Learning French doesn’t have to mean textbooks or pricey classes. Thanks to the internet, there’s an endless supply of resources to help you build skills at your own pace—whether you’re a complete beginner or an advanced learner.
These tools, from grammar exercises to interactive stories and cultural tidbits, let you tailor your learning journey to match your style and goals.
The French for Beginners G.U.T.S. (Get Up To Speed) program is an unusual and interactive option for learners looking for something different. Split into a number of progressive lessons, the website is great for dipping in and out whenever you’ve got time to practice.
It will give you great materials for building and reinforcing your foundation in French.
Individual lessons are constructed as acts within a play where learners are asked to participate in the different scenes, talking only about the material included in the individual act.
It focuses on beginner grammar and makes everything very accessible, enabling you to easily make it a part of your learning routine. There’s an intermediate level course as well, so you can progress naturally once you’ve mastered all the basics and are looking for a new challenge.
G.U.T.S. provides each learner with a new set of flashcards for every lesson, complete with a set of vocabulary points.
Other sites use scripted content. FluentU uses a natural approach that helps you ease into the French language and culture over time. You’ll learn French as it’s actually spoken by real people.
FluentU has a wide variety of great content, like interviews and web series, as you can see here:
FluentU brings native videos within reach with interactive subtitles.
You can tap on any word to look it up instantly. Every definition has examples that have been written to help you understand how the word is used.
For example, if you tap on the word "crois," you'll see this:
Practice and reinforce all the vocabulary you've learned in a given video with FluentU's adaptive quizzes. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning and play the mini-games found in the dynamic flashcards, like "fill in the blank."
As you study, FluentU tracks the vocabulary that you’re learning and uses this information to give you a 100% personalized experience.
It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned.
Using the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), Lawless French targets learners at every level by dividing its activities from A1 to C1. Each level is further separated into specific skills, namely vocabulary, listening comprehension, grammar, pronunciation and reading comprehension.
Because the lessons are listed individually, you get to decide which topic or skill you want to work on, at your own pace. Or, if you sense that your skills are on different levels, you can customize your experience by picking activities at different levels, such as doing the lessons for A2 listening while working on B1 grammar.
Although you can pursue the activities independently, the website also offers a platform to test and track your progress, aptly named “Progress with Lawless French.”
The Lingolia website is not only dedicated to teaching French, but also English, Spanish, German and Esperanto. So they know a thing or two about language learning.
Beginner and intermediate learners should feel right at home with articles on grammar, vocabulary, reading and listening. The website is user-friendly, listing all of their topics on the left sidebar. But it’s also possible to find articles according to language level, from A1 to C1. Throughout your studies you can use their “Do A Random Exercise” feature, where the site chooses a random topic to test you on and keep your knowledge fresh.
The site has more to offer when you sign up for its premium service Lingolia Plus. With Lingolia Plus, you can access more of the content that you enjoy, as well as features for tracking your progress and giving more feedback.
The entire premise of Talk in French can be found in its name, and the site definitely lives up to it.
When you first enter the site, you’ll find dozens of articles on vocabulary and common phrases, meant to get you started on your first few conversations. As you get comfortable with conversational French, you can read through their other articles to develop a deeper knowledge of grammar, listening comprehension and French culture.
In addition to their bank of free resources, they offer courses, audiobooks and a podcast for subscribers. Therefore, you can choose to study on your own, or seek the help of a teacher for a more personalized approach.
Auditory learners will have found their match made in heaven in French Today, a site which teaches French primarily through audio lessons. Paid resources such as audiobooks, novels and textbooks are available for purchase on their site.
Don’t worry if you’re not looking to spend, because French Today offers plenty of free resources through their blog. You can access articles on grammar, pronunciation, conjugation and French culture. But their most impressive feature is an ever-growing glossary of vocabulary lists. With topics on flirting, drinking and Caribbean creole, rest assured that these aren’t the lessons from your high school French class.
Studying long lists of vocabulary and grammar rules isn’t for everyone. French Today’s third solution to teaching French is through stories and poetry, complete with English translations.
And if none of those options work for you, French Today also offers French lessons via video call with one of their instructors for a customized approach.
