French for beginners: learn the basics with First contact
First contact is Loecsen’s French course for complete beginners. It introduces the first A1 basics through everyday expressions, translations, recordings and exercises. Across 17 chapters, you practise introducing yourself, getting around, ordering, finding accommodation and asking for help.
You can start a longer learning journey or prepare the situations you will meet on a trip. A short sentence such as Je voudrais un café — “I’d like a coffee” — gives you a meaning, a useful construction and a sound pattern together. You can use it before you know how to explain every part of its grammar.
For English speakers, familiar vocabulary is a useful starting point. The greater challenge is often recognising those words in speech: restaurant looks familiar, but French does not pronounce it like English. This guide helps you connect what you read with what you hear and say.
Bonjour — Hello
What can this course help you do?
Start learning French from zero
Begin with expressions you can picture yourself using. Je m’appelle… introduces your name; Je ne comprends pas tells someone you need help understanding. Learning a whole expression gives the small words a place: articles, pronouns and prepositions stop being a separate list to memorise.
As phrases become familiar, compare them. Je voudrais un café and Je voudrais un billet share the same opening. You can then change one element and make a sentence that fits your own situation.
Prepare a trip
Prioritise greetings, numbers, transport, meals and accommodation. Learn possible answers alongside your questions. Asking Où est la gare ? is more useful when you can also recognise à droite, à gauche and tout droit.
Keep your address and booking details available in writing. You can still greet the person, explain what you need and ask them to repeat. These small exchanges are practical opportunities to speak from the start.
Prepare your first days in a French-speaking place
The same foundations help when moving abroad: introducing yourself to a neighbour, buying something or explaining a simple problem. Later, add vocabulary for your own work, studies and daily arrangements. A guided beginner exchange does not prepare you for every detail of a phone call or a group conversation.
Understand what “first A1 basics” means
At A1, communication concerns familiar needs and personal information, often with a partner who speaks clearly and helps you. First contact develops this starting repertoire; completing its quizzes alone does not establish a full A1 level. 1
What will you practise in the 17 chapters?
The course groups its themes into six stages. Use the full route for a broad introduction, or begin with the situations that matter for your plans.
| Chapters | What they help you prepare |
|---|---|
| Essentials, Conversation, Learning | Greet someone, introduce yourself and ask for repetition or clarification. |
| Colours, Numbers, Time tracking | Identify something, understand quantities and discuss a time. |
| Taxi, Transportation, Beach | Say where you want to go and handle everyday travel situations. |
| Restaurant, Bar, Hotel | Order, ask for the bill and prepare an arrival at your accommodation. |
| Family, Feelings, Parting | Talk about people close to you, express how you feel and take your leave. |
| In case of trouble, Looking for someone | Explain a difficulty, ask for help and find someone. |
Choose a manageable starting point
You do not need to study a whole chapter in one sitting. Select a few expressions, listen carefully and try to retrieve them without looking. Add more when the first group has become easier to recognise.
Link themes together
A hotel conversation also uses greetings, numbers and time expressions. Bring these themes together in a small scene: give your name, state how many nights you need and ask about breakfast. The example exchanges in this guide extend the course themes; they are not a verbatim transcript of every lesson.
How much time should you allow?
The course displays an estimated 36–59 hours for the full route, including review. You can use your first expressions in the first session. These are different goals: preparing a handful of useful exchanges and working through the whole programme.
In your first session
Try a greeting, a thank-you, your name and a request for repetition. Listen, repeat, then look away and recall the phrase from its meaning. Check it again the next day: immediate repetition and later recall are different tasks.
If you have two weeks before a trip
Fifteen to twenty minutes a day gives you about 3½–4⅔ hours over two weeks. Focus that time on the situations you are likely to meet.
| Days | Suggested focus |
|---|---|
| 1–3 | Greetings, introductions, asking someone to repeat and saying you do not understand. |
| 4–6 | Numbers, prices, times and directions. |
| 7–10 | Transport, accommodation and meals for your itinerary. |
| 11–14 | Act out short exchanges without reading; revisit difficult phrases and likely problems. |
This is a practical preparation plan, not a promise to reach A1 in two weeks.
