Free B1 French course: intermediate

B1 is the independent-user level: you can travel, tell a story, give your opinion and follow clear speech on familiar topics. It's also where many apps stop teaching grammar properly.

24 grammar lessons, 5 graded stories, 5 classic books, flashcards, audio lessons and an AI conversation partner, all free during the beta. Plan on about 195 hours of study for this level (375 in total from zero).

What you'll be able to do

• Listening: I can follow the main points of clear speech on familiar topics, at work, school or leisure.
• Listening: I can understand the main points of many radio or TV programmes on topics that interest me.
• Reading: I can read texts in everyday language and understand descriptions of events, feelings and wishes.
• Reading: I can read a novel written for teenagers or a simplified classic.
• Speaking: I can deal with most situations that come up when travelling in a French-speaking country.
• Speaking: I can tell a story, explain an opinion briefly and describe my hopes and plans.
• Writing: I can write a connected text on a familiar topic, such as a letter describing an experience.
• Writing: I can write a short opinion with reasons.

What you'll learn

Learning B1 French with AI

At B1 the AI partner can discuss your opinions and plans in longer exchanges, and write short stories at your level on topics you choose. The AI also explains any wrong answer in a lesson, in plain English. It's included free, with a generous daily allowance; like any AI it can make mistakes, so the lessons remain the reference. More about learning French with AI.

All 24 B1 grammar lessons

Free to read here. In the app, each one is taught in short steps with audio, practised, and brought back for review.

1. Simple future
2. Simple future
3. Quand + future
4. Present conditional
5. Si clauses
6. Plus-que-parfait
7. Gerund
8. Past participle agreement with a preceding direct object
9. Relative pronouns
10. Relative pronoun
11. Relative pronoun
12. Ce qui, ce que
13. Demonstrative pronouns
14. Possessive pronouns
15. Adverbial pronoun y
16. Adverbial pronoun en
17. Negation
18. Adjective position
19. Adverb position
20. Ça fait … que, il y a … que, depuis
21. Passer, se passer, passer un examen
22. Partir, sortir, quitter, laisser
23. Pendant que vs pendant
24. Fractions, percentages and approximate numbers

Reading at B1

• La vérité sur Monsieur Bernard: Bernard explains the secret of the cellar, and asks Léa a favour.
• Lettre à moi-même, à quinze ans: A woman writes to her teenage self about fear, failure and learning languages.
• Le train de nuit: Six strangers share a sleeper compartment from Paris to Nice.
• Le dernier chapitre: The finale: twenty thousand books need a new home, and Léa has a plan.
• Faut-il travailler quatre jours par semaine ?: An opinion piece on the four-day working week, with arguments for and against.
• Contes et historiettes by Anonyme (1860): Very short moral tales for children: a few lines each, simple situations, lots of dialogue.
• Les Malheurs de Sophie by Comtesse de Ségur (1858): The mischief of a little girl in a French château. Short chapters, everyday vocabulary, a classic for young readers.
• François le Bossu by Comtesse de Ségur (1864): A kind boy mocked for his hunchback, and the girl who befriends him.
• Poil de Carotte by Jules Renard (1894): Short, sharp scenes from the childhood of a red-haired boy and his cold family.
• Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours by Jules Verne (1872): Phileas Fogg bets he can go round the world in 80 days. Fast-moving adventure.

Questions