French Phrases
Quickly learn essential French phrases for travelling, in easy single-serving doses! Great for beginners!
Each "serving" is composed of:
Free Printable Booklets
[ Learn More ] (not yet ready)4 sections in one printable booklet, with over 100 words and phrases total.
Web Pages w/clickable Audio
[ Learn More ] (not yet ready)View each page on your computer. Click each word or phrase to hear it!
All audio is from native speakers.
Audio Files for your mp3 Player
[ Learn More ] (not yet ready)2-3 minute long Mp3 audio file of each section that you can listen to anywhere.
About 30 phrases per section, includes the English.
French is spoken throughout France, parts of Canada and Belgium, a large portion of Switzerland, in most of the former French colonies as either a first or second language and by people the world over as a second language.
My goal is for single-serving to be a one-stop shop for French foreign language needs for tourists, travellers, business, self-learners, or anyone with an interest in languages. When you are done looking at the site, download the MP3 Audio file and print the Acrobat Booklet. You can use them together anywhere: at work or home on your computer or on the road with a portable mp3 player. You can even copy the audio to CD or tape and take it with you on your travels. Practice the pronunciation before you travel and then just carry the booklet with you. Look at what's here and use it for travel or learning. If you have any problems or suggestions, please e-mail me.
One of the reasons that I began doing this site, was the difficulty I had using the phoenetic pronunciations given in most phrase guides. The problem is that either one has to learn the international phoenetic alphabet, or guess how the author thinks that someone would pronounce certain letter combinations. I avoid phoenetics and use audio from real native speakers. There is no mistaking how a word should be pronounced. Only knowing a word or phrase is half the battle; you must be able to be understood. Hearing a native pronounce the words is the greatest aid to pronunciation. Practice is the key to learning (as if your parents haven't been telling you that all along). Go to France, Belgium, Canada, or Switzerland, and speak! Don't let them speak English with you!
French Language Links
The website of the National Library of France is an impressive project to digitize all public domain French works. The site is in French, so is more of a resource for someone who already speaks French at a decent level.
French Conjugation
You insert the infinitive and select the verbal tense, voice, and mood, and the INFL analyzer will give you the conjugation. The INFL analyzer is a licensed product of the MultiLingual Theory and Technology team at the Rank Xerox Research Center, in Grenoble, France made available to ARTFL through a technology exchange agreement. The principal developers of INFL are Lauri Karttunen and Annie Zaenen.
French Lessons from Everywhere is a huge list of online French lessons
Fluent French - Experiences of an English speaker
Jancada has a good French phrases foreign language page
ZUT - Interactive Activities for French
French Flashcards from flash card exchange
Free downloads of French Audio books (the site is completely in French.)
University of Oregon has a very complete list of French links at their Yamada language center
World Language.com's French Products
Introduction à la linguistique française well organized lessons completely in French
www.french4u.com is a translation service that specializes in real estate transactions of all types.
French Travel Links:
Check out Time-Out's online guide to Paris. You can order one from the site, or just buy one from a kiosk or bookstore once you get there. They are very complete, but in Time Out's mission to cater to all, they lose the personal touch.
Fredlet's "Things to do in Paris when you are not dead" is a quick fun list of recommendations.
Words you'll need to take trains in France and the rest of Europe. (available as .pdf only)
Look into the weak beginnings of my own guide to my own France.
Online dictionaries:
Neil Coffey's French Dictionary two-way dictionary.
WordReference English-French Dictionary Online dictionary and free browser tools; based on the Collins Paperback French Dictionary.
ARTFL French-English Dictionaries
If you can't cuss and swear in French, you ain't merde! (The Alternative Dictionaries project) You can also buy the book Merde! from Amazon, for more colorful language.
French bad words from insultmonger.com (warning: porn ads on some pages)
French Phrases
To improve your French with a native teacher you can Learn French with LanguageTrainers. Cities available are:
Champs-Elysées is a monthly audio and print magazine on a variety of topics delivered on CDs along with accompanying booklets. The format is a little much for beginners, but once you're able to understand some of the language, this is probably one of the best methods of learning, next to having willing native speakers around! In addition to the magazine stories, there is music with the lyrics in the booklets, and a vocabulary section that covers the vocabulary that is used in the articles to better help you understand what you are hearing and reading. Subscribe
- highly recommended
Join a French Language Meetup in your town.
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This design borrowed a couple of elements from the TerraFirma1.0 design (also under a CC Share-Alike license) from NodeThirtyThree Design.