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48 Ideas for Daily French Practice (Plus Easy-to-Use Resources for Quick and Effective Study)

Learning French requires consistency, but sometimes it may feel difficult to fit into your daily schedule. 

That’s why I made this guide— to help you find a way to get that French practice in, even when you’re busy!

Whether you want to practice French online or just change up your routine to include some daily French practice, this post will give you plenty of resources and strategies to try out!

Contents

15 Ideas for Daily French Vocabulary Practice

  • Label your surroundings. Put sticky notes or flashcards on different items and areas of your home.
  • Start your day in French. While waking up, getting ready, eating breakfast, etc., try to do a French activity. Like listening to a podcast, reading the news or listening to French music.
  • Review flashcards or vocabulary in the shower
  • Listen to French podcasts and music while driving
  • Use a French app for 5 minutes a day. Here are some great app options.
  • Change your phone’s language to French
  • Follow French influencers on social media
  • Download a language exchange app. You can text, call or video call your language partner even if it’s for just 5-10 minutes.
  • Do online word games (like Scrabble) and crosswords in French
  • Do online grammar and vocabulary drills for 2-5 minutes. Digital Dialects has plenty, for example. TV5Monde has over 4,300 exercises that are organized by level, from A1 to B2.
  • Watch a few scenes of a movie or TV show you’ve already seen in French
  • Follow a French recipe
  • Keep a dream journal in French
  • Make your grocery lists and daily to-do lists in French
  • Write a French postcard
  • Create an Instagram, Twitter or Facebook account in French and post your thoughts on your feed or stories

10 Ideas for Daily French Grammar Practice

  • Have a “Grammar Minute.” Set a timer for one minute every day to review as many grammar notes as possible.
  • Find a quote online and learn its grammar structure
  • Do online quizzes and exercises for verb conjugations and grammar points. Exercises.one has 51 French grammar exercises organized by topic, such as tenses, pronouns, adverbs, etc.
  • Find a French sentence online, scramble the words and then rewrite it grammatically correct
  • Write 5 sentences using a grammar point you recently learned or need to review
  • Analyze 3-5 grammar points used in French song lyrics
  • Watch 5 minutes of a French movie and write down any sentence structures you didn’t understand or wouldn’t have been able to form on your own
  • Pick a topic and take 5 minutes to write or make an audio recording of an argument in favor or against it, focusing on grammar structures for persuasion
  • Look back at your old French journals, texts, etc. and spot any grammar errors you used to make
  • Create flashcard decks only for specific grammar points and review them during your commute, in the shower, during breakfast, etc.

10 Ideas for Daily French Listening & Speaking Practice

  • Listen to French radio stations while commuting, exercising or doing chores
  • Spend 5 minutes listening to a podcast episode. If you can, find a transcript that lets you read along.
  • Listen to one verse of a song and try to dictate on a piece of paper what the singer is singing. Then check your dictations against the actual lyrics.
  • Listen to 30-60 seconds of a French audio—such as a YouTube clip, movie scene, etc.—and repeat what you hear immediately after. Try not to pause the audio.
  • Record yourself for 2-3 minutes a day talking about something in French. If you need topic ideas, use a random topic generator like this one.
  • Talk to Siri in French (this only works if you’ve changed your phone language to French)
  • Say your thoughts out loud in only French for 5 minutes
  • Watch a short French YouTube video, then summarize what the video was about in 30-60 seconds in French
  • Sing French songs out loud while in the shower or in the car. Focus on pronunciation.
  • Look around your home. Choose the first thing you lay eyes on and try to describe it out loud in French. Repeat this for 3-5 items.

13 Ideas for Daily French Reading & Writing Practice

  • Write a short story in French. It can be as short as five sentences or as long as a page.
  • Write a short daily journal entry in French to talk about what happened during your day and your current thoughts
  • Write captions for your social media posts in French
  • Participate in French Twitter chats on a topic that interests you
  • Join online French forums (like Reddit), Facebook groups or Discord chats
  • Get a French penpal and write emails or letters to them in French
  • Choose an object around you and write a detailed description of it in French
  • Use a random question generator, then journal about your response in French
  • Look up the lyrics to a French song. Choose 3-5 sentences, then rewrite them using synonyms and other grammar structures where possible.
  • Start a blog in French
  • Spend 5 minutes reading an interesting blog in French
  • Join (or start) an online French book club
  • Write a short fan letter to your favorite French celebrity, musician, or author

Websites for Daily French Practice

200words-a-day200words-a-day daily-french-lesson logo

200words-a-day has a great French “verb of the day” program to kickstart your daily French lesson.

All you need to do is check the site every day, and a new verb will appear fully conjugated.

The French Experiment the french experiment logo

This fun website is a great resource for online French learning.

Plus, it’s totally free and has something for all levels!

For total beginners, there are some fun children’s books. They also have online French lessons that are user-friendly and easy on the eyes, and are particularly useful for vocabulary building.

If you are more advanced, The French Experiment may look too easy at first glance.

But don’t be fooled. This website has tons of lessons that cover little details you may have forgotten or never thought to study (such as conversation fillers).

Incorporating this information into your daily lesson will keep your routine fresh, varied and fun!

