Your first French phrases, and the traps in them
Free, no sign-up. The greetings, politeness and numbers you need first — plus the mistakes English speakers reliably make with them.
The first eight
| comment ça s'écrit ? | how is that spelled? |
| épelez, s'il vous plaît | spell it, please |
| un accent aigu | an acute accent |
| un accent grave | a grave accent |
| un trait d'union | a hyphen |
| en majuscules | in capital letters |
| bonjour | hello / good morning |
| bonsoir | good evening |
These are the opening words of Stage 1 of our beginner course, reproduced here in full because they are more useful to you than to us.
Four traps English speakers fall into
Bonjour stops working in the evening
After roughly 6pm it becomes bonsoir. Using bonjour at night is the most common tell that someone learned French from a phrasebook.
Salut is not a polite hello
It is casual — friends and colleagues you know. Using it with an official, a landlord or an examiner reads as too familiar.
Adding madame or monsieur changes everything
Bonjour madame is markedly more polite than bonjour alone. In Canada, in any administrative setting, it is worth the extra word.
Comment vous appelez-vous ? is not Comment tu t'appelles ?
The first is formal, the second is not. Getting this wrong is noticed, and in the speaking exam it is marked.
Where these fit
These words are Stage 1 of a 58-lesson course that ends at the TCF and TEF exam formats. Stage 1 alone is 8 lessons and about 1.2 hours: Greet someone, say your name, count, and say where you are from.
If you are here because you have just arrived and need to function this week, that stage is the whole of what you need. The exam can wait.
Say them out loud, from today
Reading French silently builds a private version of the language that nobody else can understand. The single highest-return habit for a beginner is saying every new phrase aloud, badly, to nobody.
Speaking is also the skill that most often decides an exam result, because it is the only one that cannot be practised passively — and the habit is far easier to build at eight words than at eight hundred.
Work through Stage 1 free
Three days free, with everything unlocked. A card starts the trial; cancel before day 3 and you pay nothing.
A card is needed to start the trial. Nothing is charged for 3 days, and you can cancel in one click.
Related
Formats, points and immigration thresholds change. Confirm current requirements with the official test provider and with IRCC before you plan around them. This is exam preparation, not immigration advice.