OK, for today’s short session of learning French free we’re going to have a bit of a wash and brush up. Into the bathroom then! That’s la salle de bains by the way, literally the room of bathing.

If you’re a little tight for space – like most Paris flats for example – you might just have une salle de douche – a shower room.

But let’s assume you’ve got all the luxuries that you’d like. What will you find in the average French salle de bains?

Well there’s the bath, of course, which is another of those tricky points in French. You see the bathroom is la salle de bains (feminine) but the bath itself is le bain (masculine). Why? Who knows… Not the French, they’ll just tell you ‘cos that’s the way it is!

La douche – the shower – does behave itself though. If you’re looking for a shower cubicle for your French renovation you’ll be wanting une cabine de douche, by the way.

So what else have we got? Well you’re bound to have un lavabo – a wash basin. Be careful here because a sink is un évier but that’s what you find in a kitchen or utility – and the French do differentiate between the two. If you’re in the DIY store (le magasin de bricolage) you’ll get an odd look if you ask for un évier for the bathroom or vice versa.

You might be learning French free but don’t say we don’t give you useful info!

Anyway, back to the subject. A tap, (or faucet) is un robinet and you should have one for eau froide (cold water) and another for eau chaude (hot water). A small point of French grammar here. It’s froide and chaude – with an e on the end because eau is feminine.

What else? Well almost certainly un miroir – a mirror and some kind of placard (cupboard) for all that stuff we keep like une brosse à dents (toothbrush), dentifrice (toothpaste), gel douche (shower gel) and one of my favorite words the French have kind of adopted from us … le shampooing – yep, shampoo!

I’m sure you can think of lots of others but I’m going to finish with une serviette (a towel) and une débarbouillette – which is a very complicated looking word for something as humble as a washcloth!

OK, that’s it for today’s lesson learning French free. If you have any preference for what we look into next, please post a comment and I’ll see what I can do.

If you really want to push your French learning forward you should check out the pro lessons here. They have sound – which is a huge bonus when you’re trying to learn french fast.

As I’ve just come back from a couple of weeks holiday I thought for this snippet of learning French free we’d have a look at some useful French words and phrases related to les vacances – holidays (or vacations if you’re American).

Although the French normally aller en vacances (go on holiday) they also use en congés which is pretty much the same thing but strictly speaking congés is leave (so, for example, you get congés payés – paid leave). You’ll quite often see congés on signs in shop windows saying they’re closed for their annual holidays. Vacances doesn’t seem to be used anywhere near as much but this is another of those times when I’ve no idea why!

We could spend the whole of this free French lesson just going through the different places you might take your holiday. For the sake of argument I’m going to assume we’re going à la plage – to the beach, where we’ll find a nice stretch of sand – le sable – to lie on and soak up le soleil – the sun.

You’ll probably want une paire de sandales (easy one that, a pair of sandals) and some lunettes de soleil to protect your eyes (yep, sunglasses).

You’ll be wanting your bathing costume of course, which, whether you are male or female, is un maillot de bain. Make sure you put on plenty of lotion de bronzage (sun tan lotion) or you risk ending up with un coup de soleil (sunburn).

Hopefully you’ll just end up bien bronzé (nicely tanned).

All too soon it will be time to get back to work (au travail). Although some people drive it’s much more common that people prendre un avion (take a plane) or un ferry (yes, ferry is the same word in French as in English). Of course you might have come on une croisière (a cruise) so you’ll be going home on un navire (a ship) which is not to be confused with the common word bateau, which means boat.

However you travel, I hope you return well rested. One advantage of learning French is the number of interesting destinations it opens up for you. How about Canada – a big French speaking population. What about Morocco or Algeria? Senegal or Reunion Island? Martinique or French Polynesia (Tahiti)? Even Cambodia and Vietnam!

You don’t have to speak French to go there – but it always helps to know a bit of the local language, doesn’t it.

Anyway, that’s it for this slice of learning French free. Any questions or comments, do please add them.

For today’s session of learning French free I thought we’d quickly cover a very simple but common French phrase: Ça va?

