Voilà! 9 Apps to Help You Learn French
Want to learn to speak French, or at least enough to know what “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?” means?
There are an estimated 77 million French speakers across 40 different countries, and an additional 50 million who speak it as a second language. Outside of France itself, French speakers predominantly live in major economies like Canada and Belgium, as well as popular travel destinations like Morocco and the Caribbean.
Looking at a number of education apps, we found the best ones to help you master the “language of love,” as spoken by Descartes, Hugo, Flaubert, and de Beauvoir. Whether learning French is on the top of your bucket list, or you simply want to test the waters, these tools can help you on your quest.
Bonne chance!
Duolingo
9/10
Duolingo, winner of Apple’s App of the Year in 2013, is the best free app to make the cut. Through its gamified approach, the app uses a largely “learning-by-rote” method to help you memorize words. Plus, it integrates previous words you’ve learned into new phrases and lets you set goals to challenge yourself. The downside? You can’t set the gender when learning verbs, and grammar is treated as an afterthought. It’s a useful tool for written lessons and dictation, but less for practicing speech. The service has been designed toward a crowdsourced model, meaning that by using the app you are are actually contributing to the translation of websites, including CNN!
If you like flashcards, you’ll love this one. This app organizes French verbs by tense (hence the name), and the exercises test you on verbs in their appropriate tenses. It’s a useful revision aid, perhaps best used to brush up on your forgotten French skills when planning your next trip to Paris or Cannes.
Rosetta Stone
6/10
Cost is often the main reason people avoid the acclaimed Rosetta Stone app, which is why it receives a lower score than the program rightfully deserves. The app is not that much more advanced than Duolingo, which is free. However, the lessons offered by Rosetta Stone are detailed, fun, and applicable to real life. If you’re serious about learning French, this app is worthy of consideration. Costs vary depending on whether you want a desktop or mobile experience, all variations of which are detailed on the Rosetta Stone website.
Collins’ Dictionary and Easy Learning French
7/10
If you’re going to learn a new language, having a good dictionary handy is a must. $16.99 is pretty steep for a dictionary, but you can’t beat Collins’ quality. The Easy Learning app is a digital textbook that includes comprehensive grammar lessons. It’s a great resource, if you’re willing to put the time in. And if you prefer to be old school, you can always buy it in paperback.
French course: Teach Yourself
7/10
Teach Yourself is a solid app, with some great exercises, including real-life French speakers. The app includes lessons on vocabulary, grammar and recorded conversations, accompanied by easy-to-follow lessons with real French speakers. All of this makes it feel like a fully fleshed-out French language course, and it’s free.
iVerbs French
6/10
iVerbs is perfect for the amateur linguist who is unwilling to shell out cash for an app she may never open after downloading. The app offers an alphabetical list of French verbs; when you select one, various conjugations appear, like “Être. Je Suis; Tu Est; Il Es”. As anyone learning French knows, the hardest part is getting all the exceptions to conjugating verbs right. This app acts as a great companion to some of the more complete courses, like Duolingo and Frantastique.
Frantastique
8/10
Frantastique is, well, fantastic! The app teaches you vocabulary through the use of cartoons and storytelling. In Episode One, for instance, two aliens decide whom to unfreeze: Edith Piaf (“Pas une chanteuse!”), Napoleon (“Trop petit!”) or Victor Hugo (“Il a une barbe jolie!”). Maybe that sounds like your own special circle of hell; well, thankfully, there’s a free trial available to test it out. Each exercise has a correction service attached to enable personalized learning.
Living Language’s app is simply an expanded version of French Verbs (listed above). Besides vocabulary, the app offers conversations and lessons in grammar, which is sorely missing in other apps. The entire course is priced at $9.99 (or $3.99 each for the individual beginner, intermediate or advanced courses). File this one under “I will occasionally attempt to practice French.” While it may not be the best, you’re getting your money’s worth.
Busuu
7/10
Busuu ranks with Duolingo and Rosetta Stone: It definitely does the job but is just shy of that special sauce to make it fantastique. If you’ve ever half-heartedly tried to learn a language, you may have come across Busuu, and its motivational tool of growing a garden by completing courses. Lessons are a mix of flashcards, conversations, and games. The real magic of Busuu is in the collaboration of its users learning together by marking one another’s courses and talking in the site’s chat rooms. It’s free to trial, but includes various pay options for premium features.
