The best way to learn French is to start with how it sounds, because French spelling hides much of what you hear. Spend your first few weeks on silent letters, nasal vowels and liaison while you learn a few survival phrases. Then learn every noun with le or la and build sentences around four verbs: être, avoir, aller and faire. From the third month, listen to French every day with a transcript in front of you. English speakers can read a lot of French early because the two languages share so much vocabulary. Understanding spoken French takes much longer.

In what order should you learn French?

Sound first, then gender and the core verbs, then a lot of listening.

Phase	When	What to study	Goal by the end
1. Ear and mouth	Weeks 1 to 4	Sound and spelling rules, nasal vowels, liaison, survival phrases	Read a simple sentence aloud correctly, greet and ask for help
2. Gender and core verbs	Weeks 5 to 12	Le and la, être, avoir, aller, faire, regular -er verbs, negation, questions	Describe yourself, your plans and your day in the present
3. Listening every day	Month 3 onward	Audio with transcripts, dictation, the passé composé, short conversations	Follow slow, clear French and talk about what you did

Why is French pronunciation hard, and how do you learn it?

French pronunciation is hard at first because many written letters are silent, some vowels are nasal, and words run together in speech. It is also regular: once you learn the patterns, you can say most written words correctly. Start with the French alphabet with audio, then work through the three features below.

Silent letters

Most final consonants are silent: petit, grand, trop and beaucoup all end in a vowel sound. A final e is silent too, but it makes the consonant before it heard. That's why petit ends in an "ee" sound while petite ends in a clear "t". Gender in French is often something you hear in that last consonant.

The -ent ending of the ils and elles form is silent too. Je parle, tu parles, il parle and ils parlent all sound exactly the same. Final c, r, f and l are often pronounced (sac, bonjour, neuf, avril). The big exception is the r in -er verbs like parler and manger, which is silent.

Nasal vowels

When a vowel is followed by n or m in the same syllable, the n or m usually isn't pronounced as a consonant. Instead, the vowel goes partly through your nose. French has three nasal vowels that everyone uses, plus a fourth that many speakers in France now pronounce like the second.

Spelling	Examples	Tip
an, am, en, em	enfant, temps, vent (wind)	An open "ah" said through the nose
in, im, ain, ein	vin (wine), pain, plein	Close to the "a" in "cat", said through the nose
on, om	bon, nom, vont (they go)	A rounded "oh" through the nose
un, um	un, parfum	Many speakers in France now say it the same as in

Vin, vent and vont are three different words that differ only in the nasal vowel, so practise them as a set. The nasal sound disappears when the n is followed by a vowel or doubled: bon has a nasal vowel, bonne doesn't; américain is nasal, américaine ends in a clear "n".

Liaison and elision

Liaison means a normally silent final consonant is pronounced when the next word starts with a vowel sound. That's why spoken French can sound like one long word.

les amis sounds like "lay-zah-mee": the s comes out as a z
vous avez sounds like "voo-zah-vay"
ils ont (they have) has a z sound, while ils sont (they are) has an s sound. Liaison is the only thing telling avoir and être apart here.

Liaison is required after words like les, des, un, mon, nous and vous before a vowel. It never happens after et (and), or before words that start with a so-called aspirated h: you say les hôtels with liaison, but les héros without it. You learn these h words one at a time.

Elision is simpler. Short words like le, la, je, ne, de and que drop their vowel before a vowel or a silent h and take an apostrophe: l'ami, l'homme, j'aime, je n'ai pas.

Other sounds to practise early

u versus ou. For u, say "ee" with your lips rounded. Tu (you) and tout (all) are different words, and so are dessus (on top) and dessous (underneath).
The French r. It's made at the back of the throat, not with the tip of the tongue.
é versus è. É is close to the start of "ay" with no glide (été); è is like the "e" in "bed" (très).
Common spellings. Eau and au both sound like "oh", oi sounds like "wa" (moi, trois), ch sounds like "sh", and gn sounds like "ny" (montagne). H is always silent.

Which French phrases should you learn first?

Start every interaction with Bonjour. In France, walking into a shop or asking a stranger a question without saying it first comes across as rude.

