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LEARNING FRENCH

How to find affordable language classes in France

Language classes can be expensive so if you're seeking to learn French or just improve your language skills, here are some of the free or affordable classes on offer.

Published: 21 July 2022 12:54 CEST
Updated: 29 January 2024 09:45 CET
How to find affordable language classes in France
Learning French conjugation in school at Ile d'Arz, in western France (Photo by Fred TANNEAU / AFP)

With the news that France is bringing in new, tougher language requirements for foreigners seeking long-term residency permits or citizenship, many people are making a new resolution to improve their French.

Whether its to do with admin or just to be able to have a chat with French neighbours or colleagues, language courses are notoriously expensive, so we’ve put together a list of options that won’t break the bank.

Compte Formation Professionnelle (Mon CPF)

All employees in France get an annual ‘training budget’ of up to €800 that you can spend on developing your professional skills – and if you’re foreign you can use that budget for language classes.

You first need to register on the Mon Compte Formation app or website, using your social security number and then once you have worked a full year in France you become eligible for the budget.

Search ‘Français Langue Etrangère (FLE)’ in the site to find courses near you – the training is run by local language schools and so inevitably you will find more of a choice if you live in the city.

Find full details of exactly how to sign up HERE.

One thing to note – unfortunately the CPF scheme name is often used by scammers, if you get phone calls or text messages offering to unlock your account it’s better to ignore them and just head directly to the government website or app.

The Office for Integration and Immigration (OFII)

The Office for Integration and Immigration is a compulsory stop for many people living in France, and if your French is very basic/non-existent they can order you to attend classes.

But as well as the compulsory beginner-level classes, the OFII also offers voluntary classes at higher levels. 

Offering language courses of 50 to 600 hours depending on the needs and level of the person concerned, the OFII seeks to ensure that anyone seeking a long-stay residency permit in France can at least speak, read, and understand basic French.

The standard course is aimed at the A1 level, though they also offer courses for A2 and B1. The classes are provided by “AFCI and its co-contractors” and are held “during the day, evening or weekend.”

If you are on a long-stay residency permit you have likely either already finished your half-day reception at the OFII or you have it coming up. During the reception, the OFII representative will determine whether your French rises to A1 level or not, and if it does not reach that threshold then they may prescribe you French training courses. While OFII’s goal is to help those at or below A1 level, you can always reach out regarding options for A2 and B1 as well.

Your local town hall

The town hall (mairie) is responsible for many things in France. If you are new to the country, it might actually be one of the best places to visit first.

Your town hall is a great resource for finding recommendations for services, organisations, and activities, especially if you live in a more rural area. Many mairies also offer heavily discounted language classes.

In Paris the mairie offers ‘Cours d’Adultes de Paris‘ in everything from sewing classes to lessons in Excel, but there are around 300 classes in Français langue étrangère. The modules are between 20 and 180 hours and are adapted by level and ability.

The courses are usually held in school buildings throughout Paris.

If you live outside of Paris, you can contact your local mairie to ask what they recommend in regards to subsidised language courses. They will likely be able to point you towards NGOs operating in the area that hold classes.

For parents of schoolchildren 

If you have children in the French public school system, but France is not your native language and you want to improve, then there is a specific programme just for you.

“Ouvrir l’école aux parents pour la réussite des enfants” (Opening schools to parents for the success of students) is a government scheme from the Ministry of Education aimed at helping parents integrate in order to better support their children’s schooling. 

OEPRE allows parents of non-French children in the school system to take between 60 and 120 hours of French classes over the course of a year (about four hours per week) with the goal of improving their French and better understanding the school system. The lessons are free and are offered to groups of approximately 8 to 15 people. 

You can learn more HERE. 

Pôle d’Emploi/France Travail

This is the French government organisation that helps job-seekers find potential professional opportunities. It also offers formations (courses) to help those seeking work keep their skills sharp, including free language classes for those who are not French natives.