In case you don’t know, that’s “how’s it going?” At school you tend to learn Comment allez vous – which is the formal, polite version, and which you should use with strangers or people you only know a little. Friends and acquaintances use the shorter version – ça va. They both actually mean exactly the same.

The cedilla (that little hook under the C) makes it an S sound, so it is pronounced “sa va”.

Now I’m going to move away from actually learning French words and phrases today to answer a couple of questions I’ve had. This is for those people who have asked me about alternative French software downloads to Rocket French.

I’ll start by saying that I still believe Rocket French to be the best French language software – for both content and value for money. However, I do appreciate that it’s a premium product, and I’ve been asked by quite a few people if there are less expensive options available.

Well there are, of course. So many in fact that it would be almost impossible to cover them. I’ve just been over to Amazon and they list over 700 results for French language software from around $15 to over $600!

But we’re not looking for premium products so what about French downloads at the budget end?

I know of two which come highly recommended – although I’ll admit I haven’t used either of them personally. That’s not a negative comment on them in any way, it’s just that (being slightly immodest here) I’m quite a fluent French speaker – they’re not the kind of thing I need.

However, if you’re just starting to learn French, they could be just the thing you’re looking for.

First is not one product, but a package of 5, from Rivera Publishing. There is the book, “Learn French Words With Ease”, then there’s a French memory matching game and a set of French flash cards.

The final two products, “Memory Improvement Techniques” and “Memory Game Software” are more aimed at improving general learning and knowledge retention. Perhaps not strictly necessary, but useful tricks when learning French if you can master them.

You’re probably thinking that it doesn’t sound much of a budget French download – but in fact the whole lot comes in at under $40.00. Well worth a closer look. Click here for details.

Second option is Easy French Lessons, which is a membership to a series of French lessons accessible online. You can choose your level of access from just $2.49 a month, although 3 years of VIP access for a total of just under 35 bucks would seem best value for money. Click here for more details.

Are they right for you? Well the first option offers an eight week money back guarantee so they must be fairly confident. The second offers various levels of membership so presumably you can just terminate if you’re not getting what you want out of it.

There are a lot of learn French downloads around. You need to read the info available and make your own decision based on where you are now and where you want to go. Neither of the above has the comprehensive nature of Rocket French but that doesn’t mean they’re not good French software. You pays your money and takes your choice!

Next time we’ll get back to our learning French free lessons. I’ve just come back from a bit of a vacation in Spain so I thought we might look at some useful vacation words – French, not Spanish, of course!

So for today’s session of learning French free we’re going back to some useful French property words and having a wander around le jardin – the garden.

I hope yours is filled with jolie fleurs – pretty flowers. Our is better now but was a complete jungle when we moved in – yep, une jungle – a jungle – is the same in French as in English.

Now I’m not going to try and name chaque fleur – each flower in this easy to learn French lesson – we’d be here for months. What I’ll try and do is separate out the varies different kinds of plant, some tools, and other bits and pieces that I think you’ll find useful.

Those I miss, I hope someone else will add in the comments!

So we have une fleur – a flower, but in France large gardens are common, so you might well also have un arbre ou deux – a tree or two.

Annuelles – annuals – are very popular in French gardens, but we like to add structure to ours with plenty of arbustes – shrubs (that’s masculine by the way, un arbuste).

If you have an old building you might find it covered by une plante grimpante – a climbing plant, like un lierre – an ivy or un chèvrefeuille – a honeysuckle.

Chèvre is actually the French word for goat, and feuille means sheet or leaf, so honeysuckle is goat’s leaf????

Anyway, I said I wouldn’t get into separate words for flowers and guess what – I got carried away again didn’t I. Each of these free online French lessons seems to stray off course a bit doesn’t it!

Back to the garden and of course we mustn’t forget le potager – the vegetable garden (I covered French words for vegetables here). There’s little better for me than récolter vos propres légumes – to harvest your own veg.

Actually there are a couple of interesting French lessons in that last sentence. If you harvest vegetables you use the verb récolter, but if you pick fruit, you use the verb cueillir – cueiller vos propres fruits is to pick your own fruit. If you’re harvesting grapes the verb is vendager and when you talk about harvesting in terms of farming you faire le moisson – do the harvest. How can one expression in English have so many different interpretations in French!

