Course Introduction

Bonjour, tout le monde, et bienvenue dans le cours de français sur Langue de Feu ! Nous sommes très excités que vous puissiez découvrir cette belle langue avec nous. Vous apprendrez des concepts comme les cinq accents, les sons du français, les mots grammatiques essentiels, la conjugaison, comment poser des questions, la négation, et plus ! Nous espérons que, après avoir fini ce cours, vous comprendrez bien les concepts essentiels requis pour comprendre et utiliser le français dans votre vie quotidienne. Profitez-en !

Translation: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Tongue of Fire’s French course! We’re very excited that you’ll be able to discover this beautiful language with us. You will learn concepts like the five accent marks, the sounds of French, essential grammatical words, conjugation, how to ask questions, negation, and more! We hope that, after finishing this course, you’ll understand the essential concepts necessary to understand and use French in your everyday life. Enjoy!

A bit about French: French is a Romance language, meaning that it is descended from Latin. It has its roots in the 16th century, when it began to diverge from the other early European languages, was adopted by the French kingdom, and then spread across the world. It is typically ranked as about the sixth most spoken language in the world, and it’s the official language in more than 20 countries (most of which are in Africa). It’s widely learned and loved in the United States for its usefulness in Canada, its elegant, beautiful sound, and its general cultural association with love.

French is generally considered one of the easier languages for English speakers to learn because it shares characteristics with English such as the Latin alphabet, subject-verb-object word order, and conjugation. It has its challenges, though, including noun gender, somewhat complicated verb and adjective forms, an abundance of silent letters, and frequent exceptions to grammar and spelling rules. We’ve done our best to clearly explain how to tackle each of those challenges individually throughout this course.

This course is designed to help you understand all of the linguistic concepts that you’ll need to speak French at an intermediate level. It teaches the overarching concepts and rules of French grammar rather than individual words, which you can learn through our curriculum on the Words page. Please note that simply reading the lessons is not enough to learn French: regular practice is essential to turning the knowledge in the course into practical skills. You can get that practice on the other pages of this site, such as AI, Word Drills, and Conjugation, as well as by immersing yourself in the language by talking with people in French and by reading, watching, or listening to French media. We also recommend taking notes and/or making physical flashcards to help yourself retain what you learn so that you can use it in real-life situations.

Throughout the course, we’ve styled all French text like this and other listenable text like this. Whenever you see either type of text, you can click it to hear its pronunciation.

We hope you find Tongue of Fire’s French course clear, fun, and enlightening. Bonne chance !