You first need to be registered with Pôle emploi (shortly to change its name to France Travail) as a job-seeker, which usually means you have already been working in France. 

If you are a registered job-seeker you can then create an account on the Pôle emploi website, head to ‘Trouver ma formation’ and search “Français Langue Étrangère” to see what courses are available.

Université pour Tous

The ‘university for all’ programme is about offering further education to adults, but unlike the UK’s Open University it’s not all at degree level and many offer beginner and intermediate French classes for foreigners.

It’s organised on a local level so you will need to find the Université pour Tous website for your département and then search the courses – prices and courses on offer vary according to location. 

Language exchange

As a native speaker of English you have a valuable skill to offer and ‘language exchange’ options are a great way to get free or reduced price tutoring.

As the name suggests, you chat with a French speaker and they help you and correct your errors and in exchange you do the same for their English.

There are numerous groups who offer this, so search online. Most are either free or charge a reduced price. You generally need to be able to chat at some level so they’re not ideal for complete beginners but are a good way to improve your fluency once you have the basics.

The social network “Meetup” is a great resource for finding pre-existing language groups in your area, or virtually if you prefer. This website might favour those who live in large cities, but you might be surprised to find options in small towns as well. Plus, if something does not exist yet, you can always create it.

Facebook groups are also another great way to find likeminded people who are seeking cultural and linguistic exchange. Groups like ‘BlaBla (insert your city)’ can help connect you to conversation groups. 

Online groups

During the pandemic many language classes moved online, and plenty of them have stayed there, giving more options to people who live outside the cities or bigger towns.

If you are looking to practice your French solely online, some websites like Polyglot Club offer free choices for users to interact and practice their language skills.

Conversation workshops at libraries 

In Paris, both the BPI and BNF, as well as at least 15 other municipal libraries, offer one hour to one hour and a half language exchanges that are led by library staff and/or volunteers.

You can learn more at the Paris library website. 

Outside the capital, some libraries also offer conversation groups, so ask your local library if they have something similar.

Bon courage

Member comments

  1. You didn’t mention the UPE (Université populaire européenne) which offers a wide range of language classes including various levels of French. The academic year runs from end September to end May and the price is very reasonable. Lots of other classes ranging from gym and yoga to art are also on offer.

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LEARNING FRENCH

Is the English language really just ‘badly pronounced French’?

A French linguist has been making waves with his boldly titled book 'The English language does not exist - it's just badly pronounced French', but does the professor actually have a point?

Published: 23 April 2024 14:35 CEST
Updated: 28 April 2024 14:39 CEST
Is the English language really just 'badly pronounced French'?

The French linguist Bernard Cerquiglini is clear that the title of his book should be taken with humour and a pinch of salt, beginning his work by explaining that it is a ‘bad faith proposition’.

Clearly, the English language does exist and equally clearly the French are a little uneasy about it – with numerous laws, national bodies and local initiatives attempting to fight back against the anglicisms that now litter everyday speech, from ‘c’est cool’ to ‘un job’. 

But Cerquiglini argues that the supposed ‘influx’ of English words that are now used in France, especially tech-related terms, is nothing compared to what happened when French literally invaded English in the Middle Ages.

And the close similarity that the two languages enjoy today – around 30 percent of English words are of French origin – speaks to this entwined history.

“You can also see my book as an homage to the English language, which has been able to adopt so many words… Viking, Danish, French, it’s astonishing,” he told AFP.

The history

The key date in the blending of English and French is the Norman conquest of 1066, when Duke William of Normandy invaded England with a small group of Norman knights and made himself the English king William the Conqueror.

What happened next was a radical re-ordering of society in which English nobles were displaced and William’s knights were installed as a new French-speaking (or at least Norman-speaking) ruling class. 

The use of French by the ruling classes continued into the 13th and 14th centuries, by which time French was the official language of the royal courts, diplomacy, the law, administration and trade – meaning that ambitious English people had no choice but to learn French in order to take part in official or legal processes. 

