B1 Vocabulary

Intermediate French Lessons

An/jour/matin/soir vs
année/journée/matinée/soirée

French has two words for each of the following: year, day, morning, and evening, and they cause no end of difficulties for non-native speakers. Why is it that English can get away with one word for each of these temporal markers when French needs two? The answer lies in how you look at them.

Vocabulary Lists

Bon Synonyms

Students often ask "how can I sound more French?" and my first recommendation is always to work on vocabulary. In French classes, you tend to learn the most common, basic terms, like bon, which is a typical and very useful adjective that tends to be overused. Read this lesson to learn some different ways to say "good," including how to pronounce them.

Vocabulary Lists

Cars and Driving

Driving comes with a whole mess of rules (that I can't help you with) as well as some specialized French vocabulary (which I can). Learn how to drive in French with this vocab list.

Grammar Lessons

Fractions

$French fractions$

In both French and English, there's a lot of overlap between fractions and ordinals: the vast majority of these two types of numbers share the same word. In English, they are identical from "third" on up, while in French they're the same starting with cinquième.

Grammar Lessons

Intermediate French for Dummies

Get up to speed in the usage and grammar of French and improve your writing - by Laura K Lawless.

Listening Practice

LingQ

Learn and practice French vocabulary and listening at any level with LingQ, an online learning system and language community.

Mot du jour

Lawless French offers two different types of mots du jour: one is very basic and free, the other is more detailed and requires a nominal monthly fee.

Current Events

News

If you want to know what's going on in the world, this vocabulary related to news and current events will help you understand what you read and hear.

Expressions

On the Phone

Talking on the phone can be trickier than face-to-face conversations, for a couple of reasons. The lack of gestures and facial expressions means there are no visual hints to help you understand, plus there's something about the phone that makes certain sounds more difficult to distinguish. Knowing some standard phone formulas will help your brain fill in any comprehension gaps.

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