Free French course for beginners / Cours de français gratuit pour débutants

Learn French from zero, for free. Twenty-four video lessons, in order, from your very first bonjour to introducing yourself properly. Every lesson has a worksheet to print, and those worksheets are waiting for you in the course’s Telegram group, along with the other beginners.

The essentials.

• The course is 100% free and covers level A1 — the true beginner level. Nothing is assumed: you can start having never opened a French book.
• 24 video lessons, to be followed in order. The full playlist is on this page.
• 70+ PDF worksheets go with the lessons. You pick them up in the free Telegram group.
• The group is also where you practise — you write French with other beginners, for free.
• This page is in English because you are not expected to read French yet. The lessons will change that.

En français.

• Cours 100 % gratuit, de niveau A1, sans aucun prérequis.
• 24 leçons vidéo à suivre dans l’ordre, et plus de 70 fiches PDF.
• Les fiches se récupèrent dans le groupe Telegram gratuit, qui sert aussi à pratiquer l’écrit entre débutants.
• À la fin, on sait se présenter et se servir des verbes indispensables.

What you will be able to do by the end

A1 is not the level where you hold a free conversation. It is the level where you can handle the basic exchanges, the ones that come back every single day. After the 24 lessons:

• You can introduce yourself — your name and where you are from, spoken and written.
• You can use the verbs everything rests on. Être and avoir first, then s’appeler, which starts almost every first sentence.
• You can ask simple questions and understand the answers: where are you from, where do you live.
• You have a starter vocabulary, chosen so you can speak straight away rather than to fill a list.

That is deliberately limited — each lesson adds one brick, and you can check what you can do at the end of it.

The 24 lessons, in order

Here is the full playlist. Start with the first video and move through in order — each lesson assumes the one before it, and skipping a step costs you two lessons later.

All 24 lessons of the course, from the very first to the last. You can also watch them on the French School TV channel.

Where to get the PDF worksheets

The worksheets live in the course’s Telegram group. It is free: you join, and you find the 70+ worksheets that go with the lessons.

The group is not just a PDF warehouse, though, and that is the real reason to go. Learners from all over the world write French there every day, at beginner level. Reading one simple sentence written by someone learning like you, then writing one yourself, beats another lesson watched in silence.

Join the Telegram group. Free and immediate: open the course’s Telegram group. The worksheets are inside, and you can start writing from day one.

En français — les fiches PDF sont dans le groupe Telegram gratuit. Rejoignez-le, téléchargez-les, et entraînez-vous à écrire avec les autres débutants.

If you would rather have a teacher

The group is for practice, not for lessons: nobody there corrects you line by line. If you want a real teacher from day one, our one-to-one lessons are the one thing on the site open at any level, complete beginner included. Everything else starts at A2.

It is not a requirement, and this course works on its own. It is simply the option if you want someone watching your progress while you go through the 24 lessons.

How to actually finish this course

A free course is easy to abandon, because nothing forces you to continue. This is the routine we recommend to the beginners who make it to the end:

1. Watch a lesson all the way through, taking no notes. The first time, you listen. That is all.
2. Watch it a second time with the worksheet in front of you. That is when you write, repeat out loud and hit pause.
3. Write three sentences in the Telegram group. Three, no more. Using what the lesson just gave you, however clumsy it feels.
4. Redo yesterday’s lesson before starting a new one. Two minutes is enough, and it is what makes the memory hold.

Tip. Three lessons a week, no more. The whole course then takes about two months, and that pace holds. Six lessons on a Sunday, then nothing for three weeks, builds nothing at all.

After A1, what comes next?

This course leaves you at the end of A1. What follows depends on what you want it for.

• Not sure where you stand? Start by placing your level with our French written and oral test, marked by a teacher.
• Want to start speaking? Our conversation classes open at A1+/A2 — roughly where these 24 lessons leave you, so it is the natural next step rather than a leap.
• Want to stay in a French-speaking community? FSTV360 is ours — live workshops and a monthly challenge, from A2 to C1. Take the conversation classes first if you are coming straight out of this course: that is FSTV360’s own recommendation for A1 learners, and these two sit in that order on purpose.
• Want to keep studying? Our self-paced courses pick up at A2 and run to C2.
• Preparing an official exam? The DELF and the TCF each have their own course, but not before A2 — finish the 24 lessons first.

And in the meantime, stay in the Telegram group. It is free, it is where the practice continues between courses, and it is the same idea FSTV360 takes further once you reach A2.

Frequently asked questions

Start today

Two things, in this order. Play the first video in the playlist above, and join the Telegram group to pick up the worksheet that goes with it. You will have learned your first sentence in French before the end of the day.