Michelle Baumgartner Last updated: December 23, 2022

Don’t Forget to Pack These 3 French Learning Apps for the Best Travel Experience

Your itinerary is set. The hotel reservations are made.

All you need to do is finish packing your bags, and you’re off to a grand adventure in France.

Let’s go over your packing list to make sure you’re not forgetting anything important.

Toothbrush? Check.

Travel adapter? Check.

Passport? Check.

French language apps?

Hmmm.

There are a lot of these to choose from, aren’t there? You want to be prepared to practice and build your French skills on your trip, but you also don’t want to spend the whole time scrolling through tons of apps to find the words you need.

Don’t panic. The French travel apps we’re going to explore here are jam-packed with essential phrases and innovative features that’ll help you have a successful and enjoyable trip—all while pushing your French level up a notch.

And we promise they won’t take your suitcase over its weight limit.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Why You Need to Pack Your French

If you’re planning a trip to France (or another French-speaking area of the world), you’ll want to carry along at least a basic knowledge of the language. Sure, you can hope that people there will speak English, and some of them might—but it’s better if you keep your French close at hand in your carry-on. (Don’t put it in your checked luggage, for goodness’ sake!)

Why?

Happier trails: Every part of your trip will be easier if you have a basic command of the local lingo. You won’t have to rely on chance to find people who speak your language fluently.

Rely on yourself: Although most of the people you meet will likely be friendly, and genuinely helpful, you’ll feel more self-assured if you can navigate your own way through conversations and directions as you move around the country.

Understand the culture more: Of course, traveling confidently means more than just memorizing helpful words and phrases—it also means learning about the people you’ll meet.

Besides teaching you the language, several of these apps will introduce you to the culture and customs you’ll encounter on your francophone journey.

Advantages of Apps to Learn French for Travel

As opposed to more traditional language tools, apps for travelers get straight to the info you need when you land. Most French travel apps emphasize common, useful phrases for visitors. Rather than asking you to recite verb conjugations or dissect noun-adjective agreement, these apps put you on le Train à Grande Vitesse (the high-speed train) to conversational French.

Coming to you in dazzling color and stereo sound, these apps also take advantage of the audiovisual capabilities of your mobile device to immerse you in a multimedia learning experience. Most of them offer not only the sounds of native speakers pronouncing the target phrases, but also the functionality for you to record and compare your pronunciation to a native’s.

And you can use word clouds or your virtual keyboard to take a turn at l’écriture (writing) in French, reinforcing your mastery of the language.

Since you’ll be bouncing around the sights and nightlife, you’ll want to be able to take your French tools wherever you go. These digital gems fit right into your pocket and follow you on all your travels. You can access them anytime for a quick review session, and they don’t add an ounce to your luggage when you board your plane.

Best of all, these apps cater to your goals and learning style. Learn at your own pace and follow your own syllabus. Most of these apps allow customization of settings, so your French lessons tailor themselves to you.

Whether you’re taking a business trip to Paris or enjoying a leisurely exploration of the Loire Valley, you can focus on your own travel needs—not a preset curriculum.

3 for the Road: The Best Apps to Learn French for Travel

These three feature-filled apps will both lighten your load and smooth your road. Without further ado, allons-y! (Let’s go!)

French Phrasebook by Pro Languages

Available on: Google Play

Travel, eat, spend. With useful travel categories such as “transportation,” “eating” and “money,” French Phrasebook lets you quickly navigate planes, trains, bistros and euros. The vocabulary comes in fill-in-the-blank sentences you can customize for your journey, for example:

Combien coûte le billet pour _____? (How much is a ticket to _____?)

Stay safe. This app provides a “problems” section with phrases to help travelers swiftly ward off unwanted attention.

See and say. French Phrasebook includes a simple pronunciation guide for all phrases, which even shows you which syllables to stress. The accompanying audio is easy to access; just tap the speaker icon next to the phrase you’re learning.

FluentU

Available on: iTunes, Android

Get authentic. FluentU is a learning program based on authentic videos. It lets you learn real French with pop culture (movie trailers and clipc, music videos, etc.), current events (inspirational talks, news segments, etc.) and other media that native French speakers consume.

FluentU will expose you to the real language as it’s used by native speakers, so you can pick up slang, mannerisms and turns of phrases that you might not get from learner content.

Learn vocab naturally. Since you’re hearing French words and phrases in context on FluentU, you’re also learning them naturally. You won’t just learn a word—you’ll also learn how to use it in different situations, its grammar quirks and phrases where it appears.

As you watch videos, any word can be turned into an interactive flashcard. Just click on the word in the subtitle to see a contextual definition, grammar details, an audio pronunciation, example sentences and clips from other videos where the word appears with the same definition. You can also add the word to your flashcards so you can study it further when you’re ready.

Personalized practice. After you watch a video, FluentU presents you with a tailor-made quiz featuring vocab from that video.

You can also review flashcards with quizzes that take your past learning into consideration and give you questions that are personalized to your level of comfort with each word.

Travel Phrases by DotNetIdeas

Available on: Google Play

Don’t want to become too reliant on English translations? Concerned you won’t be able to remember the French word for soufflé? Travel Phrases lets you hide the French or English words as you wish. Challenge yourself and test your recall of important French phrases.

If you find yourself leaning too hard on the provided written pronunciation guide for each entry, there’s an option to hide that away, as well.

Take notes. Is a certain English translation just not clicking with you? Did you discover that you’ll need to modify your vocabulary on your trip to Belgium? This app has a special feature that allows you to edit existing entries, and even add new entries and entire categories.

With these apps as your traveling companion, you’ll get around your French-speaking destination with confidence and aplomb. Who knows? You might even be mistaken for a native by a fellow tourist.

Just make sure you pack your smartphone charger… and that travel adapter.