The second point of interest is the French word propre. Which can mean “clean”, or can also mean something that you own – depending on where it appears in the sentence. If it’s ma voiture propre it’s my clean car. However, if it’s ma propre voiture, that’s my own car. One to look out for!

Anyway, back to the garden and a bit of learning French free that’s easier than the last two paragraphs maybe…

L’herbe is grass, and la pelouse is the lawn. At least that’s the posh word. The French also use le gazon. Technically le gazon translates as turf, but it’s what the French generally use for a grassed area. To qualify as une pelouse it realy needs to be one of those really tidy, well cared for and well mown lawns like a golfing green. At our house it’s definitely un gazon!

So to keep yours in trim you’ll need une tondeuse – a lawnmower. If you want to keep the edges tidy and unruly areas in check you’ll also want either une taille-herb, which is what I would call a lightweight strimmer or, if you’ve got some serious stuff to cut down, une débroussailleuse – a brush cutter.

If you have une haille – a hedge, you’ll be needing une taille-haille too. Not difficult to guess that one, a hedge trimmer. Finally, if you have a jungle like us, you might even need une tronçonneuse – a chain saw.

OK, that’s the heavy-duty outils (tools) dealt with, what about a few general bits and pieces? Une pelle is a shovel and une forchette is a fork. Une truelle is a trowel and une houe is a hoe. Un sécateur is… you’ve guessed, secateurs, although you’ll notice in French it’s singular where in English it’s plural. Un râteau is a rake, and once you’ve raked all the rubbish up you’ll need une brouette – a wheelbarrow to take it to the tas de compost – compost heap.

Don’t confuse une tasse – a cup – with un tas – a heap or pile!

Gardening is a huge subject and this little bit of learning French free seems to be growing and growing. I’ll wrap up with a couple of things I perhaps should have included earlier and leave others to fill in gaps if they would like to post a comment – or you can just ask me and I’ll fill in anything I’ve missed.

To start anything off you’ll need une graine – a seed (or des graines – some seeds). To sow seeds you semer les graines and to get them off to a good start you might want une serre – a greenhouse and then transfer them to un châssis – a cold frame. You have to be careful with context here because châssis can be all  kinds of things – including the chassis of a car.

Sometimes the French have lots of words for the same thing – as with harvest – and at other times they have just one word that can have a multitude of meanings depending on the sentence and the context. When you’re just beginning French you have to listen quite hard!

Finally those things we always have problems with dans le jardin and that’s les mauvaises herbes – weeds. Literally bad grasses!

OK – enough for this free online French lesson. À la prochaine! – until next time!

For today’s slice of learning French for free I want to look at a subject close to a lot of people’s hearts – the idea of a French renovation. It’s what we did ourselves so I completely understand the attraction of taking some cheap old French barn and turning it into your dream home.

I certainly wouldn’t want to put you off, but there are a few things to look out for. Among them, learning to speak French is probably the single most important because then you understand what you are letting yourself in for!

The easy to learn French bit is rénovation – yep, that’s French for renovation! If only it was all that easy

You will probably be looking for une vieille maison ou une grange – an old house or a barn. They are very popular amongst ex-pats. Most of the French would rather buy new – the main reason being the cost of getting work done.

You can find French property for renovation in more or less any condition you can think of. If your idea of rénovation is to faire un peu de peinture et de la décoration – do a bit of painting and decorating – you will will probably save yourself a little money but the big bargains are houses that need beaucoup de travail – a lot of work.

These can be very cheap to buy, but renovating an old house that needs gros oeuvres – major work – can be expensive. If you think you can buy a tumble-down barn and fix it up for fifty or sixty thousand Euros you are going to have to rethink your budget – yep, that’s French for budget!

By the way, gros oeuvres means major work like knocking holes in existing walls or building new ones, adding an extension, that kind of thing. Anything that effects the structure of the building – and involves a lot of pierre, ciment ou béton – stone, cement or concrete!

Unless you are going to do this work yourself, you will need the help of un mason – a builder. In France, these guys are usually highly skilled and can offer you a garantie décennale – a ten year guarantee. They should also have a SIRET – a number which says that they are a registered business.

