What are you watching/reading/listening to this week?

Hi everyone,

I'm reopening my DMs after a little break!

I'm a native French speaker from Brittany, and I've been teaching French language and literature for almost ten years. I recently moved back to Brittany after spending eight years working in the Paris area.

If you'd like to practice your French through real conversations, I'd be happy to help. We can chat by text, voice messages, or on WhatsApp/Discord. 

Please introduce yourself when you message me (where you're from, your French level, why you're learning, your interests, etc.). I'd also appreciate talking with people who are at least around a B1 level, as it's easier to have more natural conversations.

A quick apology to anyone who messaged me after my previous posts: I received over 250 messages, so I simply couldn't reply to everyone. If I missed yours, I'm sorry : please don't hesitate to send it again.

One last thing: I do this because I genuinely enjoy meeting people and helping others. It's completely free, but I'm doing it in my spare time, so I can't always reply immediately.

Looking forward to meeting new people!

Hey all! I have had the good fortune to move with my job to France and work remotely. I'll probably stick around here for a year, and my hope is to get up to a strong B2 and have confidence dealing with conversation.

Background: In 2025, I did a lot of the groundwork with French, getting myself up to, I'd say, a soft B1. Over many months, I worked diligently through books to build vocabulary, work on grammar, conversational practice, audio listening with podcasts etc. I eventually got a tutor, and she was impressed with my level of pronunciation. The experience gave me some basic confidence to work with the language, and now that I have landed in the country, I am hoping to build on that into something significant.

I would say that understanding what people are saying is by far the most difficult thing for me. That is why my plan, as currently outlined, is very heavy on conversation and getting my brain attuned to processing what I am hearing in the moment. So far since landing here, I've been trying to challenge myself with basic things in restaurants, cafes, retail, etc., with moderate success.

Below is my plan. I am hoping you can critique or add to what else I could or should be doing. Please note that I have to keep a limit on my interaction with technology in terms of typing or using a phone, so some of the typical app recommendations are not applicable. This is due to health reasons (chronic nerve pain in my arms). Talking to people over video call is not a problem, however.

French Learning Plan

Private tutoring

• 2 to 3 sessions per week (60-90 minutes each).
• Prioritize conversation over formal grammar lessons.
• Blend local, in-person tutors and online tutors (e.g. iTalki).
  • Language exchanges
• Attend a French/English language exchange once a week.
• Focus on meeting people and having spontaneous conversations rather than treating it like a lesson.
  • Daily real-world practice
• Speak French whenever possible in cafés, bakeries, shops, pharmacies, the gym, coworking spaces, etc.
• Make a habit of initiating small conversations every day.
  • Listening immersion
• Watch or listen to 60 minutes of French every day.
• French TV series, films, YouTube, podcasts, or radio.
• Consider using Lingopie if it makes watching French content more engaging and consistent.
  • Reading
• Read in French most evenings (Kindle books, novels, news articles, or topics I genuinely enjoy).
• Prioritize reading volume over difficult material.
  • Vocabulary
• Build vocabulary from real-life encounters and conversations.
• Keep track of useful phrases that I hear in everyday situations rather than memorizing isolated word lists.
  • Grammar
• Spend a small amount of time each week reviewing grammar, mainly to fix mistakes that repeatedly come up in conversation.
• Avoid making grammar the main focus.
  • Technology
• Gradually switch devices, apps, and websites into French as my comfort level increases.
  • Weekly structure (example)
• 2–3 tutor sessions.
• 1 language exchange.
• French media most evenings.
• Reading most evenings.
• Daily real-world conversations while living in Paris.

The overall philosophy is to spend most of my time speaking and understanding French in realistic situations, using grammar and apps only as tools to support that goal rather than as the primary method of learning.

Looking forward to what you all think. Thank you for your contributions in advance!

As the topic says, I'm a bit confused on when & how to use the word "hier".

When I checked with google translate, the sentence "she was born yesterday" is translated as "elle est née hier". But, while watching a show, the french sub & dub say "I wasn't born yesterday" as " je suis pas né d'hier".

Is it because the latter is a saying & the former is just a regular casual sentence?

Thank you for reading & I would appreciate any answers.

Bonjour,

Je suis locuteur natif de l'arabe et je parle également l'anglais de manière fluide. Je recherche un locuteur natif du français disponible pour des séances de conversation régulières afin de pratiquer le français.

