From bonjour to fluent, one station at a time.

Six lines take you from A1 to C2. Each station is a unit with speaking, listening, reading and writing practice.

A1

Découverte

  1. Bonjour !

    Greet people, introduce yourself and order a coffee.

    1. Watch1Saluer
    2. Watch2Se présenter
    3. Watch3Ça va ?
    4. Watch4Un ou une ?
    5. Watch5Au café
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Bonjour !)
  2. Moi et ma famille

    Talk about your family, age and where you're from.

    1. Watch1La famille
    2. Watch2Avoir et l'âge
    3. Watch3D'où viens-tu ?
    4. Watch4Mon, ma, mes
    5. Watch5La photo de famille
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Moi et ma famille)
  3. Les nombres et l'heure

    Count to 100, give prices and tell the time.

    1. Watch1De un à dix
    2. Watch2De onze à cent
    3. Watch3Les prix
    4. Watch4Quelle heure est-il ?
    5. Watch5À la gare
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Les nombres et l'heure)
  4. Au marché

    Buy food, ask how much, say what you like.

    1. Watch1Les aliments
    2. Watch2Du, de la, des
    3. Watch3J'aime, je n'aime pas
    4. Watch4Les quantités
    5. Watch5Le marché du samedi
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Au marché)
  5. Ma journée

    Describe your daily routine with regular -er verbs.

    1. Watch1Les verbes en -er
    2. Watch2Ma routine
    3. Watch3Les jours de la semaine
    4. Watch4Toujours ou jamais ?
    5. Watch5La journée de Karim
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Ma journée)
  6. En ville

    Ask for directions and use public transport.

    1. Watch1Les lieux
    2. Watch2Les directions
    3. Watch3Les transports
    4. Watch4Aller
    5. Watch5Perdu à Paris
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for En ville)
  7. Pays et nationalités

    Say where people are from and what languages they speak, spell your name and fill in a form.

    1. Watch1Les pays
    2. Watch2Les nationalités
    3. Watch3Tu viens d'où ?
    4. Watch4Les langues et l'alphabet
    5. Watch5La fiche d'inscription
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Pays et nationalités)
  8. Le temps qui passe

    Give the date, tell the time two ways and plan your week.

    1. Watch1Les mois de l'année
    2. Watch2Quel jour sommes-nous ?
    3. Watch3L'heure officielle et familière
    4. Watch4Ma semaine
    5. Watch5On se voit quand ?
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Le temps qui passe)
  9. Les vêtements et les couleurs

    Buy clothes in a shop and describe what people are wearing.

    1. Watch1Les vêtements
    2. Watch2Les couleurs
    3. Watch3Au magasin
    4. Watch4Ce pull, cette robe
    5. Watch5Les soldes à la Part-Dieu
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Les vêtements et les couleurs)
  10. Se repérer en ville

    Find your way around town: say where places are, give directions and use the tram and métro.

    1. Watch1Dans mon quartier
    2. Watch2À côté de la poste
    3. Watch3Tournez à gauche !
    4. Watch4Bus, tram, métro
    5. Watch5Mamie à Lyon
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Se repérer en ville)
A2

Survie

  1. Le week-end dernier

    Tell what you did with the passé composé.

    1. Watch1J'ai mangé, j'ai dansé
    2. Watch2Fait, pris, vu, bu
    3. Watch3Je suis allé, je suis allée
    4. Watch4Hier, la semaine dernière
    5. Watch5Le week-end de Camila
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Le week-end dernier)
  2. Chez le médecin

    Describe symptoms and understand advice.

    1. Watch1Le corps
    2. Watch2J'ai mal à la tête
    3. Watch3Les symptômes
    4. Watch4Les conseils du médecin
    5. Watch5Chez le docteur Mensah
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Chez le médecin)
  3. Le logement

    Rent a flat and describe your home.

    1. Watch1Les pièces
    2. Watch2Les meubles
    3. Watch3Où est le chat ?
    4. Watch4Un bel appartement à louer
    5. Watch5La visite de l'appartement
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Le logement)
  4. Quand j'étais petit

    Describe the past with the imparfait.