There are many ex-pat builders in France as well, some of them very good, but some are not registered and cannot provide any guarantees of their work, so beware! That’s why these sessions of learning French for free can be so useful – discussing your work with a properly registered artisan is much safer and can be a lot cheaper too!

Some masons operate as maître d’ouvres – literally “master of works” – a project manager. If they do, they can get in all the other trades for you. Some just stick to building work so you may need a menuisier – carpenter (who, along with general carpentry, can often make and fit windows and doors) and a couvrer – roofer – because it’s considered a specialist trade and carpenters don’t usually due it.

You will also need a plombier électricien – a plumber and electrician. Although not always handled by the same man or woman, these are usually done by the same firm. You wouldn’t get a plumber from one place and an electrician from another.

If your rénovation is dans une ville – in a town – you may have tout à l’égoût – mains drainage, but if you have an old farmhouse or barn à la campagne – in the countryside – you will need a fosse septique – a septic tank. Many old buildings don’t have one, or perhaps have a puits perdu – a cesspit, which is just a rather smelly hole in the ground!

Before you buy your French renovation it is important to know what your proeprty has – and don’t just take peoples word for it. Modern fosse septiques are very efficient – but the regulations are fairy strict. If your property has an old one that need upgrading it will cost you at least six or seven thousand Euros. If it’s up-to-date, you should be able to get documentation to prove it.

When getting prices you need a written devis – a quote. In France this is a legal document which both you and the artisan (tradesman) sign to signify your agreement of both the work to be done and the price. Here is where learning French comes in useful again – you wouldn’t want to be signing stuff you don’t understand! We would always get at least three devis.

I think that covers the most important points. If you have any questions I will try to help – maybe you have some ideas for things we can cover in another session of learning French for free?

A little while ago I did some French words for fruit (here), so it seems only right that I do a session on learning French free that covers vegetables. I might even get a little controversial…

OK – not really controversial . Technically une tomate (a tomato) is a fruit, but I just can’t see it that way. I always think of fruit as stuff you have for dessert  – so une tomate is un légume (a vegetable) in my book!

It’s something to do with having seeds in the middle I think. Not sure on that. Would un concombre (a cucumber) also be a fruit then? What about une courgette (easy – a courgette) or une aubergine (you can guess that one)?

Then you’ve got peppers. Un piment is a chilli pepper, un poivron is a bell pepper or sweet pepper. They have their seeds on the inside, are they fruits too?

Then there’s une citrouille or une potiron, both of which are words for a pumkin – and I’m afraid I have no idea what the difference is. Potiron seems to be more commonly used.

Enough semantics I think, let’s just concentrate on the easy to learn French!

Something that’s definitely a vegetable is a potato and the French translation for potato that a lot of people know is une pomme de terre (literally an apple of the earth). Quite often though you’ll find the French use une patate. In my experience, either will do fine.

While we’re on root veg, we have le panais (the parsnip) which isn’t actually very common in France. We have la carotte (I bet you’ve got that one), la betterave (the beetroot), le navet (the turnip) and I guess it’s a root crop… le radis (the radish).

Then you have le pois or le petit pois (the pea). Both seem acceptable, although petit (small) pois are, um… smaller!

Along with those we had better have la fève (the broad bean) and le haricot vert (the green bean or runner bean – although they are not quite like what I recognize as a runner bean, as they’re round rather than flat).

I also need to include un oignon (an onions), une échalote (a shallot) and un poireau (a leek).

As I did with the fruit, I’m sure I will have missed a few veg in this session of learning French for free so by all means ask – or tell me. I’ll finish off with a few brasicas - which is the same word in French as in English, although many of them are named after the cabbage.

Hence we get le chou (the cabbage), le chou-fleur (cauliflower) and la choux de Bruxelles (the brussel sprout). Of course there’s always an exception to every rule, le brocoli…

Today’s session of learning French for free is going into the kitchen… la cuisine – the center of many a household and particularly so for the French, with their love of food and cooking.

If you’re thinking of buying French property or fitting out your French home, the following should be useful. As usual, if there’s something I’ve missed just get in touch. If you are just here for a free online French lesson, let’s hope you enjoy it!

