Emily Monaco
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The 8 Best Websites to Learn French at Any Level
Ah, the old vicious internet cycle.
Too many of us end up trapped here. Heck, you might even be trapped right now.
Ready to put all that screen time to good use?
Then it’s time to learn French online! Let’s take a look at some of the best places to do so.
Contents
- Best Immersion-Based Website for Learning French
- Websites for Learning French Grammar
- French Websites for Learning Idiomatic French
- Best Websites for Learning about French Culture and Current Events
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
Best Immersion-Based Website for Learning French
FluentU French
This language learning website and app turns authentic French videos into immersive language lessons.
Learning through its authentic videos—which cover everything from commercials to news reports to inspiring talks—exposes you to French as it’s really spoken by natives, allowing you to pick up nuances of the language that you’ll never get from textbooks.
The content is sorted by level, topic and format, and comes with a range of learning tools to create an immersive (and efficient) learning experience. Tap any term in the interactive subtitles to find detailed information about it, and review what you learn with multimedia flashcards and personalized quizzes (where you can even practice your speaking).
The video dictionary is also handy—just search a word or phrase to see a bunch of videos where that term is used in action in different contexts. Used together, these features make learning through authentic content seamless, so you won’t need to trawl through YouTube and online dictionaries any longer.
Plus, it’s available as an iOS and Android app—ideal for immersing yourself in French whenever you get a spare moment.
Websites for Learning French Grammar
Whether you’re a beginner just setting out on your voyage to understanding French grammar or you’re a French pro looking to brush up on a few less familiar topics like that ever-elusive simple past, a website can be a great place to start.
Le Point du FLE
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 for 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.
French Websites for Learning Idiomatic French
One of the most exciting things about being a language learner in the age of the Internet is that resources can be updated constantly. No more using textbooks from the 80s trying to convince you that yé-yé is a hip and modern trend—current French slang and idiomatic expressions are within your reach… if you know where to look.
Blagues Carambar
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) that 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, you needn’t jump to the conclusion that your French learning has failed you.
La Connasse
For the more advanced French learner who wants to explore French culture as well as language, La Connasse, a show produced by private television channel Canal +, is a great place to go.
On this site, you can stream the short episodes of this show, which follow the titular character of the connasse, a woman who humorously exhibits all of the characteristics of a shrewish modern French woman. Her antics are hilarious and her loud, clear voice will allow even some intermediate learners to follow.
Vie de merde
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.
Best Websites for Learning about French Culture and Current Events
Learning a language has long been divided into four categories—reading comprehension, writing, listening comprehension and speaking. But Dr. Thomas Garza introduced the opinion that a fifth crucial element should be included: culture!
How can you master French without knowing a bit about French culture? These websites will help you master this element of the French language.
Se Coucher Moins Bête
This is an easy way to introduce tidbits of information, from random facts to current events, into your daily life. We love this site because they also have an app, 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!
The aforementioned Canal + also produces a short news segment during its Grand Journal where the latest infos are read by puppets.
Les Guignols
This has long been a favorite for fans of comedic news shows (think The Daily Show with marionettes). Because they are describing recent news stories, you can always check with a news source in your native language to make sure you understood what was being said. But don’t be surprised if humor is more important here than verity — a key to fully understanding this show is understanding the French penchant for l’humour décalé.
Le Canard enchainé
Few are the French lovers who didn’t hear about the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January. 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.
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