    1. Watch1L'imparfait
    2. Watch2Mon enfance
    3. Watch3Comment c'était ?
    4. Watch4Imparfait ou passé composé ?
    5. Watch5Les souvenirs de grand-père
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Quand j'étais petit)
  5. Les projets

    Talk about plans with the futur proche.

    1. Watch1Le futur proche
    2. Watch2Demain, ce week-end…
    3. Watch3Loisirs et vacances
    4. Watch4Tu es libre samedi ?
    5. Watch5Les messages de Tom
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Les projets)
  6. Au travail

    Write a short email and handle phone calls.

    1. Watch1Les métiers
    2. Watch2Au bureau
    3. Watch3Au téléphone
    4. Watch4Un e-mail professionnel
    5. Watch5Le premier jour d'Alice
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Au travail)
  7. Au restaurant

    Order a meal, ask for what you need and pay the bill.

    1. Watch1La carte
    2. Watch2Vous avez choisi ?
    3. Watch3Du pain ? J'en veux bien !
    4. Watch4L'addition, s'il vous plaît
    5. Watch5Un dîner à Dakar
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Au restaurant)
  8. Météo et vacances

    Talk about the weather, plan a holiday and tell how it went.

    1. Watch1Quel temps fait-il ?
    2. Watch2Les saisons et la météo
    3. Watch3On part en vacances !
    4. Watch4C'était génial !
    5. Watch5Une carte postale de Martinique
    6. Bilan (end-of-unit test for Météo et vacances)
B1

Seuil

B2

Indépendance

C1

Autonomie

C2

Maîtrise

French for travel, work and life abroad, from your first bonjour to C2.

A complete course for adults, taught in animated videos by Madame Colette. Six levels take you from ordering a coffee to running a meeting in French, with DELF and DALF practice on the way.

Free during launch. Everything included, no card needed.

Your turnThe video stops here and waits for you.

In a bakery, you first say…

Every unit runs the same four stops

Watch it, practise it, read it, then prove it. Pass the unit's Bilan and the next station opens.

  1. Watch the video

    Madame Colette explains, Gaston gets it wrong so you don't have to, and the video stops for your answer. Captions on or off, and chapters to go back over.

    190 videos, more than 10 hours in all, with 581 questions that wait for you.

    Unit 1, « Bonjour ! »: 5 videos

    1. 1SaluerSay hello, goodbye, please and thank you.3 min
    2. 2Se présenterGive your name and ask someone theirs.3 min
    3. 3Ça va ?Ask how someone is and answer.3 min
    4. 4Un ou une ?Know that every noun is masculine or feminine, and pick un or une.3 min
    5. 5Au caféPut it all together in a short conversation at a café.3 min
  2. Do the lesson

    12 kinds of exercise: listening, speaking, building sentences, typing with an accent keyboard, sorting, and real documents like this one.

    New words join your spaced review, and anything you get wrong comes back before the lesson ends.

    From the A1 lesson « L'heure officielle et familière ». Read the timetable, then answer.

    Lyon Part-Dieu → Genève
    TrainDépartArrivée
    TER 16 h 128 h 05
    TER 210 h 1212 h 07
    TER 314 h 4216 h 40
    TER 419 h 1221 h 03

    Le samedi et le dimanche, pas de train à 6 h 12.

    1. 1.Tu dois être à Genève avant midi. Tu prends le train de…

    2. 2.Le train de 14 h 42 arrive à…

    3. 3.On Sundays, the first train leaves at…

    4. 4.The 19:12 train arrives…

  3. Read a book or a story

    Each unit ends with a reading picked for what you know by then: illustrated books with Zoé, her little brother Léo and Gaston to begin with, graded stories set across the French-speaking world later on.

    Tap any word for its meaning, hear the page read aloud, and keep the words you want for review.

    BOULANGERIE

    .

    Tap a word. Grey letters are silent.

    From « Le croissant de Gaston », a picture book with Zoé, Léo and Gaston.

  4. Pass the Bilan

    A 20-question test drawn from the unit's lessons and its reading. Get 14 right and the next unit opens.

    Already know the material? Take the Bilan straight away and move on.

    Bonjour !Moi et ma famille

    Score 14 out of 20 on the « Bonjour ! » Bilan and « Moi et ma famille » opens.