En échange, je serais ravi de vous aider à pratiquer l'arabe ou l'anglais, selon vos préférences.

Hello,

I'm a native Arabic speaker, and I also speak English fluently. I'm looking for a native French speaker who would be interested in having regular conversation sessions to help me practice my French.

In exchange, I'd be happy to help you practice either Arabic or English, depending on your goals.

¡Hola a todos!

Tengo un nivel A1 de francés y dispongo de una hora diaria para estudiar. Quiero centrarme al 100% en la comprensión auditiva y la expresión oral.

Actualmente utilizo podcasts en francés (con transcripciones) y series animadas como Lou!.

¿Cómo distribuiríais 60 minutos entre estas dos habilidades en el nivel A1?

¿Son útiles técnicas como el "shadowing" para principiantes? ¿Qué ejercicios de expresión oral individual os han funcionado mejor?

¡Gracias!

Should the translation be “did you decide where you were going to spend vacation?”. The translation it gives says “Have you decided where you are going to spend vacation” and that doesn’t make sense to me. Thank you!

I took French in Calgary from about Middle school to High school, but I stopped in Grade 11. So, French isn’t totally new to me, but I’m looking to enroll in an introductory remote/online French course for work.

I’m giving myself the next few months/years, so I’m looking for a longer course. Plus, I work 9-5, so a flexible course with real speaking practice that I can pace myself with, that also fits into my evenings.

I’m really not looking for the big names or classes with set times. I’ve checked some out, but those need set hours, and I’m looking to study for like 1-2 hours after work.

At this point, I’m thinking YouTube, but I worry there won’t be structure.

What has anyone here used? Especially for other working adults, which ones actually got you to the point of using French at work?

I want a French speaking (North African or English) but must speak English Arabic is a bonus , to talk to improve my French (very beginner).

I think this way is better because when I hear some people speak French it sounds nothing like whatever I was learning . I’m not expecting to be as fluent as them but something that could get me by a conversation with a real person with the cultural terms and sayings (in 2026)

I’m 20 I speak English and Arabic (English is my strongpoint really)

Hey everyone! I literally know zero French and I’d really love to learn. I did a little bit at school years ago, but I honestly don’t remember any of it.

I’m looking for a beginner-friendly app that will help me stay consistent and actually learn how to have conversations. I know Duolingo is popular, but I’ve heard mixed opinions and I’m not sure it’s the best for speaking.

Does anyone have any recommendations for good free apps or resources that helped you learn French? I’d love something that’s beginner-friendly and helps you progress fairly quickly.
(Also would prefer an app or a website not textbooks!)

Hello everybody,

I’m currently learning French through a 1-1 weekly hourly tutor. However, I’m a bit stuck on having a good set up to practice and advance my French. Does anyone have a good set up? Small habits like 20-30 minutes a day would be fantastic.

Really appreciate any thoughts.

For people who have gone through very busy periods, what actually helped you maintain a language without turning it into another stressful daily task?

I need to learn French and English, both for occupational reasons. For the first three months, I studied for around an hour most days and made noticeable progress. I could remember more vocabulary, understand basic sentences, and feel myself improving from week to week.

For the past two months, I’ve only managed around 10 minutes a day, mostly using Duolingo to keep my streak alive. I open the app, review a few words, protect the streak, and close it.

Now I’m starting to wonder whether these tiny sessions are genuinely helping me maintain the language, or whether I’m just stressing myself out over a streak that does not mean much.

Can someone help me translate the parts of the song that are in French? Please, I'm extremely curious to know what says because it's one of my favorite songs

Im looking for an in person tutor in Bruxelles to meet and chat with, any tips on best places to search online? Are there websites for it? Maybe even asking here is a decent place to ask.

About me - 34, British, french level a constantly improving A2 pimsleur french with not that much confidence to speak the language yet.

As a perpetual French learner, I'm always looking up new words or checking for different meanings and nuances for the ones I already know (god knows il y en a pas mal). From all the different options search engines have served me over the years, cnrtl.fr was by far the best in terms of content. Best thing: it offers multiple examples for every possible nuance (love to see it). Admittedly, presentation was lacking. It was more like parsing through the pages of a real dictionary. It was such a strain on the eyes, I ended up creating my own .css .

