10 ways to make your French more fluent
In my experience teaching French, I’ve noticed that students tend to make the same mistakes over and over. What’s interesting is that intermediate-level students still make beginner-level mistakes.
By paying attention to a few rules, you can make your French sound more fluent, no matter what your level is.
Of course, nothing beats geting the help of a qualified teacher. If you’re ready to start one-to-one tutoring, check out my lessons on Italki here.
Master the basics
As your French improves and your vocabulary increases, it’s a smart idea to revisit the basics. For example:
Common greetings
Talking about likes and dislikes
Taking about what you love.
Talking about your work.
Answering simple chitchat questions, such as, “how was your weekend?”
It’s too easy to simply revert back to translating from English or another language in your head. Instead, you should make sure these foundations are solid. How?
Write down sample dialogues you have regularly. Make sure everything is correct. Get your teacher to double-check everything.
I still hear too many students make mistakes like this:
Comment était ton week-end? Oui, c’était bon.
Je m’intéresse pour les sports.
Comment ça va? Oui, ça va.
Trois semaines passées, je suis allé en Espagne.
I’m not explaining these mistakes, as you should know them by the end of A2. If not, revisit the basics!
Even the most skilled musicians work on the fundamentals every single day. Do the same with your French.
Be careful with c’est bon
Stop saying c’est bon to mean "it's okay” or “I’m okay."
Comment ça va au travail?
Ça va bien!
However, you can use c’est bon to mean “that works for me.”
Peux-tu venir jeudi prochain?
Oui, jeudi, c’est bon. (Yes, Thursday works for me.)
Be careful with the word oui
Be careful to not answer « oui » to a question that starts with : comment, quoi, etc.
If the question is,
Comment a été ta semaine?
Don’t answer: oui, c’était bon.
It will sound more fluent to only answer oui to a yes/no question.
Native speakers can get away with using “oui” with a certain intonation, as almost a way to pause and say “eh.” But as a French learner, it’s likely to sound different, so it’s wiser to stick with the rules and save oui for questions that require a yes/no answer.
Est-ce que tu aimes ce film?
Oui, j’ai trouvé ça très bien.
Avoid comment dit-on
One of the most common phrases you’ll use in French is “how do you say ____ in French?"
Since you’ll be using this so often, get it right from the start!
Don’t ask a French speaker: comment dit-on?
Using inverted questions sounds outdated.
Instead, say:
Comment on dit ça?
Comment ça se dit?
Comment est-ce qu’on dit?
Avoid nous
Whenever I get a new student, one of the first things I suggest is to stop saying nous. When you learn French, you learn it the proper way, and you learn to conjugate every verb tense, including nous.
However, in conversation, using nous constantly is a dead giveaway that your French was learned from books, and not from real life.
In the real world, in 99% of cases, nous is replaced by on, in conversation and even in business settings.
For example, instead of saying:
Nous avons passé un bon week-end.
You could say instead:
On a passé un bon week-end.
==> Here, on means "we."
Of course, I refer to conjugating verbs with nous. You can use the direct object pronoun nous, such as in the example:
Tu viens avec nous?
Avoid the double negative
Another tip to sound more natural when speaking French is to drop the double negative. I suggest using the double negative when learning French. When you feel you can carry a conversation with a certain degree of fluency, you can drop the ne.
Remember to only drop the ne, not the second negative!
A common mistake made by Spanish speakers and speakers of other romance languages, and people who have studied them, often drop the second negative, but keep the ne.
For example:
Je ne crois que je l’ai fait. (I don’t think I have done it.)
This is a crucial mistake to correct.
In the case of a double negative, you can only remove the ne, not the second negative word. You have to say, when using a simple negation:
Je crois pas que je l’ai fait.
Don’t use inverted questions
Getting back to the topic of questions, you should know that there are three ways to ask questions in French.
You can use an inverted question. Es-tu content du résultat?
You can keep the same word order, but change the inflection. Tu es content du résultat?
You can use est-ce que. Est-ce que tu es content du résultat?
Inverted questions are less common nowadays, especially in France. In Quebec, they are still used, but only with a limited number of verbs (vouloir, pouvoir, for example). So, avoid them in conversation.
Using est-ce que is the best way to ask a question.
Use the word ça
I often say that the most underutilized word French learners should add to their vocabulary is ça.
Yes, the simple word ça!
For example, if the question is:
Est-ce que tu aimes le café?
The answer can’t be:
Oui, je l’aime!
The answer should be:
Oui, j’aime ça!
So, when do you use the article and when do you use “ça.”?
Generally, the idea is to use ça whenever there could be confusion in meaning, or to talk about something in general, notsomething specific.
For example, say:
Je l’aime (I love him/her)
But to say you love something, you say: J’aime ça.
Est-ce que t’aimes la pizza?
Oui, j’aime ça! J’adore ça!
Don’t end a sentence with a number
Generally, you can’t end a sentence in French with a number.
For example, if you’re buying oranges at the market, you can’t say:
Je veux trois
You have to say:
J’en veux trois
The word “en” is complicated to use, but here, it refers to quantity. The best way to start using it is to never end a sentence with a number, always precede the verb with “en.”
Know your indirect pronouns
One of the first grammar points you should work on are indirect object pronouns.
A common mistake is to say:
Je vais donner à elle.
You have to say, for both genders:
Je vais lui donner.
Lui is the indirect object pronoun for masculine and feminine.
Leur is the other indirect object pronoun to remember. It means to them.
Je vais leur donner. I will give it to them.
The other indirect pronouns are the same as the direct object pronouns.
Tu vas me le donner.
Je vais te le donner
Je vais vous le donner