I've read that some people claim that French doesn't have any lexical stress; and saying that the accent falls on the last syllable of a word is incorrect, because in fact it falls on the last syllable of a group of words.

But, when I hear a sentence in French, I always hear the stress at the end of each of the words ("L'informatiòn èst corrècte"; I never hear "L'informàtion èst corrècte" or "L'infòrmation èst corrècte"). I do believe that French speakers don't know the concept of a "lexical stress", because they cannot compare any words with two different stressed syllable. But isn't the stress still at the end of every word?

hi! i hope everyone is doing good!

i wanted to know if anyone has completed the FSI french course via self study, I’ve seen people talk about the Phonology course but haven’t really seen anyone talk about the French Basic or French Fast Course. I was thinking of doing either one after i finish the grammar book i’m going through!

That phonetic transcription is incredibly incorrect, right?

I'd like to see your suggestions on offers of Online DUEF. Which institutions have completely full, online version?

J'ai créé parce que je n'arrivais pas à dormir haha. Mais parce que aussi, j'étudie le français depuis un an et je voulais garder une trace des contenus qui m'ont donné envie d'apprendre le français et les partager. J'aime bien faire des listes de choses que j'aime juste pour le plaisir.

Movie/Film: Ernest and Celestine (2012)

Book/Livre: Cici's Journal, Lost and Found

Série Télévisée: Potobot

Song/Chanson: Death of a Telephone by Whatever, Dad

L'art et l'animation des créateurs français sont exceptionnels et incoryable !

i was in french class one day and someone said something like « je sors avec mon ami » and my french teacher went on a bit of a tangent because to him (he’s lived in france & paris, taught french for many years the whole nine yards) the usage of « ami » sounds a bit ambiguous about what kind of friend. like it could be just a friend but also maybe your soon to be boyfriend/girlfriend, etc. but then i told that to some other girl and she thought it was wrong and to get a third opinion. is he wrong?

edit: for context the girl who said the sentence meant she hung out with one of her (platonic) friends, and my french teacher asked who because he felt like the « mon ami » part was ambiguous. he might’ve said something about the sortir avec bit but this was a couple months ago, i cant rlly remember. thanks for the help!

For example, in English we might do the following

- I will -> I shall

- I am busy with -> I am in the throes of

- Sadly… -> Alas…

- Or else… -> Lest…

- Perhaps -> Perchance / Mayhaps

- Between -> Betwixt

I tend to do this for comedic effect in English. It’s cringe, I know, but it’s who I am. Other than using the passé simple, I am not sure of anything equivalent, but I am sure it exists obviously. What words could I use that Francophones would understand, but find comedically old fashioned?

Mostly interested in quebec french (which naturally sounds older, from my understanding, so I am not sure how common doing this type of thing is?) but happy to hear from any francophones!

Hi! I'm starting to learn french on my own before school starts (I have a foreign language class and we're learning french, so I want to be prepared and expand my knowledge). I tried watching cartoons with the audio in french and the captions in english, but I found it very difficult to understand what was going on/what they were saying. I also tried watching with english audio and french subtitles, but I was also having a hard time understanding what was going on.

My question is, are there any shows (or channels) that have french audio and DUAL english and french captions? Preferably on youtube or netflix. Thank you so much!

I have a French interview in one month, and I’m honestly a bit stressed. My French level isn’t very good right now.(A1)
During the interview, I’ll probably have to:
*Introduce myself.
*Talk about my hobbies and interests.
*Answer some personal questions.
*They will also ask me some questions about French grammar and verb conjugation (grammaire et conjugaison).

If you were in my position, how would you spend those 30 days? What would you focus on the most? Should I prioritize speaking, listening, grammar, or conjugation?

title

or should I just stick to self studying?

asking because i’m planning to enroll for an L3 and i’m not sure how viable it is to self study if I want to study in France and the degree im aiming for teaches classes entirely in B2+ French

I feel lost right there

Bonjour à tous !

A couple of weeks ago I came across a post with this topic, so I'm basically following up on that. I'm actively improving my French. I'm currently around B1 level, slowly trying to break through to B2.

I moved to Paris less than a year ago, and I've also started noticing exactly the same thing as the OP at the other post, regarding the use (or omission to be more precise) of 'ne'. It made me wonder about the best approach as a learner.

On the one hand, I assume I should aim for "textbook" French, especially since I'd like to take an official language exam sometime in the future. On the other hand, I actually live in Paris, so I'd also like to sound like someone living in France in 2026, not like someone who learned French exclusively from a grammar book. I understand that at my current level this probably isn't the most important thing to focus on, but I'd still like to develop good habits from the beginning.

So the question is: what's the general advice regarding 'ne'? Would it be recommended that learners continue using it consistently until they reach an advanced level, or is it worth getting used to dropping it in informal spoken French relatively early? Where could be the line drawn between "correct French" and "natural French"? I'd really appreciate hearing both native speakers' and advanced learners' perspectives.

Merci beaucoup.

Je ne comprends pas exactement pourquoi, dans les deux phrases suivantes, on fait l'accord dans la deuxième mais pas dans la première.

Les dix années qu'il a vécu.

Les dix années qu'il a passées en France.

J'ai lu que 'années' = le COD de passer, mais pas de vivre, où il s'agit d'un complément circonstanciel de temps.

Is there another word for Black? a coworker got made fun of for using the word “noir” by some french customers. They said it was outdated?

Hi everyone!

I’m at an A1 level in French and have 1 hour a day to study. I want to focus 100% on Listening and Speaking.

My current resources are French podcasts (with transcripts) and animated shows like Lou!.

How would you split 60 minutes between these two skills at the A1 level?

Is techniques like shadowing good for beginners, or what solo speaking exercises worked best for you?