So la cuisine is “the kitchen” and “in the kitchen” is dans la cuisine.

Cusinine is also the word for cooking, so faire la cuisine is “do the cooking”.

With learning French, you often have to consider the whole sentence to understand it. Just the word cuisine could be confusing, but if you hear faire – which means “to do” or “to make” – they are probably talking about cooking – because it’s unlikely they’re actually going to make a kitchen. Always possible though, so you have to pay attention!

In the kitchen you will certainly find un évier – a sink. Be careful here because there is also un lavabo, which many of us might also call a sink but which is actually a wash basin – something you would wash your face and hands in. The French are precise here. Hence there’s a un lavabo in la salle de bains – the bathroom.

Taps are the same wherever they are – les robinets!

Either side of l’évier you will almost certainly find un plan de travail – a worktop. Indeed you might find several in a good size kitchen. Above and below you’ll find placards – cupboards – and usually lots of tiroirs – drawers.

What other easy to learn French words can we find in here?

Well there could be une cuisinière – a cooker – but a little care is need again here. The French tend to use that particular word for an all-in-one or a range-type cooker. So alternatively you could have un four and une plaque de cuisson – an oven and a hob.

Then you’ll probably want un micro-ondes, une bouilloire et un grille-pain – a microwave, a kettle and a toaster. There will also be un réfrigérateur et un congélateur – a fridge and a freezer – or possibly both in one. If it is then much like we say fridge freezer, the French say réfrigérateur congélateur. In actual fact, in normal, every day speech, the fridge is called le frigo.

I’m not going to go into plates, cutlery and all those little bits and pieces in this free online French lesson, that can wait for another time because you’ve already got quite a few words here. I will just finish with two more things. Quite often you find these in une buanderie (laundry or utility room), but often in the kitchen. Of course we’re talking about la machine à laver et le sèche-linge – the washing machine and the tumble dryer.

That just about cleans that up then… excusez le calembour – excuse the pun!

The subject for today’s session of learning French for free got started because we have a couple of cherry trees (cerisiers) in our garden and they are overflowing with plump, juicy fruit. Absolutely delicious. The blackbirds like them too!

So I thought it might be useful for you to know some of the French words for fruits.

The first interesting point – well I think so anyway – is what the French name their fruit trees. In English, we say a cherry tree. Translated that would be un arbre de cerises – because cerises are cherries.

In fact, as you might have noticed from the opening sentence, the French say that the tree is a cerisier. They do the same for all fruit trees as far as I can tell – putting an ier on the end.

A plum is une prune – a plum tree is une prunier. An apple is une pomme – and apple tree is une pommier. An apricot is un abricot – an apricot tree is un abrocotier. A peach is une pêche, a pear is une poire… I’m guessing you can work out what the trees are called.

A pineapple is un ananas, so a pineapple tree? HA… pineapples don’t grow on trees!

I was about to say the same is true of nut trees, but then I can across an exception. A hazelnut is une noisette and a hazelnut tree keeps to the rule – une noisetier – but a walnut is un noix and a walnut tree, un noyer.

A peanut is une cacahuète – and as you know, they don’t grow on trees either!

Let’s do a quick list of other fruit – see how many I miss (you can add a comment and tell me if you like ).

A banana – une banane
An orange – une orange
A grapefruit – un pamplemousse
A strawberry – une fraise
A gooseberry – une groseille
A quince – un coing
A raspberry – une framboise
A blackberry – une mûre
A pistachio nut – une pistache
and I better not forget a grape – une raisin

I think that will just about do for this lesson of easy to learn French. What else should I have included?

I thought a few free online French lessons related to French property would be useful, and I started with one about French renovations here. For today’s morceau (small piece) of easy to learn French I thought I would look at a few more house-related French words and phrases.

If you are thinking of buying a property in France, or need to talk to a French builder (mason) I hope these will help a bit.

So let’s start at the front, shall we? The door is la porte. Very often these are made of wood (bois) even in new houses. Although any wooden items can be quite expensive in France, people still seem to prefer a nice, solid wooden door.

