Is French Hard to Learn? What's Easy and What Isn't
French is one of the easier languages for English speakers, who already know many of its words. Pronunciation, listening and verb forms take the most time.
Learn FrenchFree app with audio, quizzes and real booksNo, French isn't hard for English speakers, at least compared with most languages. You already know a large part of its vocabulary, and the grammar has much in common with English. The difficulty is in the sound: silent letters, nasal vowels and words that run together make spoken French much harder than written French. Gender and verb forms take time too.
What the official numbers say
The US State Department puts French in Category I, the languages closest to English, at 30 weeks and about 690 class hours to reach a professional level. That's the same as Spanish, a little longer than Italian (24 weeks), and shorter than German (about 36 weeks). We've worked out what that means at an hour a day.
Those figures are for English speakers. Speakers of Spanish, Italian or Portuguese start with a bigger head start still.
What's easier than you'd expect
Vocabulary. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, French was the language of England's rulers for centuries, and English absorbed a huge number of its words. Restaurant, police, possible, table, question and nation are spelled the same in both languages. You can often read a French newspaper headline before your first lesson.
Word order. A simple French sentence follows English order: Je mange une pomme, I eat an apple. You can build sentences early.
Tenses in speech. Spoken French uses the passé composé for the past and aller + infinitive for the near future: je vais manger, I'm going to eat. Both are easy to form, so you can talk about yesterday and tomorrow early on.
Questions. In everyday speech you can just raise your voice: Tu viens? (are you coming?). The more formal forms can wait. See question formation.
What really takes time
Pronunciation
French spelling is regular in its own way, but the link between letters and sounds is far from what English speakers expect. Many final letters are silent: ils parlent (they speak) sounds like il parle (he speaks). There are nasal vowels English doesn't have:
| French | Meaning |
|---|---|
| vin | wine |
| vent | wind |
| vont | (they) go |
Those three words differ only in their nasal vowel. Then there's the French r, made at the back of the throat, and the u of tu, which English doesn't have either.
Listening
French links words together. Les amis (the friends) is said lé-z-ami, with the silent s waking up before the vowel. Fast speech also drops sounds: je ne sais pas (I don't know) often comes out as chais pas. Many learners can read French well long before they can follow a film, so listen to real French from the start.
Gender
Every noun is masculine or feminine, and articles and adjectives follow. Le livre (the book) is masculine, la table feminine. A few endings help, but mostly you learn each noun with its article. Our noun gender lesson has the patterns that work.
Verb forms
French verbs change with every person and tense, though several forms sound the same. The common ones, être, avoir, aller, faire, are irregular. Then there's choosing between the passé composé and the imperfect, which we explain in passé composé vs imparfait, and the subjunctive: Il faut que tu viennes, you have to come.
Numbers
From 70 upwards, French counts in twenties: 70 is soixante-dix (sixty-ten), 80 is quatre-vingts (four twenties), and 97 is quatre-vingt-dix-sept (four twenties, ten, seven). Belgium and Switzerland use the simpler septante and nonante.
Small choices
Tu or vous, savoir or connaître, c'est or il est: each is simple once explained, and easy to get wrong in conversation. We have short guides to tu vs vous, savoir vs connaître and c'est vs il est.
Is it worth it?
If you have a reason, yes. French is an official language in dozens of countries, and it opens a literature from Molière to Camus. The early stage is rewarding because so much is familiar: within weeks, you can read simple texts and get by on a trip.
You can start now, with no account: French grammar lessons, word lists with audio, and the opening of Boule de Suif, with a translation under every line. When you're ready, here are the best books to learn French.
Our Learn French app takes you from your first words through grammar and graded reading to Flaubert and Maupassant. It's free to download, though some books and extra content need diamonds you earn while learning, or Premium.