French WikipediaFrench wikipedia logo

You probably already know there’s a French Wikipedia. If you need to search something up, try doing it in French instead!

French Wikipedia works just the same as the English version. You can use it to get the information you need and get some French practice in!

WordReference word reference logo

If you need a quick French translation, WordReference is a great resource. 

It’s one of the most accurate French translators out there and can even offer conjugations for verbs.

If any of these caught your eye, I highly recommend exploring more of my favorite French websites here:

Apps for Daily French Practice

AnkiAnki logo

Anki lets you to build your own set of vocabulary cards, share sets with others or download pre-made cards from strangers.

Then you can pull these cards out anytime, anywhere. Waiting for coffee in the morning? Flip through 15 cards.

Sitting on the bus for your daily commute? Turn it into your daily French lesson by crushing new vocabulary sets.

This handy little app will make sure that you can study loads of new vocabulary without wasting any time in your day!

FluentU

italki italki logo

You need to find ways to speak with actual French people to develop your French skills.

Fortunately, italki makes it easy by connecting you with French tutors online.

You can choose from hundreds of tutors based on their rates, experience, teaching specialties and more. Then just select a date and time for your lesson on the italki calendar.

If you prefer to keep things on a budget, italki also has a free option to connect you with a language exchange partner.

Subscriptions and Social Media for Daily French Practice

Frenchly logoFrenchly

Frenchly is a daily email newsletter that sends you articles covering news, entertainment, lifestyle and more in French!

You can read on the bus or while waiting in line… pretty much any downtime can become study time.

They have really great, well-traveled writers who put together interesting articles for French learners.

Frantastique frantastique logo

Frantastique is another great website that offers personalized French lessons. Their philosophy is to teach you French in just 15 minutes per day.

Frantastique looks at your specific needs and tailors the materials to you. That way, you can progress as quickly as possible without covering lessons you already know.

Their program mixes short daily lessons with custom reviews of your work to focus on your strengths and weaknesses..

X (Formerly known as Twitter) x logo

Twitter is especially fantastic for finding people with similar interests and goals.

On Twitter, you’ll quickly learn that tweeter (to tweet) has been established as a regular -er verb. 

With the character limit this platform has in place, you can easily scroll as long or short as you want every day to get some quick French practice.

Facebook Facebook logo

If you don’t already know the difference between the third person singular and plural conjugations of the verb aimer (to like), switch to French on Facebook and you can be sure you’ll never forget.

Similarly to Twitter, Facebook makes for an easy way to change up your daily routine to include French. 

Read through French posts and even write your own to practice your French reading and writing skills!

YouTube YouTube logo

If you love to watch YouTube, there are thousands of videos out there in French!

Whether you want something that is geared towards French learning or simply want to watch something you’re interested in, there are plenty of French creators you can look into!

You can check out our in-depth guide to learning French on YouTube here:

Newspapers for Daily French Practice

Le Monde Le Monde logo

Reading the news is a great way to keep up with current events and practice your French.

Le Monde is a widely-acclaimed international French newspaper, covering everything from politics to art and culture. 

Le Figarole figaro logo

This is another French newspaper covering current events, both domestic and international.

Il etait une histoire Il etait une histoire logo

This lovely collection of short stories will give you some great, easily-digestible reading material for shorter spurts of French comprehension practice.

The stories take on all kinds of topics and writing styles, so there’s bound to be something you’ll enjoy here for casual reading. 

Podcast Francais Facile Podcast Francais Facile logo

Another excellent collection of French learning materials, but this time it’s all podcasts (with the accompanying transcripts).

The diverse range of discussion topics found here means that you’ll get engaged in these materials easily.

Strategies for Daily French Practice 

If you’re serious about learning French, you need to force yourself to sit down and study every day, even if you have other things you want to do.

The good news is that there are several ways to make this easier so that daily French learning becomes an enjoyable habit. 

Here are some of the best strategies to make sure that you practice French daily:

  • Block out time in your calendar for daily practice. Carve out time in your schedule for daily French lessons now, and it’ll be much easier to avoid distractions.
  • Use the 10:10:10 daily split. You’ll study ten minutes a day of either listening or speaking and ten minutes a day of either reading or writing. The last ten minutes are for vocabulary building or verb conjugations.
  • Try the Pomodoro technique for studying in spurts with regular breaks. It’s a great way to keep you on track and motivated!
  • Prep your resources before you start. Otherwise, you’ll spend more time looking for what to work on than actually working.
  • Evaluate your goals. Tailor your daily lessons to where you’re currently at and what you wish to achieve in the near future.
  • Search for anything that interests you in French. Instead of looking up a fun fact in English, try searching and reading the answer in French!
  • Use search functions to check your grammar and spelling. It’s quick and easy.

 

Like anything worthwhile, learning French takes hard work and consistency. With these daily French practice ideas and resources at your disposal, you’ll look forward to studying rather than dragging your heels.

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:

learn-french-with-videos

FluentU brings native French videos with reach. With interactive captions, you can tap on any word to see an image, definition and useful examples.

learn-french-with-movies

For example, if you tap on the word "crois," you'll see this:

practice-french-with-subtitled-videos

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."

practice-french-with-adaptive-quizzes

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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