listening and speaking. The audio lessons are long and conversational, and you record yourself against a native track.
Skip it if. You want something light to tap at on a commute, or the up-front cost is a problem.
Rosetta Stone
The immersion method — you work out meaning from images and context instead of being given translations.
How you pay. Subscription or a one-time lifetime plan, which covers all 25 languages.
Best for. Pronunciation. Its speech feedback is the most developed of the options here, and its 25 languages include Korean, Japanese and Chinese.
Skip it if. You want grammar explained in English. The method deliberately avoids it, which some people find freeing and others find maddening.
None of these replaces the routine. A programme you open three times a week beats a better one you abandon in month two — so weigh the format at least as heavily as the content.
Covers: how to learn french alone, basic french for beginners, french verbs for beginners, french flashcards vocabulary, french grammar basics, french phrases for travel, french numbers practice, french greetings and politeness, french vocabulary by theme