You may actually find grills or shutters in front of the doors and windows. These are called volets and are normally a requirement for house insurance. Some houses (maisons) have bars on the windows, which satisfy the same legal requirement, but don’t look so nice!

The door might have a letterbox (une boîte aux lettres) in it, but if there’s a front garden it’s more likely that the box will be in the surrounding wall (le mur) or fence (la clôture).

Just a quick sidetrack here. le mur means “the wall” but mûr means “ripe”. When you learn to read French – or when you write it – keep an eye on those little accents. As you an see, they can change the meaning of something completely!

So anyway, we ouvrir la porte (open the door) and in we go. We might find an entrance hall (hall d’entrée) or we might go straight in to one of the rooms (pièces).

Let’s look at a typical layout. You will have une cuisine (a kitchen), un salon (a lounge) and perhaps une salle à manger as well ( a dining room – literally a hall for eating). There could be une wc (a toilet/cloakroom) or even une salle de bain (a bathroom). Sometimes older French houses – especially farmhouses – have chambres (bedrooms) downstairs as well.

But let’s assume you monter les escaliers (climb the stairs) and find salle de bain et chambres, à l’étage (bathroom and bedrooms upstairs).

Finally, under le toit (the roof) there is un grenier (an attic).

What I would like to do for further free online French lessons is look at each room in a bit more detail, but I think that will do for now. It’s much easier to learn french if you do it in short, sharp bursts I think – doesn’t give you time to get bored!

I’ll also look at decorating and maybe bits and pieces of DIY plus, of course, we’ll have a wander around le jardin (the garden).

Until next time then, à la prochaine…

Today’s session of learning French for free is going to help you to learn simple French words and phrases that crop up quite often. We haven’t really got a theme today, we’ll just work on some easy French and see where it takes us. As always, if you’ve got an area you would like more detail on, drop me a line.

We dealt with French greeting (like bonjour) and partings (au revoir) in a post here, so I won’t bother going over those again but let’s try some other bits and pieces.

When you’re trying to learn basic French words and phrases it always helps to try and picture a situation that you would be in when you would use it. Try a bit of visualization and see how you get on.

Central to people’s view of daily French life is the street market – le marché. Sadly they are suffering as they have everywhere with the growth of the supermarkets (supermarchés) but they still usually offer the best fruit and vegetables (fruits et légumes), and local produce (produits régionaux or produits du terroir) that you just won’t find anywhere else. It’s also an important meeting place – but as people work further from their homes these days, there are fewer who can get to the markets on weekdays.

Do I get sidetracked often or what? I promise to help you learn simple French and suddenly I’m telling you about the decline of French markets! We still get to ours as often as we can, and they are always worth a visit if you are here on vacation.

But back to learning basic French words. We’ve covered s’il vous plaît a couple of times but it’s worth repeating because you use it so often. It means “please”. Merci is “thank you”. The French are very polite so it’s best to err on the side of over-use with these simple French words – you can never be too polite!

If someone thanks you, it’s nice to be able to say something along the lines of “no problem” or “you’re welcome” and de rien is the common reply, which means “it’s nothing”.

Excusez-moi is pretty obvious, “excuse me”. French people will also use pardon as they try to get past, which is kind of “excuse me” and “sorry”. They will also use pardon when they don’t understand you. It’s like “what did you say?” or “could you repeat that?”. It isn’t necessarily that they didn’t understand your French – they use it between themselves as well!

So pardon means “sorry”, but “sorry” can be désole. In this case, it’s like “oh, sorry to hear that”, when you have heard bad news.

I’ve sort of assumed everyone knows the French words for yes and no – but I’ve never covered them so I suppose if we’re learning simple French I ought to do that. “Yes” is oui, “no” is non. OK is OK!

Let’s finish today’s free online French lesson with a couple more basic French phrases that you might find useful when you’re trying to be understood.

Although it’s obviously better to speak French, if you get stuck you can try parlez-vous anglais? – “do you speak English”. If you’re really stuck you can apologize and say you don’t understand désole, je ne comprends pas (just the je ne comprends pas bit is fine).

If you want to say you don’t speak French that’s je ne parle pas français – but hopefully these easy to learn French lessons will have helped you a bit there!