Cerquiglini says that half of all English’s borrowings from French took place between 1260-1400, with a heavy slant towards words related to nobility, trade, administration or the law.

But a large group of non-native speakers meant that the French spoken in England was already starting to evolve, and the French words ended up with different pronunciations or even a different meaning. 

As early as 1175, the records show a Frenchman in England snootily remarking that: “My language is good, because I was born in France”. 

English and French started to part ways from the mid-1400s, by which time the two countries no longer shared royalty (the last English possession in France, the port of Calais, was lost to the French in 1558) and gradually systems such as the law courts and trade began to be conducted in English.

French remained widely spoken as a second language by the nobility and the elite right up until the early 20th century and French is still the most widely-taught language in UK schools.

The similarities

It’s not always easy to distinguish between English words that have a French root and those that have a Latin root, but linguists estimate that around 29 percent of English words come from French, another 29 percent from Latin, 26 percent from German and the rest from other languages.

But many of the English words that do have a clear French root are related to nobility, administration, politics and the law.

For example the French words gouvernement, parlement, autorité and peuple are clearly recognisable to English speakers. Likewise budget, revenus, enterprise and taxe, plus avocat, cour, juge, magistrat and evidence.

Amusingly, the French and the English obviously found time to share many insults, including bâtard [bastard], crétin, imbecile, brute and stupide.

Adaptation

But most of the people in England who were speaking French did not have it as their mother tongue, so the language began to adapt. For example the French à cause de literally translates into English as ‘by cause of’ which over time became the English word ‘because’.

There are also words that started out the same but changed their meaning over time – for example the English word ‘clock’ comes from the French ‘cloche’ (bell), because in the Middle Ages church bells were the most common method of keeping track of the time for most people.

When the mechanical clock began to appear from the 14th century onwards, the French used a new term – une horloge – but the English stuck with the original.

The differences

One of the big differences between English and French is that English simply has more words – there are roughly 170,000 words in the English language, compared to about 135,000 in French.

And at least part of this comes from English being a ‘blended’ language – that English people hung on to their original words and simply added the French ones, which is why you often get several different English words that have the same translation in French eg clever and intelligent both translate into French as ‘intelligent’.

Another difference represents the class divide that the Norman invasion imposed between the French nobles and the English labourers.

For example the words pig and cow both have Anglo-Saxon roots, while pork and beef come from French (porc and boeuf) – so when the animal is in the field being looked after by English peasants it has an Anglo-Saxon name, but by the time it is on the plate being eaten by posh people, it becomes French.

There’s also a tendency in English for the more everyday words to have Anglo-Saxon origins while the fancier words have French origins – eg to build (English) versus to construct (French). In French construire is used for both. Or to feed (English) versus to nourish (French) – in French both are nourrir.

Faux amis

One consequence of English and French being so closely linked in the bane of every language-learner’s life – les faux amis (false friends).

These are words that look and sound very similar, but have a completely different meaning. If you don’t know the French word for something you can have a stab at saying the English word with a French pronunciation – and often you will be right.

But sometimes you will be wrong, and sometimes it will be embarrassing.

READ ALSO The 18 most embarrassing French ‘false friends’

Often, faux amis are words that have changed their meaning in one language but not the other – for example the French word sensible means sensitive, not sensible – which is why you can buy products for peau sensible (sensitive skin).

But it once meant sensitive in English too – for example in the title of Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility – over time the meaning of the English word adapted but the French one stayed the same.

The title

And a word on that title – La langue anglaise n’existe pas, C’est du français mal prononcé (the English language does not exist, it’s just badly pronounced French) is actually a quote from former French prime minister Georges Clemenceau.

He did apparently speak English, but doesn’t appear to have been very fond of England itself – his other well-known quote on the topic is: “L’Angleterre n’est qu’une colonie française qui a mal tourné” – England is just a French colony gone wrong.  

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