Practise French with a native speaker, and give them English conversation practice in return. Roughly 74 million people speak French natively, so partners are easy to find; the useful discipline is showing up on time.
Endonym
Français
Script
Latin alphabet with five diacritics
Spoken in
France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Morocco
First thing to learn
Bonjour — "Hello / good day"
US Foreign Service Institute estimate for an English speaker starting from zero
~24 weeks
Closest to English
French spelling keeps letters it never pronounces and pronounces letters it never writes, so reading and listening pull in opposite directions. Nasal vowels do not exist in English at all, and every noun carries a gender you have to learn with the word.
Knowing this in advance changes what you do with a partner. Grammar drills on Frenchwill not fix a habit your first language gave you — only producing the sentence out loud and being corrected will. That is the specific thing an exchange gives you and an app does not.
A language exchange dies when nobody has anything to talk about. Take these into the call and you will fill the first half without silences.
Say Bonjour (bon-ZHOOR) as your first line, then ask your partner when they would use it and when they would choose something more formal.
Ask your partner to write your own name in Français, then explain which sounds in your name do not exist in French.
Talk for two minutes about what you imagine daily life is like in France. Have your partner correct the parts you got wrong - in French first, then again in English.
Talk for two minutes about what you imagine daily life is like in Canada. Have your partner correct the parts you got wrong - in French first, then again in English.
Ask your partner for one sentence that exposes the hard part: French spelling keeps letters it never pronounces and pronounces letters it never writes, so reading and listening pull in opposite directions.
Switch to English and ask your partner to explain their own language's hardest feature to you. This is the half where you pay for the practice, so take it as seriously as your own turn.
You are not here to improve your English — you already have it. Practise French with someone who speaks it natively, and pay for it by answering their English questions properly. Fluent English speakers are the scarcest resource on an exchange, which is why you will match quickly.
French speakers learning English outnumber English speakers learning French, and France in particular has a steady supply of people who want conversational practice with a native speaker rather than a classroom.
24 weeks of full-time study to working proficiency, on the US Foreign Service Institute scale - closest to english. French spelling keeps letters it never pronounces and pronounces letters it never writes, so reading and listening pull in opposite directions. Nasal vowels do not exist in English at all, and every noun carries a gender you have to learn with the word.
Around 74 million native speakers, concentrated in France, Canada, Belgium. English has already borrowed restaurant, ballet, genre from it, so you are not starting from nothing.
Latin alphabet with five diacritics. The alphabet will look familiar, which is exactly the trap - the letters are the same while the sounds behind them are not, so reading fluently is not the same as pronouncing accurately.
Bonjour (bon-ZHOOR) - "Hello / good day". Bonjour covers the whole day until early evening, when it becomes Bonsoir. Dropping to Salut is only appropriate with friends.
restaurant, ballet, genre, café, souvenir and boutique all reached English from French - 6 words you can use on day one.
Free matching, free voice calls, free video calls. One twenty-minute call is enough to know whether it works for you.
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