French Speaking Studio: listen, repeat, read and recite (free)

A free French pronunciation and listening practice studio

The French Speaking Studio is built for people who can read French better than they can say it. Pick your stage, choose an activity and press the microphone. The studio plays a sentence in a real French voice, listens while you repeat it, then colors each word: green for a word that was clear, orange for one that was close, red for one that was missing or hard to recognize. You get stars, experience points, a daily streak and badges, so a few minutes of practice feel like a game rather than homework.

How the Speaking Studio works

Five activities in one place

Listen and repeat gives you five sentences at a time, with a tip about liaison, silent letters or intonation. The sounds of French is a tappable chart of vowels, consonants and spellings such as ou, on, an, in, ch and gn, plus a game where you hear a word and choose the sound. Timed reading measures your words per minute and accuracy and draws your progress curve. Audio dictation is read chunk by chunk, with the punctuation announced in French, followed by a letter-by-letter correction that explains each mistake in English. Poem recitation lets you listen, hide more and more words, then recite from memory.

Four stages, from A1 to B2

Choose Beginner A1, Elementary A2, Intermediate B1 or Upper intermediate B2, then narrow it down to a sub-level if you like. Sentences, texts, dictations and poems get longer and richer at each step. If you are also working through our A1 French lessons, the French 1 lessons or the B1 French lessons, use the studio to say out loud what you have just read.

Your privacy

Nothing you say is uploaded. The microphone only starts when you press it, your browser asks permission first, and your points and badges are saved only in your own browser.

French pronunciation tips for English speakers

Nasal vowels

In on, an, in and un, the air flows through your nose and you do not pronounce the final n. Say bon without closing the sound with an English “n” or “ng”. Compare bon (nasal) with bonne (oral vowel, then n). The sound chart lets you hear each nasal vowel with three example words.

The French R

The French r is made at the back of the mouth, like a soft gargle, not with the tip of the tongue. Start from the “k” or “g” position, keep the tongue tip down behind your lower teeth, and let the air rub gently. Practice with rouge, rue and mercredi, then repeat the tongue twisters in the studio at a slow speed.

Liaison and linking

A normally silent final consonant can join the next word when it starts with a vowel: les amis sounds like “lay-zah-mee” and petit âne like “puh-tee-tahn”. Do not link after et or before an aspirated h such as les héros. The tips in the Listen and repeat activity point out each liaison.

Silent letters

Final consonants are often silent: the t of chat, the s of temps, the d of grand. Verbs ending in -ent, such as ils parlent, end on the same sound as il parle. Learn the exceptions as you meet them: sept, cinq and neuf are often pronounced with the last consonant.

Rhythm and intonation

English stresses one syllable in each word; French gives almost every syllable the same weight and lifts the last syllable of a group. Questions usually rise at the end. Listen to the model, then repeat the whole sentence in one breath instead of word by word.

How to practice every day

Ten minutes a day beat one long session a week. Start with one round of Listen and repeat, aiming for three stars on at least two sentences. Add a timed reading twice a week and re-read the same text until your words per minute climb. Finish the week with a dictation or a poem. When most words turn green at your current stage, move up to the next one. Use headphones, speak at a natural volume and, if the voice is too fast, switch it to slower in the settings.

Frequently asked questions about the French Speaking Studio