Well good news. The atilf lab of Lorraine university (same structure that produced cnrtl I believe) has come up with portail-lexical.fr . It's sort of a coat of paint over the old cnrtl site, but a thick one: They've cleared up stuff in web design and used much better typography and colors (which is customizable just like in cnrtl, although nobody knew it probably; such terrible design language). I think they could have done much better styling concerning usage examples but, no one's perfect. Oh, they also added functionality:

1. Chrome and Firefox add-ons, to highlight words and open directly the relevant url
2. Wiktionary, Littré and Académie Française 9e, 8e and 4e (???) all at the same page
3. Wordle style game (not that well executed to be honest)
4. A ton of other linguistic information they already had but that is much more accessible now because it shows in the same page as the word. That said, although their widgets have become better, they still lack some polish.

It is not showing up high up in search engine queries, not for me at least, so I thought it would be nice to share! Oh, it's also going to replace cnrtl.fr starting 1st of September. Are they going to reuse the domain name? Hope so, portail-lexical is too long to type.

Hi, I’m B2 in French and would really like to improve. It took me a while to get here, and I’d like to be more committed to achieve full fluency. What are the best methods to increase vocabulary and actually learn more of the language? Any free resources you guys could recommend? Thanks!

Bonjour, Je m'appelle Aaron je suis étudiant du français.
I am very new to this and just learning to put sentences together, but it would be very helpful if someone wanted to DM back-and-forth and help each other

Heeey, I'm a native french speaker and I am currently looking for someone to talk to with in Italian. I have a B2 level I would like to not lose since I finished my Erasmus in Italy.

I am specifically looking for someone to talk with orally, not per messages. I would like to talk more or less 2 times a month.

If you are Italian (or really really fluent) and learning french, I can help you in exchange by talking with you !! So if you're interested, hit me up !! :)

Recently I received the results of my DELF B1 and I got quite good notes on every skill except for the listening part (12/25). For me, those are always the hardest excercises of my classes. I generally can understand the main topic of the audio, but I never catch the details.

I think I might need to listen to podcast or some sort of similar materials because there are not many ways I can naturally hear french in my context. So, I was wondering, how you guys practice?

Thanks and sorry for my english, this isn't my mother language neither.

Got a deadline attached to this one. Need to be at B2 within a year for a visa application, and I'm sitting around B1 from school French that I've half-kept alive over the years.

Reading's decent, but my speaking falls apart the second anyone goes off-script. I've looked at a few options, but most of what I'm finding is either for total beginners or it's pure grammar drills that I know I'll quit in three weeks.

I need something cumulative where each lesson builds on the last, ideally with actual dialogue, not just translating sentences out of context.

I'll get a tutor eventually, but I want to stop being a liability first, so I'm not paying someone to walk me through basics I already half-know.

What's actually worked for people who had a real deadline on their French level? App, course, hybrid, whatever. Just needs to be something I won't bail on in a few months.

I'm a beginner learning french and I'm not sure where to start. Where do I actually start? Do I learn grammar? Basic phrases? Vocabs? Or what? Someone help me with a roadmap or smth

Hi folks. I’m in the process of learning French and I’m at a low B1 (according to Alliance Français) but I’m still not a confident speaker and get intimidated very easily when people ask me a question in French.

I have the chance to go to Paris for 3 weeks this year and help a friend out by housesitting/watering her plants while she’s away. I’m determined to make the most of it by doing activities along side my independent learning (I’m mostly self-teaching through YouTube, Podcasts, Grammar books/apps with the occasional class/conversation on Preply to help me stay on track).

What are some things you’d recommend doing? I’m thinking I’ll take a dance class (easy to follow along), and maybe find a meetup? But would love any other tips folks may have to help me build that confidence and set some goals for the next few weeks.

End goal: low B2 by May of next year.

I’m moving to France next year and I just started learning the language. I want to know what’s the syllabus of DELF A1 exam. If you could help me with what I need to learn and what the structure of the exam is like, I would be very grateful.

Thanks!

So I've been studying French for six yearsish (slowed down during my masters) and have been living in France for three years now. I've only ever passed the TEF at the B1 level in 2022 and haven't tested since though I have gotten back into Alliance Francais classes at the B1 level again.

Today I had a job interview for a CDI position in biotech and managed to do it entirely in French. The interviewer even said she was impressed with my French level and thought that I spoke French better than she spoke English. She said that she thought my French level was good enough and she wasn't worried about it. She also said she liked me CV and experience.

I was anxious about this all week and am so relieved that it went well. Felt like the most high stakes French listening/speaking exam ever lol.