Six levels, drawn like the Métro

The course follows the CEFR, the European scale behind the DELF and DALF and used by universities and employers. Each level is a line and each unit a station, 38 in all.

  1. A1, Découverte10 units, 50 lessons

    Ask for directions and use public transport.DELF A1 mock exam

  2. A2, Survie8 units, 40 lessons

    Rent a flat and describe your home.DELF A2 mock exam

  3. B1, Seuil6 units, 30 lessons

    Handle problems while travelling.DELF B1 mock exam

  4. B2, Indépendance5 units, 25 lessons

    Run a meeting and write a formal letter.DELF B2 mock exam

  5. C1, Autonomie5 units, 25 lessons

    Give a structured presentation.DALF C1 mock exam

  6. C2, Maîtrise4 units, 20 lessons

    Understand accents from Québec to Dakar.DALF C2 mock exam

Already speak some French? Take the placement test and start on your own line.

What's in it

190 video lessons
more than 10 hours, with 581 questions to answer
190 lessons
in 38 units, each closed by a Bilan
51 books and stories
25 picture books and 26 graded stories
6 mock exams
in the DELF and DALF format, A1 to C2, with course certificates
10 games
plus 4 pronunciation tools, dictation and a writing coach

How it's checked

  • Built on the CEFR. Every unit states what you'll be able to do by the end of it.
  • Every spoken line is checked. Each line in the videos is played back through speech recognition and compared with the script. Anything it can't confirm is flagged to be checked by ear.
  • Every lesson is tested. Automated checks run over all 190 lessons for answers missing from their options, duplicate choices, and words a lesson lists but never teaches.

Practice that answers back

Around the lessons: write and get corrected, record yourself, and review at the right moment.

Writing coach

Pick one of 32 writing tasks, write, and get your text back corrected, with every mistake explained in plain English.

Example. The A2 task « Un e-mail à votre propriétaire », with the kind of feedback the coach gives. Written for this page, not a live correction.

Madame, Je vous écris parce que le chauffage depuis lundi. Il fait très froid dans l'appartement et est malade. J'ai appelé l'agence mais . Pourriez-vous envoyer un technicien cette semaine ? Je suis le matin. Cordialement, Sam

Style

ne marche pas becomes ne fonctionne pas

Marcher is fine with friends; in a letter to a landlord, fonctionner sounds more formal.

What went well
A clear email: greeting, problem, request, sign-off. A polite request with « Pourriez-vous… ».
Work on next
Practise negatives with personne, rien and jamais: in writing they always need ne.

Pronunciation lab

  • Paires minimalesHear tu or tout, vent or vin, and pick the one you heard. Then say it and see if the recogniser agrees.
  • ShadowingListen to a sentence from the course, record yourself saying it, then play the two back to back.
  • Les sons du françaisNine hard sounds, with a moving diagram of the lips, tongue and soft palate for each one.
  • LiaisonsSee where words join (les‿amis), where they slide together (elle‿arrive) and where they must never join.

Review, dictation and games

Words come back just before you'd forget them, your mistakes get a second go, and dictation trains your ear. When you want something lighter, 10 games use the words you've learned:

  • Métro Rush
  • Genre Express
  • Le Croissant
  • Le Boss des Verbes
  • Les Bulles
  • L'Oreille d'or
  • Les Paires
  • Mots croisés
  • Mots mêlés
  • Le petit bac

Exam prep built into the path

Every level has a full mock exam in the DELF or DALF format: listening, reading, writing and speaking, timed and marked. The B2, C1 and C2 lines each end with a unit on the exam itself.

  • DELF A1
  • DELF A2
  • DELF B1
  • DELF B2
  • DALF C1
  • DALF C2

Finish a level and print a course certificate. The exam material is original; only the format follows the real exam.

French beyond Paris

26 graded stories, A1 to C2, set where French is lived, from a bakery in Lyon to a tailor's shop in Kinshasa.

