As such, it opens you up to many different careers<\/strong> and makes you a competitive\u00a0candidate<\/strong> in the workforce.<\/p>\n Learning French also\u00a0prepares you for going abroad<\/strong> and\u00a0lets you communicate with people from many different cultures,<\/strong> not just in Europe but also in Africa, where a large portion of the population speaks French.<\/p>\n Purpose:<\/strong><\/p>\n As you can imagine, the first step to learning any language is to learn its alphabet.<\/a> You really can’t do anything else until you get this down pat.<\/p>\n For many learners, myself included, the easiest way to do so is to memorize it through song<\/strong>. Personally, I find YouTuber Kylie Hicken’s letter pronunciation and song video a great way to master the French alphabet.<\/p>\n When you teach a child their native language, what do you teach them right after the alphabet? Most of you would answer the same way: numbers.<\/p>\n It’s the same for foreign language learners and you’ll need to study French numbers before moving on. I would recommend learning how to count up to 20 in the first week<\/strong>, and reinforcing that info during the second week. If you have time during your second week, try to get up to 100<\/strong>.<\/p>\n This\u00a0guide to counting in French<\/a>\u00a0will help you master those basic numbers. Fortunately, the formula for saying numbers above 20 is pretty easy to remember.<\/p>\n As for numbers higher than 100, save them for later, after you’ve mastered this three-month curriculum. Those won’t be as necessary in everyday French life as the other topics in this curriculum are.<\/p>\n Here’s another extremely important basic concept: the six basic French subject pronouns.<\/a> They shouldn’t take long to learn.<\/p>\n They’re as follows:<\/p>\n Je<\/em>\u00a0(I)<\/p>\n Tu<\/em>\u00a0(You, singular)<\/p>\n Il\/Elle<\/em> (He\/She)<\/p>\n Nous<\/em> (We)<\/p>\n Vous<\/em> (You, plural)<\/p>\n Ils\/Elles<\/em> (They, masculine\/They, feminine)<\/p>\n Simple, right?<\/p>\n If you want to speak French with actual people, then learning the basic hellos and goodbyes<\/a> are pretty essential.<\/p>\n It’s best to practice these now before you add more vocabulary to your repertoire<\/strong>, as you’ll need them to start any conversation. It’s also smart to get in the habit of speaking conversational French early on, so real conversations aren’t as intimidating<\/strong> later.<\/p>\n FluentU<\/strong><\/a> is one possible source to start learning how to communicate in real-world French<\/strong>. <\/p>\n I bet you can guess what these two words mean just by thinking of the two most important English verbs.<\/p>\n That’s right\u2014\u00eatre <\/em>means “to be” and\u00a0avoir <\/em>means “to have.”<\/p>\n These two little verbs will be your best friends<\/a> throughout the whole French process, as you’ll use them to form almost every common expression<\/strong> and to construct past tenses in French.<\/p>\n Reverso Conjugation<\/strong><\/a> is a great online tool that shows you how to conjugate any verb, including these ones. For weeks one and two, learn only the present-tense forms of\u00a0\u00eatre <\/em>and\u00a0avoir<\/em> (the forms in the upper left box after you type a verb into Reverso Conjugation). These are the first steps of verb conjugation that you’ll be building on as you progress.<\/p>\n This will be your final subject to end the first two weeks, and you’ll certainly need it before learning any nouns or basic sentences<\/strong>.<\/p>\n While definite and indefinite articles<\/a> may sound like a scary topic at first, it’s actually a super short lesson with only six tiny words<\/strong> to memorize!<\/p>\n Essentially, you need to know the following:<\/p>\n Le bureau, la chaise et les crayons<\/em>\u00a0(The desk, the chair and the pencils)<\/p>\n Un bureau, une chaise et des crayons<\/em> (A desk, a chair and pencils)<\/p>\n These small, simple words may seem unimportant but you’ll use them more than just about anything else<\/strong> when speaking French.<\/p>\n Purpose:<\/strong><\/p>\n The days of the week<\/a> are some of the simplest vocabulary you’ll need to know, and you can start practicing by visiting the BBC, a site filled with vocabulary, songs and audio clips of all languages.<\/p>\n Their days of the week guide<\/a> gives you everything you need to know, going far beyond just the names of the days to include the French words for “weekend”, “day”, “afternoon”, “night”, etc. Their guide to the months<\/a> includes bonuses like how to talk about your birthday and how to say which month you’re going on vacation.<\/p>\n As a bonus, each word is accompanied by an audio clip so you know exactly how to pronounce it.<\/p>\n Weeks three and four in this curriculum are really all about how to get by with day-to-day vocabulary, and telling time is one of the most important things you’ll want to know from the moment you wake up!<\/p>\n Whether it’s asking someone for the time or reading your French train ticket, you’re going to need to master this concept.<\/p>\n Since you learned French numbers in weeks one and two, putting them together now to tell time should be easy. You just need this phrase:<\/strong> Il est ___ heure(s) ___. <\/em>(Literally: It is ___ hour(s) ___.)