Free C2 French course: mastery

C2 is mastery: understanding virtually everything you hear and read, and expressing fine shades of meaning. At this level the work is refinement: style, register and the rarest structures.

10 grammar lessons, 2 classic books, flashcards, audio lessons and an AI conversation partner, all free during the beta. Plan on about 200 hours of study for this level (1100 in total from zero).

What you'll be able to do

• Listening: I have no difficulty understanding any kind of spoken French, even at fast native speed.
• Reading: I can read virtually all forms of written French, including abstract, literary and old texts.
• Speaking: I can take part effortlessly in any conversation, with a good command of idioms and colloquialisms.
• Speaking: I can express fine shades of meaning precisely and rephrase smoothly when I hit a difficulty.
• Writing: I can write complex letters, reports and articles with an effective, logical structure.
• Writing: I can write summaries and reviews of professional or literary works.

What you'll learn

Learning C2 French with AI

At C2 the AI partner works as a demanding conversation partner and editor: it discusses anything with you and comments on style, not just correctness. 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 10 C2 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. Imperfect and pluperfect subjunctive
2. The passé antérieur
3. Ne on its own: ne… point, je ne saurais
4. Advanced concession: quelque… que, si… que, tout… que
5. Tricky past-participle agreement
6. Registers: familier, courant, soutenu
7. Formal connectors: or, néanmoins, dès lors, partant
8. Nominalisation: the noun-heavy style of formal French
9. Advanced hypotheses: quand bien même, pour peu que, à supposer que
10. Proverbs and set expressions

Reading at C2

• Fables (livres I–VI) by Jean de La Fontaine (1668): The fables every French person knows: the crow and the fox, the ant and the grasshopper. 17th-century verse.
• Du côté de chez Swann by Marcel Proust (1913): The first volume of À la recherche du temps perdu, with its famous madeleine. Long, beautiful sentences.

Questions