🇫🇷 Learn French (Français)
Learn French vocabulary with spaced repetition, dictation and an AI conversation partner. Plain-English meanings and examples, from A1 to C2.
How hard is French?
French shares a large amount of vocabulary with English, so reading comes relatively quickly. The US Foreign Service Institute estimates about 600–750 class hours for an English speaker to reach professional working proficiency.
Listening is the hard part: French spelling is full of silent letters and words are linked together when spoken, so what you hear can be far from what you see. Dictation is especially useful for French for this reason.
Tips for learning French
- Train your ear early with dictation; do not rely on reading alone.
- Learn each noun with its article, “le” or “la”, since gender is not always predictable.
- Pay attention to liaison and elision, such as “l'homme” and “j'aime”, from the beginning.
Levels
French follows the CEFR scale, A1 to C2, the same levels used by the DELF and DALF diplomas. Pick your level and KaigoAI pitches everything to match.
20 essential French words
| French | Meaning |
|---|---|
| bonjour | hello; good day |
| merci | thank you |
| s'il vous plaît | please |
| oui | yes |
| non | no |
| l'eau | water |
| le pain | bread |
| la maison | house |
| l'ami | friend (male) |
| le temps | time; weather |
| le jour | day |
| la nuit | night |
| bon | good |
| beau | beautiful |
| grand | big, tall |
| petit | small |
| apprendre | to learn |
| parler | to speak |
| comprendre | to understand |
| pardon | sorry; excuse me |
Questions about learning French
How long does it take to learn French?
The US Foreign Service Institute estimates about 600–750 class hours for an English speaker to reach professional working proficiency in French. Everyday conversation comes sooner, especially with regular listening practice.
Is French hard for English speakers?
French is moderate: a lot of vocabulary is familiar, but pronunciation, silent letters and grammatical gender take time. Listening practice such as dictation helps the most.
How does KaigoAI help me learn French?
Add the French words you meet, and KaigoAI writes a plain-English meaning and an example sentence for each, then schedules them with spaced repetition. You can also practise French with dictation paragraphs at your level and talk with an AI partner that replies in French.
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