Expert tips, guides, and insights to help you master French faster. From grammar basics to cultural nuances.
Read the explanation here, then say the sentences and see which sounds you are missing.
French measures out at about the same information rate as English. Time one sentence yourself, count the beats, and see what is actually happening to your ear....
120 French food words organised by the moment you need them — breakfast, the market, the butcher, the café — with genders, the register notes that matter, and what to say out loud....
French place names break their own spelling rules more than any other words. Fifteen of them, sorted by which lie the spelling is telling — with IPA and a drill....
You can read the menu. Saying it out loud is a different problem. Five spelling traps that generate almost every French dish name — drilled on 20 of them, scored....
You know the words. You still cannot hear where they stop. Three things French does to its own syllables — and the drill for each one....
Sixty French expressions natives actually use, grouped by the moment you need them — each with the register that decides whether it lands or offends....
Everyone tells you the French u is hard. Nobody tells you your ou is wrong too - English GOOSE is fronted and diphthongal, so you are missing both vowels. Build them separately, then drill 20 minimal pairs out loud....
You were told to memorise four exceptions. The real rule is in the letter before the ILL, not the ILL itself - and half the exception lists online are out of date. Three categories, the Academie's own short list, and 20 words to say out loud....
In a French nasal vowel the N is not a sound - it is a spelling instruction, and your tongue must never touch the roof of your mouth. The three sounds, the true minimal triples, the denasalization pairs that prove it, and 10 sentences....
Stop gargling. The French R is made exactly where you say the G in get - and the reason yours is not working is the tip of your tongue. Build it in four steps, then drill 12 words, three weights of R, and 10 sentences....
One S between two vowels is /z/. Two S's are /s/. English trained you to do the opposite in exactly the word where it matters most - dessert. The rule, the boundary exceptions nobody teaches, and 20 pairs to say out loud....
Simply French listens to you say each sentence and scores it word by word, so you can hear the difference you have just read about — and fix it while it is still fresh.
Takes about 10 minutes. No card needed to start.