Essential French Vocabulary (with audio)

Basic French words

These pages contain essential French phrases and vocabulary that will be useful across many situations. If you are just starting out with French, start here! Basic French words and phrases. Hobbies and pastimes in French Simple phrases for describing leisure activities such as watching TV, listening to CDs etc.

A separate page also looks at musical instruments in French. Getting around town in French Names of places, buildings and asking directions in French.

Essential French Vocabulary

Now available in Spanish Around the house in French Names of parts of the house room and furniture in French, plus how to talk about doing the housework in French. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience.

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French Core 100 Word List

A Guide to French Facts, essential phrases plus the French alphabet. French test Are you a complete beginner, quite fluent or somewhere in between? Bonjour is the perfect everyday greeting. You can use it with anyone at any time. Add monsieur or madame to immediately sound more formal.

Essential French Vocabulary

This is particularly useful if you talk to someone older or to your boss. To discover other ways to say hello in French, check out this article.

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The most common way to say hi in French is salut. But while salut translates as hi, using it the way you would use hi is dangerous because the French language tends to be much more formal than the English language.

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In case of doubt, use bonjour. This simple word is the French equivalent of nice to meet you and can do wonders provided you use it with sincerity.

The extra e indicates the gender of the person writing. Au revoir is the word to use. Think of it as the goodbye equivalent of bonjour. You can use it with anyone in any circumstance. This said, salut it means both hi and bye depending on the context is a better choice when talking to friends, family, and people you know well.

French Words & Phases

Here is a word you probably already know. Merci simply means thank you and can be used in any situation even though you may want to use other words and phrases to add more nuance. Want to say thank you very much?