12 Websites for French Grammar Exercises
Grammar takes time and patience to master, but it’s a necessary part of your French repertoire.
It’s crucial for communicating even the simplest of thoughts, like the difference between je nage (I swim) and je nageais (I used to swim).
In other words, grammar is central to understanding and communicating in written and spoken French.
We know French grammar isn’t always easy, so we’re going to introduce you to 12 resources that offer exercises in a variety of grammar areas.
Contents
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1. Le Point du FLE
Le point du FLE means “The Point of French as a Foreign Language.” (FLE stands for français langue étrangère.)
What makes this site unique is that, while most of the other sites listed here directly give you an exercise for a given grammar topic, this one provides several links to outside sources for you to choose from. Many of the sites are reputable, such as the University of Genoa in Italy or University of Victoria in Canada.
To help you sift through your options, the links come with icons indicating whether the site has an explanation of the topic, audio, video and/or an actual drill or quiz.
2. Tex’s French Grammar
Tex’s French Grammar is probably one of my favorite grammar reference and practice websites. Not only do they give helpful explanations and cover a plethora of topics, but they have the cutest little mascot.
After all, who doesn’t want to learn French from an armadillo with a Parisian beret named “Tex?” And the reason he’s called “Tex” is because the website is managed by the University of Texas in Austin.
On their main page, you’ll find the grammar topics organized under “nouns,” “adverbs,” “adjectives,” “verbs” and so on.
In case you’re wondering where Tex the Armadillo comes in—well, many of the grammar topics are illustrated using Tex and his lady friend Tammy (so you won’t trip over your French gender). At the bottom of each page are the exercises, which are usually fill-in-the-blank.
3. Columbia University
Although Columbia University’s French Language Exercises only cover 10 topics, their multiple-choice drills give detailed explanations as to why the correct answers are correct.
This is refreshing, considering that many sites only show the right or wrong answers without explaining why these answers are right or wrong.
Another unique feature of the website is the option to look up potentially difficult vocabulary for every exercise you work with. All you have to do is click the “Vocab?” hyperlink right above the question and there will be an English translation for each new vocab word. This helps to make the exercise less daunting and expand your vocabulary at the same time.
4. Conjuguemos
If the University of Texas has “Tex,” Conjuguemos has a red-eyed tree frog with glasses. (Not sure what his or her name is, though.) Also, the website has a clean, modern look that makes working on their exercises easy on the eyes.
All in all, they cover 47 French grammar concepts, including nouns, pronouns and adjectives. You’ll also find a good bulk of exercises to help you review the passé composé (past tense), perfect your subjunctive or get going on the future tense, among others.
5. TalkPal
TalkPal mainly offers AI language tutor services, but they also have some French grammar exercises you can try out.
If you’d like to have a go at French prepositions, construct French sentences or get to know your determiners better, just click on any of the corresponding links under “GRAMMAR EXERCISES” (except “TRY IT OUT”) and start practicing.
As an aside, if you’re interested in tutoring services, check out these websites for personalized French lessons.
6. TV5MONDE
You probably know TV5MONDE best as a website to watch French TV online. But did you know they also have a section dedicated to learning French?
Their exercises are sorted according to the six CEFR levels, from beginner to advanced: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2. The grammar exercises can take a bit of time to find, as they’re integrated into lessons covering other topics like culture and politics.
That said, if you prefer a more well-rounded approach to your grammar studies courtesy of a reputable organization like TV5MONDE, make sure to bookmark this one.
7. ToLearnFrench
Admittedly, ToLearnFrench isn’t the prettiest place to work on French grammar exercises. However, it more than makes up for that with a mind-boggling 700 or so drills on grammar alone.
All of the exercises are user-generated, and they come with difficulty ratings—with one-star being the easiest and three-star being the hardest.
You’ll also see the average scores of everyone who’s ever taken the test summed up in one column, allowing you to check whether you’ve done better (or worse) than everyone else. It’s always a major ego booster when you see that your score is higher than the average.
8. Exercises.one
Exercises.one has 51 exercises covering not just grammar but also vocabulary and numbers. Depending on the topic, the drills can come in the form of rearranging sentences, French-to-English translation (and vice versa), changing the form of the word or phrase, etc.
After answering the question and hitting “Go,” you’ll get instant feedback on the right answer. No need to sweat until the very last item to know how well you did.
9. Le français facile avec RFI
The name of the website literally translates to “Easy French with RFI.” (In case you haven’t heard of them already, RFI is a state-owned French radio station with branches all over the world.)
Just like some of the sites already listed, le français facile avec RFI groups grammar exercises according to difficulty level. You can find these under the heading “Revise” (which is the British English word for “review” if you’re American).
Since RFI is a radio website, it’s only natural that they have listening exercises in spades. Often, you have to listen to a short audio file and answer the questions underneath. If you need a little more help, you can also download the .pdf files under each exercise for further study.
10. Native French Teacher
Like TalkPal, Native French Teacher mostly dispenses French language lessons via a tutor—except the tutor on this website is a flesh-and-blood human being named Tanguy, who is (true to his website’s name) a native French speaker.
Tanguy has a handful of grammar exercises you can practice with whenever you have a few minutes to spare. They cover the finer points of the language like the differences between qui and que, when to use depuis versus pendant and definite and indefinite articles.
11. LiveFrench
LiveFrench is a website that aims to help you master spoken French. As I mentioned earlier, grammar is crucial to understanding (and being understood in) French, so it makes sense that they have a grammar drills section as well.
The exercises cover les temps (verb tenses), les pronoms (pronouns), les phrases (sentence structure), les adjectifs et adverbes (adjectives and adverbs) and les prépositions (prepositions). Each grammar concept is accompanied by a video lesson with notes and three exercises, giving you enough time to let the lessons truly sink in.
12. French Grammar Test (Android App)
The French Grammar Test app is a complete testing tool that’s literally just at your fingertips. Since it’s a mobile app, you’re not likely to encounter problems like having to constantly zoom in and out of the website to see everything.
The app features 10,000 multiple-choice exercises—4,000 for the A1 level, 2,000 for A2, 1,500 for B1 and 1,000 for B2. To date, they don’t seem to have exercises for advanced French learners yet.
French Grammar Test is only available on Android, and additional features can be unlocked with a paid subscription.
FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.
You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.
P.S. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)
Completing just one or two exercises every day can really strengthen your French.
And don’t forget to match your grammar exercises with authentic French as well. Doing so will help you see the grammar constructions as they’re used by native speakers.
For example, you can listen to French music, read French books, or watch French videos.
As you become more comfortable with grammar, you’ll have much greater confidence and freedom of expression when speaking or writing French.
Happy drilling!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
And one more thing...
If you like learning French on your own time and from the comfort of your smart device, then I'd be remiss to not tell you about FluentU.
FluentU has a wide variety of great content, like interviews, documentary excerpts and web series, as you can see here:
FluentU brings native French videos with reach. With interactive captions, you can tap on any word to see an image, definition and useful examples.
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 learn mode. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning, and play the mini-games found in our dynamic flashcards, like "fill in the blank."
All throughout, FluentU tracks the vocabulary that you’re learning and uses this information to give you a totally personalized experience. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned.
Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)
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