French	English	Note
Bonjour	Hello, good morning	Used until early evening
Bonsoir	Good evening
Salut	Hi, bye	Informal
Merci	Thank you
S'il vous plaît / S'il te plaît	Please	Formal / informal
Excusez-moi	Excuse me	Formal
Je m'appelle...	My name is...
Je ne comprends pas	I don't understand
Vous pouvez répéter, s'il vous plaît?	Can you repeat that, please?	Formal
Plus lentement, s'il vous plaît	More slowly, please
Vous parlez anglais?	Do you speak English?	Formal
C'est combien?	How much is it?
L'addition, s'il vous plaît	The bill, please	In a restaurant
Au revoir	Goodbye

How do you learn French noun gender?

Every French noun is masculine or feminine, and for most objects there's no logic you can see: la table, le livre, la voiture, le stylo. The fix is to never learn a noun on its own. Learn le livre, not livre. For nouns starting with a vowel, le and la both become l', which hides the gender, so learn those with un or une instead: un hôtel, une idée.

Some endings give you a strong hint:

Ending	Usually	Examples	Common exceptions
-tion, -sion	Feminine	la nation, la télévision	Very few
-té	Feminine	la liberté, la santé	un été (summer), le côté
-ment	Masculine	le moment, le gouvernement	la jument (mare)
-age	Masculine	le fromage, le voyage	la page, la plage, une image
-eau	Masculine	le bureau, le gâteau	l'eau (water, feminine), la peau

Gender affects more than the article. Adjectives agree (un petit café, une petite table), and so do possessives. In French the possessive agrees with the thing owned, not the owner. Son père means "his father" or "her father"; sa mère means "his mother" or "her mother". Before a feminine noun starting with a vowel, use mon, ton or son: mon amie.

What French grammar should beginners learn first?

Learn the present tense of the four verbs you'll use in almost every sentence. All four are irregular, so memorise them as a block.

Person	être (to be)	avoir (to have)	aller (to go)	faire (to do, make)
je / j'	suis	ai	vais	fais
tu	es	as	vas	fais
il, elle, on	est	a	va	fait
nous	sommes	avons	allons	faisons
vous	êtes	avez	allez	faites
ils, elles	sont	ont	vont	font

Then add, in roughly this order:

Regular -er verbs like parler, aimer and habiter. Most French verbs follow this pattern.
Negation with ne...pas. Je ne parle pas allemand. In casual speech the ne often disappears (je parle pas allemand), so learn to hear both but write the ne.
Three ways to ask a question. Tu parles anglais? with rising intonation is casual. Est-ce que tu parles anglais? works everywhere. Parles-tu anglais? is more formal and more common in writing.
Aller plus a verb for the near future. Je vais manger means "I'm going to eat". Spoken French uses it constantly, so the simple future can wait.
The passé composé for the past. Most verbs use avoir (j'ai mangé, I ate). A small group of verbs, mostly about movement or change of state, use être, and their past participle agrees with the subject: il est allé, elle est allée.
On for "we". In everyday speech, on va au cinéma (we're going to the cinema) is more common than nous allons au cinéma.

Use vous with strangers, older people, shop staff and colleagues until they suggest tu.

How long does it take to learn French?

About 30 weeks of full-time study, according to the US Foreign Service Institute (FSI). FSI puts French in Category I, the languages closest to English, but at the slow end of it. Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Romanian and the Scandinavian languages are listed at 24 weeks; only French and Spanish are at 30. An FSI week is 23 hours of class and 17 of self-study, so 30 weeks comes to about 690 class hours and roughly 1,200 hours in all. The target is an integrated score of 3 for speaking and listening on the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale, the level at which you can use French for work. (Source: US Department of State, Foreign Language Training.)

Self-study is slower. FSI's students are in class full time, and FSI itself says the real time varies with ability, past language learning and time in the classroom. At an hour a day you'd need almost two years just to match the class hours. You'll be able to talk about yourself, your plans and your weekend long before that.

Which French should you learn: France, Canada or elsewhere?

Start with the standard French taught in most courses, then add listening from the region you care about. French speakers from Paris, Montreal, Brussels and Dakar understand each other, but you'll notice differences. Our post on why learn French covers where the language is spoken.