For the complete course
| Daily practice | Time to accumulate 36–59 hours |
|---|---|
| 10 minutes | 216–354 days: approximately 7–12 months. |
| 15 minutes | 144–236 days: approximately 5–8 months. |
| 30 minutes | 72–118 days: approximately 2½–4 months. |
These are arithmetic estimates assuming daily practice. Missed days lengthen the calendar; prior knowledge and practice outside the course affect your learning. The hours indicate workload, not a guaranteed level or a deadline.
If you leave in two days
Choose essentials for arrival: your destination, reservation, a simple order and a request for help. Practise saying your name and recognising numbers. A short, usable set is a reasonable first goal; you can continue during the trip.
How should you work with the course?
Connect sound, meaning and spelling
Listen with the French text and translation, then listen without reading. Repeat the complete expression. If a phrase is long, practise two smaller groups and join them again. Keep the recording as your model instead of inventing an English spelling for every sound.
Practise retrieving, not just recognising
Hide the French and start from a situation: you have not understood a question; what could you say? Try to answer before revealing the model. Recognition in a multiple-choice exercise and finding a phrase yourself both matter, but one does not automatically produce the other.
Give review a place in each session
A fifteen-minute session might contain five minutes of previous expressions, five minutes of new material and five minutes of speaking without the text. Use Super Memory to return to difficult items. If yesterday’s phrases remain uncertain, reduce the new material rather than rushing through another chapter.
Change one element
After Je vais à la gare, try Je vais à l’hôtel. After Je voudrais un café, change the drink. Notice what changes with the noun: un café, une chambre, de l’eau. Reusing a pattern also reveals the next small rule you need.
Match the practice to the difficulty
| What happens? | What to try next |
|---|---|
| You understand the written phrase but miss it in speech. | Listen without the text, then compare what you heard with the recording. |
| You recognise the answer but cannot produce it. | Start from a situation and recall the expression before revealing it. |
| You say the phrase but do not understand the reply. | Practise two or three possible answers, with different numbers or places. |
| You mix up two expressions. | Put them in separate short scenes and explain the difference in meaning. |
Reading and pronouncing French
Letters are clues, not a complete pronunciation
French uses the Latin alphabet, with accents and the cedilla. é often represents /e/, as in café; è represents /ɛ/, as in père. The cedilla keeps ç sounding like /s/ before a, o or u, as in français. Other spellings vary with the word, so listen as well as read.
| Spelling | Example | First listening cue |
|---|---|---|
| ou | vous | /u/: a rounded vowel, distinct from French u. |
| u | tu | /y/: round your lips while keeping your tongue near the position for “ee”. |
| oi | moi | /wa/, not the English sound in “coin”. |
| au, eau | au, eau | Usually /o/, kept relatively steady. |
| ch | chambre | /ʃ/, like the consonant at the start of “ship”. |
| j | jour | /ʒ/, like the middle consonant of “measure”. |
These cues are starting points. English accents differ, and approximations cannot replace the French recordings.
Distinguish u and ou
Tu and tout contain different vowels. For tu, keep the tongue forward and round the lips; for tout, the tongue is farther back. Practise the two sounds in short words, then return to phrases. You do not need to master the whole phonetic alphabet to notice this contrast.
Hear nasal vowels without adding an extra consonant
In bon, sans and vin, the vowel is nasal. The written n is not pronounced as a separate final consonant. Compare bon and bonne: in bonne, you hear an oral vowel followed by /n/. Nasal spellings depend on what follows; do not apply “every vowel plus n is nasal” as a rule.
