Journal
The Français Flow blog
Practical guides to learning French — the science of memory, study methods, and getting words to actually stick. Tap any French word to save it to your deck.
- 8 min read
The 3 French Tenses to Learn First (and Why Imparfait Isn't One of Them)
Which French tenses to learn first? Présent, passé composé and futur proche carry almost every everyday conversation. Each one in a compact table with real sentences — and why imparfait waits.
conjugationgrammarmethodvocabulary - 8 min read
DELF A2 or B1: How to Choose the Right Level Before You Pay the Fee
DELF A2 or B1 — which level do you actually register for? A skill-by-skill comparison, the honest study-hours gap, what each certificate is for, and why aiming one level too high fails you.
delfexamcefrmethod - 7 min read
Why Duolingo Stops Working for French: What a Streak Measures and What It Doesn't
A 300-day streak and you still can't order a coffee? That's why Duolingo doesn't work past a point: a streak measures showing up, not recall. Here's what to keep — and what to add.
methodhabitvocabularysrs - 5 min read
How to Actually Memorize French Noun Gender (Make It Explode)
Repeating 'la table' doesn't stick. Attaching a vivid image does — imagine masculine nouns exploding and feminine nouns catching fire. Here's the technique and the research behind it.
gendermemorymnemonicsvocabulary - 6 min read
Honestly Assess Your CEFR Level in 10 Minutes
A1? B1? 'Strong A2 on a good day'? Here's a 10-minute, no-cheating protocol for placing yourself on the CEFR scale — built on the official can-do descriptors, with the self-assessment traps that make most learners misjudge by a level.
cefrassessmentexam-prepdelf - 6 min read
French Nasal Vowels, Finally Broken Down So You Can Hear the Difference
vin, vent, vont — three nasal vowels, one confused beginner. Here's the full system: how nasal vowels actually work, the spelling decoder, when NOT to nasalize, and why modern French quietly dropped the fourth one.
pronunciationphoneticslistening - 5 min read
Forget Textbook Chapters: Why Your First 625 French Words Should Be Frequency-Ranked
Textbooks teach French by theme — colors, animals, classroom objects. Corpus research says that's backwards: the 1,000 most frequent words cover ~85% of everyday speech. Here's how to pick your first 625 words the data-driven way.
vocabularyfrequencymethodflashcards - 7 min read
Train Your Ear Before Your Mouth: The French Minimal Pairs That Trip Up Every Beginner
You can't reliably say a French sound your ear can't yet hear. Here are the minimal pairs — tu/tout, vin/vent/vont, pain/paix, les/lait — that trip up every beginner, and the ear-first order the research says actually works.
pronunciationlisteningminimal-pairsmethod - 6 min read
25 French–English False Friends That Will Embarrass You
préservatif ≠ preservative, excité ≠ excited, librairie ≠ library. 25 French words that look like English, mean something else entirely — including five that will genuinely make you blush.
vocabularyfalse-friendsmethod - 5 min read
The Complete Logic of le and la: Suffix Patterns That Predict French Gender ~80% of the Time
Is a French noun le or la? It's not a coin flip. A landmark corpus study found word endings predict gender ~80% of the time — here are the suffix patterns, and the exceptions worth memorizing.
grammargendermethodvocabulary - 4 min read
Why You Forget French Words (and How Spaced Repetition Helps You Remember Them)
You learn a French word, then forget it days later. That's the forgetting curve — here's how spaced repetition and Français Flow help words actually stick.
spaced-repetitionmemorymethodvocabulary