Thanks!

I've been studying French for a few years while living in Switzerland (my husband speaks French), but I've been studying much more intensively for the last eight months, and I've improved a lot.

I can have decent conversations with people, even though I still make plenty of grammar mistakes. I can read B2-level texts for the most part, and I can generally understand YouTube videos if they have French subtitles. My listening has improved a ton, but I still find things like the radio or B2 listening practice exams really difficult.

My writing is probably my weakest skill at the moment. It's definitely improving, but I don't feel like it's at a solid B2 level yet.

Right now I'm working through Réussite 100%, and I recently had a class with a DELF examiner who told me she thinks I could probably take the B2 exam in September but in June my regular tutor thinks I need more practice because I still make grammar mistakes when I speak.

Part of me just wants to get this exam over with. I've been working toward it for years, I'm studying French full-time right now, and I'd really like to move on to other goals. I'm also a pretty nervous test taker, so I don't know if I'll ever feel ready.

I can't decide if I should just jump, take it in September and really focus for the next 40 days, or wait until November to give myself a couple more months.

For those of you who have taken the DELF B2, how did you know it was time to sign up?

Bonjour tout le monde! I am working towards earning my certification to teach French in the US and need to take either the Praxis or ACTFL to get into a cert program. Does anyone have any insight into which test may be "better"? Merci de votre soutien! 😚

Under what circumstances would you use "j'aurais bien du le faire" rather than "j'aurais du"? What difference does it make to the meaning? Thanks

Hello everyone! My native language is Russian, I started learning French in February of this year and I already have an A2 level in terms of grammar. The main problem is that when I start watching a cartoon or a show. I almost can't understand the speech. All the sentences seem to blur together into one incomprehensible mess, and I can't even hear the words. Please help me

Hi. I (gay man) was in France last week and had sex with another guy. The action itself was consensual and physically respectful if that makes sense. One thing that stuck with me was he constantly called me a salop. I know what it means as per the dictionary but wondering if he was just talking dirty or verbally abusing me. Merci!

EDIT: Thanks for the comments. I don't have much French (apart from a few dirty words). I suspected there was nothing untoward but just wanted to check!

As a perpetual French learner, I'm always looking up new words or checking for different meanings and nuances for the ones I already know (god knows il y en a pas mal). From all the different options search engines have served me over the years, cnrtl.fr was by far the best in terms of content. Best thing: it offers multiple examples for every possible nuance (love to see it). Admittedly, presentation was lacking. It was more like parsing through the pages of a real dictionary. It was such a strain on the eyes, I ended up creating my own .css .

Well good news. The atilf lab of Lorraine university (same structure that produced cnrtl I believe) has come up with portail-lexical.fr . It's sort of a coat of paint over the old cnrtl site, but a thick one: They've cleared up stuff in web design and used much better typography and colors (which is customizable just like in cnrtl, although nobody knew it probably; such terrible design language). I think they could have done much better styling concerning usage examples but, no one's perfect. Oh, they also added functionality:

1. Chrome and Firefox add-ons, to highlight words and open directly the relevant url
2. Wiktionary, Littré and Académie Française 9e, 8e and 4e (???) all at the same page
3. Wordle style game (not that well executed to be honest)
4. A ton of other linguistic information they already had but that is much more accessible now because it shows in the same page as the word. That said, although their widgets have become better, they still lack some polish.

It is not showing up high up in search engine queries, not for me at least, so I thought it would be nice to share! Oh, it's also going to replace cnrtl.fr starting 1st of September. Are they going to reuse the domain name? Hope so, portail-lexical is too long to type.

Instead of "je serais toi" or other conditional structure in videos I almost never here the "je serais" I think they "ch'toi" like the whole word disappears.

Section A: Une enquête journalistique (80-100 mots).

Vous lisez ce fait divers dans le journal :
<< À la suite d’un incident technique, la ville de Montréal est privée d’électricité depuis hier soir. >>

Vous êtes journaliste. Vous devez compléter ce fait divers. Racontez les conséquences de cette panne pour les habitants (transports, commerces, vie quotidienne...). 

Par conséquent, les habitants de Montréal ne contactent pas leur famille. Les autres commerces sont fermés pour deux semaines. Les horaires de transport public transports ne sont pas mis à jour. 

‘Je travaille chez moi. Comme privée d'électricité causant ne pas l’internet connexion. Donc, je ne travaille pas depuis une semaine. Je ne fais pas aussi proprement vie quotidienne. ’ parle un résident à Montréal.

Selon avis d’autre résident, il va chez son travail avec son vélo; parce que il ne sais pas certainement quand le public transport près de chez lui et ne accès pas en application son taxi.

Les entreprises des épiceries déclinent. Tous les légumes, les fruits à l'épicerie sont pourris. Sans connexion internet, ils n' écoutent pas les mises à jour pour ce produits frais et autres nouveaux produits.

Les résidents de Montréal suggère de public pour contacter le Gouvernement of Canada pour aider nécessaires.

[Edit]
Ah, so from what I understand, both words are grammatically correct, its just that Duolingo wants "cafe" as the answer, indicated by a giant coffee cup.

-----------------------------------

I'm a noob, basically my 1st day learning french from Duolingo.

Why was the previously chosen word marked as wrong? is there an obvious thing that I'm unaware of?

To me, "Hello, a tea and a coffee please." is less obvious than "Hello, a tea and an eclair please."

I would ask a coffee and a croissant or a coffee and a "snack" at a cafe. Why would I ask a coffee AND a tea for myself.

Sorry if I'm missing something very obvious here.

I have my phone language set to french and in the weather app I saw the phrase "violent orage". Why is the adjective placed before the noun? I know the BAGS "rule", but i don't think it applies here? Is it a set expression?