Language Apps I Have Used To Learn French For Free

In this article I will go through the apps I used to learn French.

This is no way a complete list of the apps you can use and there could well be many more that are superior, but this is what I used and it seemed to work pretty well.

(You can rad more about – Can You Learn French For Free?)

Youtube

I’m sure you all know youtube is and I’m sure many of you don’t consider it a language app, however, I have probably learned the bulk of my French from this.

YouTube really is an incredible resource for anything, especially learning French. There are countless French teachers who have channels filled with lessons on pretty much anything and everything you would ever need to learn French.

I pretty much got all my basic knowledge from youtube then used the other apps I talk about below to reinforce my knowledge.

What makes youtube so great is that it is not only a resource for learning. Once you feel a little more comfortable there is lot of material for intermediate learners and then of course there is a whole world of content designed for native speakers which makes it the best place to do French immersion.

It can be a little difficult to find things to watch, but if you have any French friends they can point you in the right direction and you will end up with plenty of things to focus on. 

(You can read more about How To Use YouTube To Learn A Language)

DuoLingo

I think we all know Duolingo, and for some reason its gets a lot of hate. I will admit that it’s not perfect and using it alone will not get  you to where you want to be, but honestly, it’s a great app.

It’s free, so that in itself makes it awesome. It also does have a lot of features. The lessons are okay, they can get a little repetitive, meaning you are able to almost guess the answers rather than have to think about it, but in general they are helpful.

I think Duolingo lets itself down as a teaching app, to me it is more of a practice app. You might learn a few things like vocabulary, but it does not really explain how grammar works.

This mean you sort of need to go and find this information elsewhere as it is very easy to get pretty lost in the lessons.

I remember being really confused why an answer was wrong when I was first starting; there wasn’t really a clear explanation as to why something was the right answer. I think this is why Duo is better as a practice app, rather than an app for teaching you a brand new concept.

I actually think everyone should be using this app. The extra features like the stories are excellent.

Busuu

I downloaded Busuu and did the free lessons and I was immediately impressed. Although, there are only a limited amount of free lessons, which means if you are looking to use this app for free you don’t really get much from it.

However I was so impressed that I signed up for a year’s membership. I got an offer and only had to pay £39.99 which really is not a lot.

I really enjoyed busuu but at the same time I felt its difficulty curve got very steep, very quickly. So I wasn’t able to make progress as quickly as I wanted.

I found the lessons great, but some of the review questions where too much for me. I basically have a very bad memory and trying to recall French phrases that I didn’t know that well, with perfect spelling was too much for me. Having one letter in the wrong order would cause you to fail, which is fair enough, the answer is wrong, but it’s still annoying.

It would just keep asking you to do the same question until you get it right, which just frustrated me more as if you clearly don’t know something after a few tries you clearly don’t know it.

I did stop using the app for a few months, which was stupid on my part and not because I disliked the app, I just disliked French for a while.

I did however go through the lessons a number of times. I think I did the whole A2 course maybe 4 or 5 times (this just shows how bad my memory is).

I might not have got as far into the bussu lessons as I wanted, but those I did, I really hammered them and I do think I got a lot of use from it.

I guess the real question is, would I sign up again. Currently I haven’t, but I would maybe. I think if I was offered it for 39.99 again I would, which I think is something crazy like half price, so we will see what happens.  

Hello Talk

Okay, so Hello Talk is not an app you use to learn a language, it is a language exchange app. 

This means you go on there and you talk to French people who are learning English and you take turns in talking in both languages.  

It’s really good and it’s the best way to get access to a native speaker. When I did use this app I was very early in my French studies and really not ready for it. Of course you can argue that you will never be ready, so you should just jump in. This can be true, but I can safely say I was not ready.

I am not currently using Hello talk, I am just too busy, but I do still speak to two French speakers from this app (now on whatsapp), pretty much daily and I would certainly say we are friends now which for me is the real benefit of Hello talk.

Practicing your French and getting little tips and corrections is great, but really this app for me is just about getting access to real French people, in France and making friends. Having an actual French friend makes the whole process of learning French more fun and gives you more of a reason to keep going.

(You can read more about – Language Exchange Partners)

Anki

Anki was not made for French, or languages, but it can be used extremely well for these things. It’s just a flashcard app that helps you learn anything you want by using a spaced repetition system.

It’s a little boring and not very glamorous, but for me, this is where I learned the vast majority of my French vocabulary.

It can be a bit of a slog, but using Anki every day and learn more vocabulary will get you results. The big issue is that all the words are out of context, as they are by themselves, but if you use other things, such as any form of immersion you are going to see the words you learned in context.

It’s maybe a little strange way of doing things, but for me it worked. I would constantly be watching some videos and spot words I had just learned on Anki and it did help to increase my comprehension overall.

(You can read more about – Using Anki To Learn French)

Quizlet

Quizlet is pretty much the same as Anki, its just a flash card system but it maybe looks a little prettier. I feel Anki over all is better as it has more things you can edit and control, but there is nothing wrong with Quizlet,its really solid.

I never actually made my own decks on here, but I did use plenty that were made by other people. I did learn some new vocabulary here, but I was mostly using it to test myself. 

It’s easy to use and easy to find French decks to study. If you are a little imitated by Anki, use this!

Kindle Unlimited

Kindle Unlimited may seem like an usual choice, but really this is the text version of youtube and another great way to increase your immersion.

The only down side is that you have to pay the monthly subscription, but really if you are into reading, this is going to be one of the best investments you will ever make. I didn’t really discover this until I was pretty comfortable with French. I wish I had found it earlier as I really believe it would have sped my progress up.

Basically you have unlimited access to a whole library of digital books. If you are a beginner you will find plenty of text books that you can access and learn from and if your French is more advanced you can find all sorts of books, ranging from kids books all the way to extremely complex books for adults and they are all in French.

(You can read more about – Using Kindle Unlimited To Learn French)

Conclusion

As you can see I used some pretty unconventional apps to learn French and it was pretty much all for free.

Yes, I paid for busuu and I did get a lot of value from it, but really I couldn’t say no for how cheap it was. I also feel if I had not used that I still would have made good progress only using the free options.

This just shows you have no excuse, you can learn French. Paying for teachers and courses is of course going to make things a little easier and more efficient, but it’s really not the only way. 

(If you are wanting to learn French you can check out my unofficial French Course and get a grasp of the basic structure of the language)