Learn French

The French present tense covers not just what is happening right now but also habitual actions and general truths — it does the work of both 'I speak' and 'I am speaking' in English. Most verbs follow predictable patterns based on their infinitive ending: -er verbs (parler → je parle, tu parles, il parle, nous parlons…), -ir verbs (finir → je finis…), and -re verbs (vendre → je vends…). Within these patterns, the je, tu, il/elle forms often sound identical, which means you can understand a huge amount of spoken French once you know a single stem. The highest-priority irregular verbs to memorise are être (to be), avoir (to have), aller (to go), and faire (to do/make), as these appear in almost every conversation.

A practical approach is to learn each verb as a set of spoken chunks rather than a written conjugation table — notice that 'je parle', 'tu parles', and 'il parle' all sound like 'parl', so three written forms collapse into one spoken form. On the app, pay attention to how these four key irregulars appear inside longer phrases ('j'ai faim', 'tu es prêt?', 'on va y aller'). Once you internalise this topic, you can describe your daily routine, ask and answer basic questions, and hold the backbone of any present-moment conversation in French.

• Group 1 Regular French Verbs ending in "ER" (Present Tense) · Learn French With Alexa
• HOW TO CONJUGATE REGULAR FRENCH VERBS IN THE PRESENT TENSE // Conjugate the Present Tense in French · Bla Bla Kaity
• Group 3 Irregular French Verbs (Present Tense) · Learn French With Alexa

Every French noun is either masculine or feminine, and this gender determines which article you use: 'le' (definite, masculine), 'la' (definite, feminine), 'les' (plural for both), 'un' (indefinite, masculine), 'une' (indefinite, feminine). Gender also ripples into adjectives and past participle agreements, so getting a feel for it early pays dividends throughout your learning. There is no foolproof rule, but strong patterns exist: nouns ending in -tion, -sion, -ette, -ure are almost always feminine; nouns ending in -ment, -age, -eau are almost always masculine. In front of a vowel sound, both 'le' and 'la' contract to 'l'' (l'hôtel, l'école), which can make gender harder to hear — making it essential to learn nouns with their article from the start.

The single most effective habit is to always memorise a new noun together with its article as one chunk: not 'table' but 'la table', not 'livre' but 'le livre'. On the app, treat 'un café' or 'la gare' as an unbreakable unit. This approach means you will naturally produce the right article in speech without pausing to think, and it also prepares you for adjective agreement and other gender-dependent grammar. Once this is internalised, your sentences will immediately sound more natural to native speakers.

• French Definite Article / How to say THE in French (French Essentials Lesson 7) · Learn French With Alexa
• French indefinite Article (French Essentials Lesson 8) · Learn French With Alexa
• Feminine or Masculine words in French? Understanding French genders! · Learn French With Alexa

To make a verb negative in French, you wrap it in 'ne' before and 'pas' after: 'je parle' → 'je ne parle pas'. With reflexive verbs or in compound tenses, 'ne' still sits directly before the verb (or the auxiliary). Other common negative pairs follow the same sandwich structure: 'ne…jamais' (never), 'ne…rien' (nothing), 'ne…plus' (no longer), 'ne…personne' (nobody). These are high-frequency in real conversations, so learning the pattern once unlocks all of them. In everyday spoken French, however, the 'ne' is very frequently dropped entirely, leaving just 'pas': 'je sais pas', 'c'est pas vrai', 'y'a pas de problème'. This is not sloppy speech — it is the normal register of casual conversation.

A great tip is to learn the full written form first (so you can read and write correctly), then practise recognising the dropped-'ne' versions in listening exercises on the app. When you hear 'je veux pas', train your ear to map it straight onto 'je ne veux pas'. Once you master negation, you can disagree, decline invitations, express what you don't have or don't do, and navigate misunderstandings — all essential moves in any real conversation.