  • Lyon, France (A1)
  • Dakar, Senegal (A1)
  • Montréal, Québec (A1)
  • Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire (A2)
  • Paris, France (A2)
  • Saint-Malo, Brittany (A2)
  • Brussels, Belgium (B1)
  • Tunis, Tunisia (B1)
  • Fort-de-France, Martinique (B1)
  • Briançon, France, to Dakar, Senegal (B1)
  • Douala, Cameroon (B1)
  • Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (B2)
  • La Croix-Rousse, Lyon (B2)
  • Outremeuse, Liège (B2)
  • Saint-Denis, La Réunion (B2)
  • Accra, Ghana (B2)
  • Bamako, Mali (C1)
  • Palais des Nations, Geneva (C1)
  • Vieux-Québec, Québec (C1)
  • Kinshasa, DR Congo (C1)
  • Antananarivo, Madagascar (C1)
  • Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris (C2)
  • Le Panier, Marseille (C2)
  • Pully, Lausanne (C2)

Dots show each story's level, in its line colour.

By C2: Understand accents from Québec to Dakar.

Why French Ultimate

Most apps are built around quick drills. This one is built around a course.

French Ultimate compared with the usual language-app approach
Who teachesUsual approach: Short drills, with the grammar left for you to work out.French Ultimate: A teacher-led course: Madame Colette, our animated teacher, explains each point on video, then you practise it in a lesson. 190 of each.
How far it goesUsual approach: Often stops around the intermediate level.French Ultimate: All 6 CEFR levels, A1 to C2, in 38 units.
ReadingUsual approach: A separate section, if there is one.French Ultimate: A book or story in every unit, chosen for your level: 51 in all.
ExamsUsual approach: Often a separate product, or left out.French Ultimate: A DELF or DALF mock exam for all 6 levels, and exam units at B2, C1 and C2.
SpeakingUsual approach: Often optional, or tap-only answers.French Ultimate: A speaking exercise in every lesson, plus a pronunciation lab where you record yourself.
Ads and paywallsUsual approach: Ads, or the best parts held back for a subscription.French Ultimate: No ads. During launch, everything is included, free.

Pricing

One plan while we launch, with everything in it. No card, and no trial that runs out.

Paid plans may come later. If they do, they'll be announced here first, and your account and progress stay yours.

  • Launch plan

    Freeduring launch

    Everything included, no card needed.

    • The whole course, A1 to C2: 190 video lessons and 190 lessons in 38 units
    • 25 picture books and 26 graded stories, with tap-to-translate and read-aloud
    • 6 DELF and DALF mock exams, and a course certificate for each level you finish
    • The writing coach, up to 10 corrections a day
    • Pronunciation lab, dictation, spaced review and 10 games
    • Progress saved to your account, on every device you sign in on
    Start free

Questions, answered

What level can I start at?

Any. Complete beginners start at A1 with the first lesson. If you already know some French, the placement test (15 questions) opens every level below yours, and you can take any unit's Bilan early to skip ahead.

How long does it take to go from A1 to C2?

It depends on where you start, how often you study, and how much French you hear and speak outside the course. The CEFR describes what you can do, not how long it takes. For a sense of scale, the videos alone run to more than 10 hours, and every video comes with a lesson, plus a reading and a Bilan for each unit.

Is it really free? Will it stay free?

Yes: during launch everything is free, and there's no card to enter. Paid plans may come later. If they do, they'll be announced on this page first, and your account and progress stay yours either way.

Which devices does it work on?

Any recent browser on a phone, tablet or computer, with nothing to install. Sign in on each and your progress follows you. Speaking exercises need a microphone and a browser with speech recognition, such as Chrome, Edge or Safari.

Do I need to sign up?

Yes, a free account (email or Google) opens the course and keeps your progress. You can try the first lesson and the placement test first, without one; what you do there comes with you when you sign up.

Is there exam preparation?

Yes. Every level has a full mock exam in the DELF or DALF format, timed and marked across listening, reading, writing and speaking, and the B2, C1 and C2 lines each end with a unit on the exam. The material is original; only the format follows the real exam, which you sit at an approved centre.

Who makes French Ultimate?

It's an independent project. The lessons, videos, books and stories were written and drawn for it. Questions and feedback are welcome: write to opeoluwagiwa@gmail.com.

Your first station is open

Create a free account with your email or Google. Anything you do before that, the first lesson, its video or your placement level, comes with you.

Not sure where to start?

Find your level in 5 minutes: 15 questions from A1 to C2, and the course opens on the right line.

Find your level