Unlike the other websites on this list, ThoughtCo is not dedicated solely to learning French. Nevertheless, it still holds water as a valuable French resource.
By way of articles, the site teaches grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation as well as French culture. If you prefer a more textbook-style to learning languages, even if you’re self-teaching, you’ll appreciate ThoughtCo’s layout. The downside is that you may not have many chances for assessment, as the articles don’t include tests or any interactive features beyond audio clips for pronunciation articles. So, you may want to balance this resource out with other methods or websites to interact with other French speakers.
The site also offers resources for teachers, reinforcing that classroom method of learning that allows students to practice with other students, and under the guidance and assessment of a teacher.
While ToLearnFrench has fewer explanations and a more outdated website design compared to others on this list, it does offer plenty of free online French exercises and resources for learners.
For example, you can find vocabulary lists as well as a variety of French lessons for beginner, intermediate and advanced learners, covering vocabulary and grammar topics.
If you’d like to practice French pronunciation and reading comprehension, you could also check out the example French dialogues. These dialogues are in the form of illustrations, showing the speech in both French and English. As a bonus, each dialogue is accompanied by audio and an exercise, meaning you’ll be able to listen to the pronunciation and practice what you have learned.
Brought to you by the French TV channel TV5MONDE (obviously), this is a website directed towards all levels of French—however, it really seems to hit the sweet spot for intermediate and advanced learners. Balancing video extracts with written tasks and audio examples, the website offers an in-depth overview of the French language.
When you’re learning alone, it can often feel hard to connect with the lesson in front of you. Focusing on interactive exercises, TV5MONDE lets you really delve directly into the world of learning, getting you involved in the learning process from the start. Split into reading, listening and test sections, each lesson is designed to involve you in the lesson as much as possible.
Each learning point is accompanied by a learning video, played out by native actors. Watching the action play out, you can figure out the scenario and language to a greater degree, understanding better how the lesson is aiming to play out. The videos also give an insight into French family life and the dynamics of relationships within the family.
The TV5MONDE learning series isn’t just reduced to intermediate stages. Split into beginner, intermediate and sections beyond, it’s very possible to continue up until an advanced level, following the same structure as you continue in your learning.
TV5MONDE is not the only news broadcaster with a platform to teach French. Radio France Internationale, commonly known as RFI, started its website Le Français Facile avec RFI to teach French using international news broadcasts.
There are primarily two ways that you can use their content. For the news junkies, or anyone interested in being able to learn new vocabulary and discuss current events, you can use Le Journal en Français Facile. The programme is a version of today’s news that’s been re-recorded and shortened using simplified French. Although you’re not limited to news broadcasts. RFI Français Facile has a range of current events podcasts targeted towards French learners.
On the other hand, if you want something more interactive, the site also offers exercises for different language levels. Each exercise consists of an audio clip, followed by questions to test your understanding of the clip. Both options include transcriptions to the audio for guidance.
If you want to perfect your listening and conversational skills as you learn French on your own, then FrenchPod101 is the place for you to go! Structured around interactive videos, native audio extracts and conversational French forums, the site will connect you to other learners, and teach you about a whole new side of the French language.
With lessons gradually progressing up to advanced levels, this site has all types of learners covered. With lower to upper intermediate lessons included, you can feel comfortable in the lessons before moving up the learning ladder.
FrenchPod101 marks every time you complete a lesson on the website, making it easier than ever to watch yourself progress. By regularly quizzing your French after the lessons, FrenchPod101 constantly puts your understanding to the test, flagging up any problem areas before it’s too late.
Intermediate and advanced learners interested in linguistics, the mechanics of the French language, or a challenge in general, will get a kick out of La Langue Française. Compared to other language learning sites, La Langue Française is a no frills kind of resource.
In lieu of interactive activities, the site offers a dictionary, as well as in-depth articles and guides on French literature, grammar, expressions, conjugation and spelling. While the site does have quizzes, they’re a far cry from the gamified challenges and rewards system you’re used to seeing on other platforms.
For learners who fall at the intersection of having an advanced level of French and wanting to certify your language skills, Commun Français will help prepare you for the DELF B2 exam, and beyond.