Learn silent endings in context
The s of vous is normally silent in isolation, and the t of petit is silent in its usual isolated pronunciation. But many other final consonants are heard: avec ends in /k/. Learn the word with its audio instead of deleting every last letter.
Verb endings offer another useful pattern: je parle, tu parles and ils parlent have the same spoken verb form. The pronoun carries information that the silent spelling cannot give you by itself.
Notice liaison and connected speech
In les amis and vous avez, you hear a linking /z/. Do not add a /t/ after et. Learn these common connections as part of the expression. 23
Connected speech can also join an already pronounced consonant to the next vowel: the /k/ in avec elle remains audible. This is different from a normally silent consonant appearing in liaison. Listening to the complete phrase helps you locate word boundaries.
Understand the two kinds of written h
French h is generally not an audible English /h/. However, words behave differently: l’hôtel allows elision, whereas le haricot keeps its article separate. Learn these words with their articles; the traditional label “aspirated h” does not mean you should pronounce a breathy consonant.
Follow the phrase rhythm
French gives prominence towards the end of a rhythmic group. Avoid imposing a strong English stress on each familiar word. Repeat Je voudrais un café, s’il vous plaît in small meaningful groups, keeping vowels clear. Aim first for understandable speech, not the disappearance of your accent.
Grammar you can use in your first sentences
Keep the subject with the verb
Je parle français means “I speak French” or “I am speaking French”, depending on context. French does not use an English-style “am + -ing” construction for every action happening now. Learn a verb in a short phrase with its subject.
| Pattern | Meaning | What to notice |
|---|---|---|
| Je suis… | I am… | Identity or a state: Je suis anglais; Je suis fatigué. |
| J’ai… | I have… | Also age and some sensations: J’ai trente ans; J’ai faim. |
| Je vais… | I am going… | A destination: Je vais à la gare. |
| Je voudrais… | I would like… | A polite request: Je voudrais une chambre. |
| Il y a… | There is…; there are… | The same expression introduces one thing or several. |
Learn nouns with an article
French nouns are masculine or feminine: un billet, une chambre. Their gender is not a statement about whether an object is male or female. Learning the article with the noun makes later choices easier: le billet, la chambre, les billets.
Before a vowel sound, le and la usually become l’, as in l’hôtel. That spelling hides the gender, so also learn un hôtel. Do not rely on the last letter alone to identify every noun’s gender.
Use articles for quantities
English can say “I’d like water” without an article; French normally says Je voudrais de l’eau. Compare a countable item with an unspecified quantity.
| French | English | Useful distinction |
|---|---|---|
| un café | a coffee | One serving. |
| du café | some coffee | An unspecified quantity. |
| une bouteille d’eau | a bottle of water | The container gives the quantity. |
| Je ne bois pas de café | I do not drink coffee. | After this negative construction, du becomes de. |
The negative rule has exceptions, including constructions with être: Ce n’est pas du café. Start with useful examples before trying to generalise every article change.
Choose tu or vous
Tu addresses one person informally. Vous addresses several people or one person politely. With an unfamiliar adult in a service situation, vous is a useful starting choice; follow the relationship and the other person’s invitation to use tu.
Vous takes its plural verb form even when addressing one person: Vous avez une réservation ?. English “you” hides this distinction, so learn the pronoun and verb together.
Ask questions without translating “do”
| French question | Meaning | Construction |
|---|---|---|
| Vous parlez anglais ? | Do you speak English? | Statement order with question intonation. |
| Est-ce que vous parlez anglais ? | Do you speak English? | A question introduced by est-ce que. |
| Parlez-vous anglais ? | Do you speak English? | Inversion, useful to recognise. |
| Où est la gare ? | Where is the station? | Où asks about a place. |
| Combien ça coûte ? | How much does it cost? | A common spoken question about price. |
There is no French equivalent of English auxiliary “do” to insert into these questions. Choose one comfortable form to use and learn to recognise the others.
