French: from Zero to C2
This is a complete French course for English speakers, from your first bonjour to the level of the DALF C2, the highest French diploma. It has 50 units in six levels, built on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). Every unit trains the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, with grammar, vocabulary and hundreds of self-correcting exercises.
Your progress
Tick I have finished this unit at the end of each unit; your progress is saved in this browser.
The course plan
| Level | What you can do at the end | Units | Approximate study time |
|---|---|---|---|
| A1 — Beginner | introduce yourself, order food, ask the way, talk about your day | 10 | 60–100 hours |
| A2 — Elementary | tell what you did, describe your past, deal with everyday situations | 10 | about 160–200 hours in total |
| B1 — Intermediate | tell stories, give and justify opinions, write formal emails | 10 | about 350–400 hours in total |
| B2 — Upper intermediate | argue in a debate, write essays, understand the press (DELF B2) | 8 | about 550–650 hours in total |
| C1 — Advanced | synthesise documents, write academic essays, understand all registers (DALF C1) | 6 | about 800–1000 hours in total |
| C2 — Mastery | analyse literature, master rhetoric, irony and translation (DALF C2) | 6 | about 1000–1200 hours in total |
The hours are the usual estimates of guided learning time for each level; personal study counts too. Expect roughly two to three years of regular work to go from zero to C1, and more for C2.
What is in each level
A1. Sounds and greetings · introducing yourself · family · daily routine · café and market · the city · home · hobbies · clothes and shopping · plans and weather. Grammar: être, avoir, -er verbs, articles, gender, possessives, negation, questions, partitives, aller / venir, imperative, adjectives, futur proche.
A2. Last weekend · a trip · health · childhood memories · invitations · housing · work and studies · the future · restaurants and recipes · media and online shopping. Grammar: passé composé (with avoir and être), imparfait, reflexive verbs, object pronouns, y and en, comparatives, relative pronouns, futur simple, superlatives, polite conditional.
B1. Telling a story · life stories and regrets · opinions · the subjunctive · hypotheses · the world of work · reported speech · the environment · culture · arguing. Grammar: passé composé vs imparfait, plus-que-parfait, subjunctive, conditional and si clauses, dont, lequel, reported speech, passive, gérondif, double pronouns, connectors.
B2. Nuanced opinions · the past revisited · concession · cause and consequence · the press · professional French · idioms and registers · debating. Grammar: subjunctive vs indicative, past conditional, bien que, avoir beau, malgré, nominalisation, participle clauses, ne explétif, conjunctions + subjunctive. Final goal: the DELF B2 essay and oral.
C1. Emphasis and inversion · literary tenses · document synthesis · the argumentative essay · lexical precision · spoken French and the francophone world. Final goal: the DALF C1 synthesis, essay and exposé.
C2. Literary analysis · style and rhetoric · irony and humour · translation and précis · ideas and the French essay tradition · the DALF C2. Authors studied: Verlaine, Baudelaire, Hugo, Voltaire, Pascal, Montaigne, Camus.
How a unit works
Each unit follows the same path. Plan 4–8 hours per unit at A1–A2, 6–10 hours at B1–B2, and 8–15 hours at C1–C2, spread over a week or two.
- Dialogue or text. Press Listen and try to understand before you show the text. Then answer the questions: a click shows at once if you are right.
- Vocabulary. Every French word in italics can be clicked to hear it. Say each word aloud.
- Grammar. Clear explanations in English, with tables, examples and the typical mistakes of English speakers.
- Practice. Fill in the blanks and press Check: green is right, red is wrong, orange means only an accent is missing. Show answers if you are stuck.
- Listening. A second text with questions, then dictations: write what you hear and see, word by word, what you missed.
- Speaking. Repeat drills (press the microphone: the browser shows what it understood and gives you a score) and an open speaking task: record yourself, listen back and compare with the model answer.
- Writing. A writing task with a word counter. Your draft is saved in this browser. Compare it with the model answer only after writing.
- Flashcards. Review the key words and structures; shuffle them and come back to them the following days.
Note (Audio and microphone). The course uses your browser's built-in French voices and speech recognition, so it needs no installation. Chrome and Edge work best (Edge on Windows has very natural French voices; Chrome recognises French speech well). Safari reads French aloud; Firefox can read but cannot recognise speech, so the microphone button records you instead. The first time, allow the microphone in the address bar. Nothing you say or write is sent to this site; recordings stay on your device.
A weekly study plan
Regularity beats intensity: 45 minutes every day is better than five hours on Sunday. A typical week:
| Day | Activity (about 45–60 minutes) |
|---|---|
| Monday | Dialogue and vocabulary of the new unit; flashcards of the previous unit |
| Tuesday | Grammar and practice exercises |
| Wednesday | Listening and dictations; 15 minutes of French audio of your choice |
| Thursday | Speaking drills; record the open speaking task twice |
| Friday | Writing task; correct it with the model answer |
| Saturday | Free immersion: a film, a series, a podcast or a book in French |
| Sunday | Review: flashcards, redo the exercises you got wrong |
Beyond this course
- Listen every day from A2: RFI — Journal en français facile (news in simple French), then France Culture podcasts from B2.
- Watch: TV5Monde's learning site has videos with exercises for every level; from B1, French films and series with French subtitles.
- Read: graded readers at A2–B1, then the press (Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération), then the authors of this course.
- Speak: find a conversation partner (a language exchange or a tutor) once a week from A2.
- Take an exam to measure your level: DELF A1–B2 and DALF C1–C2 are official diplomas of the French Ministry of Education, valid for life and recognised worldwide.
Start here
Begin with A1, Unit 1: Bonjour ! Sounds and greetings. Bon courage !