<\/p>\n To learn more about how to express the time in French, you can check out this guide here.<\/a><\/p>\n Continuing with the day-to-day theme, you’ll need to study-up on weather words. At the very least, you’ll want to know how to say things like “it’s cold, it’s raining and the weather is bad.”<\/p>\n Try memorizing three words a day<\/strong> from this guide to French weather vocabulary<\/a>, and you’ll have a stockpile of new weather words by the end of week four.<\/p>\n Now is a great time to change up your study method (so you don’t get bored) and head over to Quizlet, a website that boasts loads of great study sets and games<\/a>.<\/p>\n Their page on French family vocabulary<\/a> is fantastic, complete with flashcards, writing and spelling tests and several fun games.<\/p>\n Many of these family words<\/a> are similar to their counterparts in English<\/strong>, so with just a few hours of play, you’ll have these words down pat.<\/p>\n Essentially, there are three main groups of verbs in the French language and\u00a0-er<\/em> verbs are<\/strong> good to start with<\/strong> since they’re arguably the most intuitive (we’ll get to the others later).<\/p>\n In fact, verbs that have the -er<\/em> ending are by far the most useful regular verbs in the French language. That is because some 90% of all French verbs have the -er<\/em> verb ending. That means that if you master this group of verbs and the associated tenses, you should be well on your way to French verb mastery!<\/p>\n In order to learn how to conjugate these, I recommend Tex’s French Grammar<\/a>, which has an excellent guide to regular –er<\/em> verbs<\/a> with explanations, examples and audio clips.<\/p>\n Purpose:<\/strong><\/p>\n After learning some rich vocabulary and starting to conjugate verbs, you might be ready for a bit of a break<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Relax and enjoy learning these easy color words<\/a> using some more of Quizlet’s games and quizzes\u2014their study set for colors<\/a> is full of all the same fun tools you used to learn family vocabulary.<\/p>\n Now that you’re warmed up, it’s time for some more hefty vocabulary<\/strong>: house words.<\/a><\/p>\n Have no fear! As it’s no fun to just memorize huge lists one after another, I recommend ProProfs Flashcards<\/a>, a platform that lets anyone create study flashcards. Their French household flashcards<\/a> are a fun way to learn and once you’ve practiced enough, there’s an option to keep score of how many you get correct each round.<\/p>\n They’ve also got some games like matching French words with their English definitions so you have plenty to keep you occupied while you learn.<\/p>\n It’s time to learn French questions so that you can continue on your way to fleshing out nice sentences and changing up your speech patterns<\/strong>. You now have some great vocabulary at your disposal, so let’s learn another way to use it.<\/p>\n This guide to asking questions<\/a> is useful for learning this crucial part of the language.<\/p>\n Here’s the second verb group I alluded to before: verbs ending in –ir<\/em>.<\/p>\n Again, I recommend Tex’s French Grammar, as I really find their –ir<\/em> verbs guide<\/a> to be quite simple and complete. It contains many examples<\/strong> of these types of verbs and how to conjugate them.<\/p>\n This guide to French negatives<\/a>\u00a0covers basic negatives, negative adverbs, negative pronouns and much more. Try to focus on one type of negation every day so that you leave this study stage equipped to negate anything.<\/p>\n That guide even has a section that explains n’importe <\/em>(no matter\/whichever\/any),\u00a0<\/em>which happens to mean many different things depending on the situation and which is used religiously by the French but glossed over in many French language guides.<\/p>\n FluentU<\/strong> takes authentic videos\u2014like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks\u2014and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.<\/p>\r\n <\/p> \r\n You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app<\/a> or Android app.<\/a><\/p>\r\nWeeks 1 and 2: Learn the Basics<\/h2>\n
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The Alphabet<\/h3>\n
Numbers 1 to 100<\/h3>\n
Subject Pronouns<\/h3>\n
Common Greetings<\/h3>\n
Conjugate the Two Most Important Verbs: \u00catre <\/em>and Avoir<\/em><\/h3>\n
Basic Definite and Indefinite Articles<\/h3>\n
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Weeks 3 and 4: Learn Key Vocabulary<\/h2>\n
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Days of the Week and Months of the Year<\/h3>\n
How to Tell Time<\/h3>\n
How to Talk About the Weather<\/h3>\n
Family Vocabulary<\/h3>\n
Present Tense Conjugations of –Er<\/em> Verbs<\/h3>\n
Weeks 5 and 6: Develop Grammar Knowledge<\/h2>\n
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Colors<\/h3>\n
House Vocabulary<\/h3>\n
How to Ask Questions<\/h3>\n
Present Tense Conjugations of –Ir<\/em> Verbs<\/h3>\n
Forming Negatives<\/h3>\n
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