Make a negative sentence
Je ne comprends pas places ne before the verb and pas after it. Before a vowel, ne becomes n’: Je n’ai pas de réservation. In everyday speech you will often hear Je comprends pas, with ne omitted. Recognise this common spoken form while keeping the full construction available for careful speech and writing.
Notice adjective agreement
Il est fatigué and Elle est fatiguée differ in writing but sound the same. In petit and petite, the added e makes the /t/ audible. Adjectives agree with the noun or person they describe, but the change is not always heard. Learn useful pairs with audio.
Attach prepositions to useful expressions
À + le becomes au: Je vais au restaurant. À la stays separate: Je vais à la gare. With a vowel, use à l’hôtel. For origins, de + le becomes du, as in Je viens du Canada. Whole expressions make these contractions easier to retrieve.
Talk about the next step
Je vais prendre le train combines a form of aller with an infinitive to express a planned or upcoming action. Contrast Je vais à la gare: here vais indicates movement to a place. You can use these patterns before studying every French tense.
Watch familiar-looking words
| French | Usual meaning in these contexts | English trap |
|---|---|---|
| actuellement | currently | Not “actually”. |
| une librairie | a bookshop | A library is une bibliothèque. |
| attendre | to wait | “Attend a meeting” is assister à une réunion. |
| demander | to ask | It need not carry the force of English “demand”. |
France, Québec, Belgium, Switzerland: which French?
Begin with a common foundation
Greetings, simple requests and the basic grammar travel across French-speaking places. French also varies within each country and across other regions of the world. You do not need to learn several complete systems before speaking; add local listening once you know your destination.
Prepare for different voices
An expression you understand in the course may sound less familiar with another accent or at natural speed. Practise short recordings from the place you plan to visit. First look for a known phrase, a number or a destination, rather than expecting to understand an entire conversation.
Recognise local number words
Septante means 70 and is common in Belgium and Switzerland. 4 You may also hear nonante for 90 and, in some Swiss regions, huitante for 80. The forms taught with France as a reference are soixante-dix, quatre-vingts and quatre-vingt-dix. Ask someone to write a number if you are uncertain. 5
Learn vocabulary in its local setting
Food, transport and everyday objects can have different names. Keep a small personal list from menus, signs or conversations. Record the phrase and situation, rather than treating every regional word as a replacement you must use everywhere.
Short exchanges to prepare before travelling
Open the conversation and ask for help understanding
| French | English |
|---|---|
| Bonjour, excusez-moi… | Hello, excuse me… |
| Je parle un peu français. | I speak a little French. |
| Pouvez-vous répéter, s’il vous plaît ? | Could you repeat, please? |
| Plus lentement, s’il vous plaît. | More slowly, please. |
| Pouvez-vous l’écrire ? | Could you write it down? |
Use bonjour when starting an exchange during the day, and bonsoir in the evening. Bonne nuit generally accompanies going to bed or a late leave-taking; it is not the usual greeting on entering a restaurant.
Find the station
— Bonjour, où est la gare, s’il vous plaît ? — Hello, where is the station, please?
— Tout droit, puis à gauche. — Straight ahead, then left.
— Merci beaucoup. — Thank you very much.
Change the answer to à droite or add près d’ici. Practising a different reply stops the exchange becoming a fixed recital.
Order a drink
— Je voudrais un café, s’il vous plaît. — I’d like a coffee, please.
— Sur place ou à emporter ? — For here or to go?
— Sur place, merci. — For here, thank you.
For payment, practise L’addition, s’il vous plaît and Je peux payer par carte ?. Recognising en espèces helps you understand a request for cash.
Arrive at a hotel
— Bonjour, j’ai une réservation au nom de Martin. — Hello, I have a reservation under the name Martin.
— Pour combien de nuits ? — For how many nights?
— Pour deux nuits. — For two nights.
Practise spelling your surname and changing the number of nights. À quelle heure est le petit-déjeuner ? asks what time breakfast is served.
