Welcome to your A1 French Part 1 course. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to handle your first simple French conversations: greeting people, asking for help, understanding key numbers, introducing yourself, and building basic sentences about who you are and what you do. With Auracle, you’ll build the foundations of fluency by speaking constantly, actively recalling words and sentences, and developing automaticity. Active recall and spaced repetition help guarantee memorisation by bringing language back at the exact moment you need to review it. You’ll be surprised how quickly French starts to feel familiar when you are not just reading it, but producing it again and again. Let’s get started.

First up is French Pronunciation Essentials. In this quick deck, you’ll practise the French sounds that are most different from English. Listen, copy what you hear, and don’t worry about being perfect. Let’s warm up your French voice!

Let's learn the French U sound. Put your mouth in the position for “ee”, then round your lips as though you’re saying “oo”. You can hear this sound at the end of “salut”, the French word for “hi”. It is spelt S A L U T. Note that the final T is silent. Listen and copy: “salut”.

The French U is different from the letters O U. When O and U appear together, they make an “oo” sound. You can hear it in “vous”, the polite or plural French word for “you”. It is spelt V O U S. Note that the final S is silent. Listen and copy: “vous”.