French has three ways to form a question, and all three are used regularly. The simplest is rising intonation: take a statement and just raise your voice at the end — 'Tu parles anglais?' This is the dominant form in casual spoken French. The second strategy uses 'est-ce que' at the front of any statement: 'Est-ce que tu parles anglais?' — this works universally and is widely used in both speech and writing. The third strategy is subject-verb inversion ('Parles-tu anglais?'), which is formal and common in writing, set phrases, and polite requests. For question words (qui, quoi/que, où, quand, comment, pourquoi, combien), you can combine them with any of these three strategies: 'Où tu vas?', 'Où est-ce que tu vas?', or 'Où vas-tu?' all mean the same thing.

For conversational learners, a practical approach is to master the intonation and 'est-ce que' patterns first, since they cover nearly every real-life situation without requiring you to think about inversion rules. On the app, notice which question structure appears in the phrases you learn and try to recognise all three when you hear them. Once you feel confident with questions, you can find out directions, order food, clarify information, and keep conversations going — turning you from a passive responder into an active participant.

• L'interrogation ( Intonation, Est-ce que, Inversion ) with sentences… · French Lessons by Indu
• Asking questions in French with EST-CE QUE (French Essentials Lesson 30) · Learn French With Alexa
• Asking questions in French with INVERSIONS (French Essentials Lesson 31) · Learn French With Alexa

The passé composé is the main past tense used in spoken French to describe completed actions — what you did, what happened, what you ate. It is formed with an auxiliary verb (avoir or être) in the present tense plus a past participle: 'j'ai mangé' (I ate/have eaten), 'il est parti' (he left/has left). Most verbs use avoir, but a core group of verbs of motion and state change (aller, venir, partir, arriver, naître, mourir, etc.) use être — and when être is the auxiliary, the past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject ('elle est arrivée'). Reflexive verbs also always use être. The past participle of regular -er verbs ends in -é, regular -ir verbs in -i, and -re verbs in -u, but many common verbs have irregular participles (faire → fait, avoir → eu, être → été, prendre → pris).

A smart strategy is to learn the most common irregular participles as fixed chunks attached to their auxiliary — 'j'ai fait', 'j'ai eu', 'je suis allé(e)' — so they become automatic rather than calculated. On the app, listen for the auxiliary as a trigger: the moment you hear 'j'ai' or 'je suis', your brain should anticipate a participle and a completed action. Mastering the passé composé lets you narrate your day, tell stories, explain what happened, and understand the vast majority of spoken past-tense French.

• Être or Avoir in the Passé Composé in French… French PAST TENSE explained! · Learn French With Alexa
• How to build the PASSÉ COMPOSÉ // French conjugation Course // Lesson 20 · The perfect French with Dylane
• How to use past tense in French: Passé Composé (Avoir as auxiliary) for beginners · Lingo Learner

French adjectives must agree in gender and number with the noun they describe: a masculine singular noun takes the base form ('un livre intéressant'), a feminine singular noun adds -e ('une histoire intéressante'), plural nouns add -s ('des livres intéressants', 'des histoires intéressantes'). Many adjectives have irregular feminine forms — 'beau' → 'belle', 'bon' → 'bonne', 'vieux' → 'vieille' — which are worth memorising as pairs. Placement is equally important: unlike English, most French adjectives follow the noun ('une voiture rouge', 'un homme intelligent'), but a small, high-frequency group of adjectives — known by the mnemonic BAGS (Beauty, Age, Goodness, Size: beau, jeune, bon, grand, etc.) — come before the noun ('une belle maison', 'un grand homme').

A reliable learning trick is to absorb adjectives in their natural noun-phrase context from the start rather than in isolation — let the phrases on the app do the heavy lifting. Hearing 'une robe rouge' and 'un beau jardin' dozens of times will build the right instinct faster than memorising rules. Some adjectives even change meaning depending on position ('un homme grand' = a tall man vs. 'un grand homme' = a great man), which is a nuance worth watching for. Once you have a feel for agreement and placement, your descriptions will sound natural and your reading comprehension will improve significantly.