Buy a ticket or explain a problem
For a ticket, prepare Un billet pour Lyon, s’il vous plaît and recognise aller simple and aller-retour. For a difficulty, start with J’ai besoin d’aide. If you are lost, use Je suis perdu or Je suis perdue, according to the speaker; the two forms sound the same.
How can you tell your French is becoming usable?
Try a slightly different situation
Introduce yourself without reading. Change the city in a sentence. Ask a price and listen to an unexpected amount. Explain that you have not understood and stay in the exchange. These small tasks reveal more than replaying a dialogue in the same order.
Check more than one skill
| Skill | A simple check |
|---|---|
| Listening | Recognise a familiar expression without the written text. |
| Speaking | Retrieve a useful sentence from a situation. |
| Reading | Identify a time, a price or a simple instruction. |
| Writing | Write a short introduction or request, then check it. |
Know when to move on
Move to another theme when you understand the current expressions and can retrieve some independently. Keep the difficult ones in review. You do not need a perfect accent or permanent recall of every item before discovering useful new vocabulary.
If you forget a lot
Reduce the number of new phrases, check that their meaning is clear and return to them after a gap. If a long expression keeps failing, practise its smaller groups and then rebuild it. Identify whether the obstacle is meaning, pronunciation or recall; each needs a slightly different response.
What comes after First contact?
Broaden what you can say
Add your routines, preferences, experiences and plans. Read short messages and listen to conversations with unfamiliar replies. The Independent in 6 months French course continues this broader work; the French courses page presents the available routes.
Add real interaction
Try a short exchange with a patient speaker or teacher. Ask for one or two useful corrections, then repeat the situation. A conversation tool can help you rehearse, but interaction with people also develops turn-taking, clarification and understanding different voices.
Prepare for your own daily life
If you are moving, build vocabulary around the situations you actually face: appointments, neighbours, work or studies. Progressively practise explaining something in several sentences. Keep short, achievable goals, such as making one request without reading a prepared text.
Practical questions
Is the course free?
Lessons, recordings, quizzes and Super Memory are available free online, with usage limits. Paid options include MP3 and PDF downloads and removal of advertising. Check the current conditions shown in the service for access details.
Do I need an account?
An account lets you save and return to your progress. Follow the access conditions displayed when using the course.
Can I study offline?
The interactive route runs online. MP3 and PDF downloads in the paid offer let you listen and read offline; they do not reproduce all the interactive exercises.
Do I need a microphone?
You can listen and repeat aloud without recording yourself. Speech-recognition features require a compatible browser and microphone permission. Their result is one piece of feedback, not a complete assessment of pronunciation.
Can I learn by listening alone?
Listening helps you recognise sounds and expressions. Add recall without a model to prepare for speaking, and some reading and writing for signs, forms and messages.
Is French easy for an English speaker?
Shared vocabulary can make reading approachable. Gender, verb forms, vowel contrasts and connected speech need practice. A familiar-looking word is a helpful clue, but does not guarantee familiar pronunciation or meaning.
Must I learn all the grammar first?
No. Use a sentence, understand its meaning and then examine the pattern when you want to change it. A small rule is easier to use when it answers a question raised by a phrase you know.
What if I am returning after years away?
Check what you can hear and say, not only what you recognise on the page. Start with accessible expressions, use your old knowledge where it helps and practise producing a response before looking it up.
Does a completion certificate certify A1?
A course-completion certificate and an independent language qualification serve different purposes. Completing this route does not automatically establish that you meet every A1 skill descriptor.
Where should I start today?
Open Essentials. Choose a few greetings and expressions for asking someone to repeat. Listen, speak and try them without the text. Next time, begin by recalling them before adding more.
Sources and further language resources
The study plans and supplementary dialogues above were written for this guide. These references clarify the language points and proficiency framework; they do not define the exact content of the course.