Quebec. T and d before i or u are pronounced with a small hiss, so tu sounds close to "tsu" and dire close to "dzire". Meal names shift: déjeuner is breakfast, dîner is lunch and souper is dinner, where France says petit-déjeuner, déjeuner and dîner. The weekend is often la fin de semaine.
Belgium and Switzerland. Seventy is septante and ninety is nonante, instead of soixante-dix (sixty-ten) and quatre-vingt-dix (four-twenty-ten). Parts of Switzerland also say huitante for eighty. Both also use the Quebec meal names.
West and Central Africa. French is an official language in many countries and is used alongside local languages, so accents and some vocabulary differ from country to country.

Can you learn French for free?

Yes. Everything on this list is free, and the first two come from French-language public broadcasters:

TV5MONDE Apprendre le français has exercises built around short videos, sorted by level.
RFI's Journal en français facile is a real news bulletin in simpler French, published Monday to Friday with a transcript. Once you reach phase 3, use it for dictation.
The French letters page gives you free audio for every letter.
Free online dictionaries show each noun's gender, and many include audio.
Libraries often lend graded readers and French audiobooks, and language exchanges let you trade conversation time with French speakers.

What mistakes do French beginners make?

Reading French like English. Pronouncing the -ent in ils parlent or the s in les gives you away immediately. Learn the sound rules before you build vocabulary.
Learning nouns without le or la. You'll need the gender for every article, adjective and possessive.
Making the possessive agree with the owner. A woman talking about her father says mon père, not ma père, and "his mother" is sa mère, not son mère.
Saying "je suis 25 ans". French uses avoir: j'ai 25 ans. The same goes for j'ai faim (I'm hungry), j'ai soif (thirsty) and j'ai froid (cold).
Using tu too early, or skipping Bonjour. Both can sound rude to people who don't know you.
Assuming a familiar-looking word means the same thing. Une librairie is a bookshop (a library is une bibliothèque). Actuellement means at the moment. Attendre means to wait, not to attend. Sensible means sensitive, and une location is a rental.
Studying only from the page. Written and spoken French are far apart: in speech the ne disappears, words run together, and many endings you see aren't pronounced. If you only read, you'll understand texts long before you understand people.

How much French should you study each week?

Plan on 30 to 40 minutes a day. This routine puts listening at the centre, because that's where French learners usually fall behind.

Day	What to do	Focus
Monday	Learn one grammar point and read its example sentences aloud	New material
Tuesday	Listen to a short clip without text, then with the transcript, then without again	Listening
Wednesday	Dictation: play three or four sentences, write them down, check against the transcript	Silent letters and agreement
Thursday	Talk for 15 minutes with a tutor, exchange partner or AI tutor; practise switching between vous and tu	Speaking
Friday	Review flashcards (always with the article); read a paragraph aloud and mark the liaisons	Review and pronunciation
Saturday	Watch a show or video with French subtitles	Listening
Sunday	Rest, or listen to a French song with the lyrics in front of you	Easy listening

Dictation (la dictée) is a standard exercise in French schools, and it suits learners too. It forces you to decide where the silent letters go and whether an ending is masculine, feminine or plural.

Do you have to learn French through English?

No. On Indilingo you can learn French with explanations in your own language, for example French through Arabic, Hindi or Spanish. You can also practise spoken French with an AI tutor in the Speak tab. Speaking practice is on every plan, and free users get free minutes. The app is available to download on Android and iOS.

Frequently asked questions

Is French hard to learn for English speakers?

Easier than most. The FSI puts it in Category I, the group closest to English, with an estimate of 30 weeks of full-time study. A lot of the vocabulary looks familiar. Pronunciation and listening are the hard parts, because so much of the spelling is silent.

Why are so many letters silent in French?

French pronunciation changed over the centuries while the spelling stayed close to older forms of the language. Some silent letters were even put back on purpose: the g in vingt (twenty) had dropped out by Old French and was restored in the spelling in Middle French to match Latin viginti. Many of them are still pronounced in some contexts, such as liaison (les amis) and feminine forms (petit, petite).

Should I learn tu or vous first?

Learn both, but use vous with anyone you don't know well. It's the polite default with strangers, older people and in shops. Switch to tu when the other person does or suggests it.

How to Learn French: A Beginner's Plan That Starts With Sound