• French adjectives: BEFORE or AFTER the noun? · Learn French With Alexa
• French Adjectives – Grammar – Rules – Feminine Masculine | French grammar for beginners · The perfect French with Dylane
• Practise your French adjectives · Learn French With Alexa

Object pronouns replace nouns that have already been mentioned, letting you speak efficiently without constant repetition. Direct object pronouns (me, te, le, la, nous, vous, les) replace the person or thing directly receiving the action: 'Tu vois Marie? — Oui, je la vois.' Indirect object pronouns (me, te, lui, nous, vous, leur) replace an indirect object — typically a person to or for whom something is done: 'Tu parles à Marc? — Oui, je lui parle.' The critical structural point is that these pronouns go directly before the conjugated verb in French, not after it as in English: 'Je le mange' (I'm eating it), 'Il nous appelle' (He's calling us). In the passé composé, the pronoun goes before the auxiliary: 'Je l'ai vu.'

The best way to absorb pronoun placement is through high-repetition listening and speaking — notice in app phrases exactly where the pronoun sits relative to the verb, and mimic the whole chunk. A common learner mistake is saying 'je mange le' by analogy with English; training your ear to expect the pronoun before the verb will correct this instinct over time. Once you handle object pronouns confidently, your speech becomes dramatically more fluent and natural — you can respond concisely to questions, avoid awkward noun repetition, and follow fast native speech where pronouns are doing most of the referential work.

• French Pronouns · French Learning Hub
• Lui, leur OR le, la, les in French? Pick correctly EVERY TIME with this trick – French pronouns · French in Plain Sight
• French Direct Object & Direct Object Pronouns (cod) // French Grammar Course // Lesson 31 🇫🇷 · The perfect French with Dylane

French has two main ways to talk about the future. The futur proche (near future) uses 'aller' + infinitive and is the dominant form in everyday spoken French for plans and intentions: 'Je vais appeler demain' (I'm going to call tomorrow), 'On va manger ici' (We're going to eat here). It maps very naturally onto the English 'going to' construction and is immediately usable once you know the present tense of aller. The futur simple, by contrast, adds endings directly onto the infinitive (je parlerai, tu parleras, il parlera, nous parlerons, vous parlerez, ils parleront) and is more common in writing, news, and slightly more formal or distant future contexts. Its endings are highly regular and stem from the verb 'avoir', which makes them easier to learn as a set.

For conversational learners, it pays to master the futur proche first since it covers the vast majority of real spoken situations, then add the futur simple for recognition and for the dozen or so irregular stems (être → ser-, avoir → aur-, aller → ir-, faire → fer-) that appear in set phrases. On the app, notice when 'on va…' or 'je vais…' kicks off a future plan and drill it until it feels automatic. With these two patterns under your belt, you can make plans, discuss upcoming events, offer help, and make predictions — all the conversational futures you will actually need.

• The Future Tense in French: futur proche or futur simple? · Learn French With Alexa
• French Made Easy: Le Futur Simple · Learn French With Alexa
• How to form and use the futur simple in French: easy animated video explanation w practice work · Lingo Learner

The subjunctive is a verb mood (not a tense) that French uses to express subjectivity — wishes, doubt, emotion, necessity, and certain conjunctions. It is triggered by specific verbs and expressions: 'vouloir que' (to want that), 'il faut que' (it is necessary that), 'être content/triste que' (to be happy/sad that), and conjunctions like 'bien que' (although), 'pour que' (so that), 'avant que' (before). The subjunctive form of most verbs is built from the third-person plural present stem plus the endings -e, -es, -e, -ions, -iez, -ent — which means for many verbs it sounds identical to the present indicative in speech. The most important irregular subjunctive forms are from être (soit), avoir (ait), aller (aille), and faire (fasse), as these appear constantly.

Rather than trying to learn every trigger rule, a practical strategy is to memorise the most common trigger expressions as fixed chunks — 'il faut que tu…', 'je veux que tu…', 'bien qu'il soit…' — and let the correct subjunctive form come along for the ride. On the app, look out for these trigger phrases as whole units rather than analysing them grammatically each time. Once you recognise and can use the key subjunctive triggers, you can express nuanced opinions, talk about requirements and desires involving other people, and sound markedly more sophisticated — moving your French clearly into B1 territory.

• French Made Easy: le subjonctif (the French subjunctive) · Learn French With Alexa
• French subjunctive for English speakers · Comme une Française
• A Fun Explanation of the French Subjunctive : French Grammar Made Fun #1 · La Ferpection