With Commun Français, you can find activities for all four of the skills that the exam tests, at the B2, C1 and C2 levels. The site offers prompts for writing and speaking, with model outlines and responses as well as in-depth explanations. Additionally, there are lists of articles to practice reading at your level. Sprinkled throughout the site are activities to teach and assess grammar and conjugation, as well impart new vocabulary.
You can use the site as either a supplement to classes or in order to self-study. In the latter case, it would be helpful to take advantage of their community page on Facebook. It’s a space to interact with other users who are also preparing for the exam, ask questions and gain new resources, as well as participate in live webinars.
If you’re looking for short texts to practice your French reading skills, you’ll want to start with the content available on MyCow. The site allows visitors to access beginner, intermediate and advanced news articles. Their archive is sorted under the topics you would typically find in a newspaper or news site, such as world news, tech, sports, science and business.
Although these articles are open to everyone, subscribing to MyCow allows you to unlock more resources on their website. Members can access exercises in grammar, writing and vocabulary, as well as French culture. You’re also no longer limited to reading articles, as the platform also offers a podcast for subscribers to work on their listening comprehension.
This one offers fantastic resources for French teachers, but if you’re teaching yourself French it’s also a great stop. It’s definitely worth mentioning that this site offers lesson plans and activities to practice what you’ve learned.
While these plans are targeted at teachers, they’re very easy to use as a self-taught student. They reduce the boredom that can come from following the same textbook activities day after day.
To top it all off, the exercises and activities are quite varied, meaning that you can come back to this site again and again to use new resources.
For beginners, this is a fantastic place to start. Blagues (jokes) are essential to learning a new language, and while many people say that humor is the hardest thing to learn in a foreign tongue, there’s no time like the present to give it a try! Carambar are caramel-flavored candies similar to Tootsie Rolls that traditionally have fun facts and quick jokes on the insides of their wrappers. Because they’re mostly targeted to children, these jokes can be fairly easy to understand.
Because the candies aren’t all that available outside of France, use this website to access the jokes, which tend to be on par with knock-knock jokes as far as language level and humor are concerned.
But do watch out! Many of them rely on jeux de mots(wordplay) which takes advantage of the fact that many words in French sound the same. All of the jokes are submitted by fans of Carambar, so if some of them fall flat, don’t jump to the conclusion that your French learning has failed you.
If you want only the most modern of French slang, then you might want to pay a visit to Vie de merde, the French site that spurred the creation of the Anglo equivalent, FML.
As the stories are all submitted by readers, you’ll be getting only the latest French slang and idioms. One thing to bear in mind, however: as with the Anglo version of the site, VDM is not always written by the most grammatically astute of readers—you’ll be seeing quite a few spelling mistakes. Use the site to get a handle on expressions and new, hip vocab words, not as a place to practice your French grammar and spelling skills.
This is an easy way to introduce tidbits of information, from random facts to current events, into your daily life. I love this site because they also have an app (available on iOS and Android), making it easy to access these quick bytes of information on your daily commute or while waiting to pick up your fast food order.
Because the information given in this app is so short, this site can be used by beginners as well as more advanced students. As a beginner, you may have a bit more translating to do, but you’ll be adding to your vocabulary arsenal as well!
Few are the French lovers who haven’t heard about the Charlie Hebdo attacks. What some don’t know is that the idea of a satirical press has long been important in France.
The most widely read satirical newspaper in France is Le Canard enchainé, whose title stems from a play on words whereby a press news source is called a canard (duck). While you can’t read the whole paper online, you can see la une(the first page), which is usually more than enough, considering how much satire and circumstance you’ll have to decipher.
This is the ideal web resource for advanced French learners with an eye to improving their French and being able to speak with native speakers about current events.
You don’t have to scratch your head and wonder how to learn French on your own. With the above resources, you can just get started!
With the internet acting as a melting pot for every type of French learning out there, you’re free to pick and choose the content that you want to use. Giving access to French tutors, unique methods of learning and huge archives of material, French learning websites are becoming increasingly popular resources to pick up the language.
Only one question remains before you start to self study French: Which one(s) will you choose?
