French

Video: How to Learn French Online Free

Try a free French lesson at Babbel French.

French-Speaking World

French (français, pronounced [fʁɑ̃sɛ]) is today spoken around the world by 76 million people as a native language, and by about 280 million people as a second or third language, with significant speakers in 54 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France, where the language originated, Canada, Belgium and Switzerland.

French is a descendant of the Latin language of the Roman Empire, as are languages such as Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Catalan and Romanian. Its development was also influenced by the native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.

It is an official language in 31 countries, most of which form what is called in French La Francophonie, the community of French-speaking nations. It is an official language of all United Nations agencies and a large number of international organizations.

Continue reading about the French Language on Wikiepdia.

French Language Resources

Podcasts for French Learners

Podcasts are a great way to learn languages. You can use Free Language to check the vitality of available Spanish language-learning podcasts by viewing their feed page. Click on any podcast below to view general info followed by the latest items from it's feed. You can tell if the feed has been updated lately, and it'll save you some time in choosing which podcasts to subscribe to.

News in French

News feeds from around the French-speaking world provide language exposure and practice joined with current events, culture, politics, science, sports and more. At Free Language, you can view summaries of these feeds and jump to view full articles when you interest is piqued.

French Internet TV

Watching people speak French is a good way to gain exposure to the language in a non-study environment. This is great for folks who aren't living where the language is spoken and especially those already proficient in listening comprehension. If you don't understand anything, it's cool to "vegg out" for a while, but it's not the most productive thing you can do to learn. Try to find something with subtitles, and you're on the way. ;)

If you do get into Internet TV, I highly recommend Miro, a free and open source media player with multimedia RSS capability that supports Linux, Mac and Windows. Hey, "because open media matters."

At any rate, below you'll find resources with literally thousands of Internet TV stations in a wide variety of languages. Amongst them you'll find plenty in French. Enjoy!

Make Friends Learning French

Social language learning has become incredibly popular on the web as it has transcended language barriers in previously impossible ways. Right now someone in France or Québec could be interested in teaching you French in exchange for you native language skills. If you speak several languages, the odds are even better that you'll find someone interested in a language exchange.

Note that not all networks below support French. Collectively, though, they support pretty much every language.

Subscribe to French Updates

Get all the latest French language resources from Free Language delivered to your RSS reader or inbox. Click here to subscribe.

Don't know what RSS is? Click here and it could save you plenty of time. And perhaps revolutionize your web experience.

French Language Aggregator

Free Language aggregates (brings together) web feeds in and about the French language for the purpose of exposing users to content in this language. Not only that, users interested in getting this dynamic combo of French feeds on one single RSS feed can click here and sit back. :)

Best of Luck!

Best of luck in your language-learning endeavors! Please send suggestions about resources and improving this website.