French Mistakes and DifficultiesImprove your French by looking out for and learning how to avoid some common French mistakes.
Talking about going to a country or coming from a city in French requires more than just translating the preposition; you also have to consider the gender, number, and even the type of place you're talking about. Here's everything you need to know. 
The letter H is always silent in French, yet there are two different types of H. 
Believe it or not, life in France is so great that one verb just isn't enough: "to live" may be equivalent to habiter or vivre, depending on what exactly you want to say. A2 - Low-Intermediate French • synonyms • verbs
French vowels are divided into two categories: hard and soft. Hard vowels (A, O, U) cause the consonant that precedes them to be pronounced with a hard sound, while soft vowels (E, I) are preceded by a soft sound.
French has two opposing families of words that indicate location: the ci family and the là family. These base units are found in a variety of words with various functions, including ici / là (adverbs), voici / voilà (presentatives), and ceci / cela (pronouns). 
When writing about history, the tenses used in French and English aren't always the same. French prefers to use the present or even the future, while English tends to favor the past tense. 
Indirect speech is considerably more complicated than direct speech as it involves several grammatical changes when reporting another person's words. 
The rule is that to make a French verb negative, you need ne in front of the verb and pas after it. The reality of how the French speak says otherwise. B1 - Intermediate French • informalities • negation
As if normal French pronunciation weren't hard enough, informal French pronunciation introduces a whole new set of issues, with many sounds being dropped or changed. Here are the potential problem areas. 
Who, what, which one? Use interrogative pronouns to ask these questions, which are a little more complicated in French than in English. A2 - Low-Intermediate French • pronouns • questions
Most French adjectives have to agree with their nouns in gender and number, but there are many exceptions, known as invariable adjectives. These have just one unchanging form no matter the gender and number of the noun they modify. 
Five French adjectives (beau, fou, mou, nouveau, vieux) are particularly tricky because they have very irregular feminine forms as well as a special form used only for certain masculine nouns. A2 - Low-Intermediate French • adjectives • spelling
All regular French verbs and many irregular ones use their infinitives as future and conditional stems. But of course there are always exceptions - here are the few dozen verbs with irregular stems. 
Practice is the key to improving your French, and just 15 minutes a day on some kind of French activity can make a huge difference. Check out these ideas and draw up your own schedule.
Of the four language skills, many people find that speaking is the most difficult. Here are tips and resources to help you overcome these obstacles in order to practice French as much as you like.
Jouer is a regular -er French verb that can be a bit confusing when it comes time to decide which preposition should follow. Here's everything you need to know.
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