When someone asks if we would have done anything differently before moving to France, my first thought is always about selling the house sooner than later. Gratefully, that was accomplished within weeks rather than months but still, who needs the stress? Next, it’s all about learning the language. We’d been vacationing in this country for 30 years, generally renting an apartment so that we could go to the market and pretend that we lived here and practice a bit of speaking with the vendors. In reality, even on those trips when we’d spend time with French friends, most of the conversations were in English, so there wasn’t much français involved. Some immigration changes this year make this point even more important but there are a few free ways to make that achievable. 

Many nationalities, including Americans, who want to visit France for more than 90 days need a visa. For that initial application, nothing seems to have changed in the 10 years since we got our first visitor’s visa (VLS-TS “Visiteur” ) that is renewable in France for each of the following 4 years as a Carte de Séjour “Visiteur”. However, once you’ve lived here consistently for 5 years you can apply for a 10-year resident’s card but now you must prove that you have a French language level of at least B1 and to become a citizen, it’s a level B2. In response to this new, higher-level market, I’ve noticed a proliferation of websites saying that within 4 months you can reach your goal.

To see how realistic that really is, here is a table from the Alliance Française about how many hours it should take to reach each CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) level:

CEFR Level	Level	Hours per Level	Total Hours
A1	Beginner (Intro)	60–100 hours	60–100
A2	Elementary (Survival)	100–120 hours	160–220
B1	Intermed.	150–200 hours	310–420
B2	Upper Intermed.	200–250 hours	510–670
C1	Advanced	250–300 hours	760–970
C2	Mastery (Near-native)	300+ hours	1,060–1,200+

Although I subscribe to nearly two dozen YouTube channels that deal with language learning, below are two that I use where they have step-by-step guides on how to eventually get to a B2 level within a timeframe that corresponds to the table above.

The Perfect French with Dylane suggests that if you follow her guidebook that is linked to the videos for each lesson you will finish her course in approximately a year if you study for about 1.5 to 2 hours per day. She also has paid content, as does the teacher below, but today we’re focusing on their free courses that give you a clear path to follow. https://theperfectfrench.com/french-self-study-guide/free-pdf-download/

French School TV is by Vincent who is an examiner for the DELF/DALF A1 to C2 language tests. His insider knowledge of what it takes to succeed on those exams is especially helpful. The YouTube channel has a tab for “Courses” where he groups the videos by level such as “Learning French in 2 months, for beginners” or the following 3-minute “Short” describing how to go from B1 to B2 in about 6 months. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OHv_aH2UQ5o

The French government offers their own free online courses (A1 through B1) designed for people moving to France. With the new, higher language requirement mentioned above, I’m hoping that they will add a module for B2. Here’s the link to the beginners (A1 Débutant) course of Vivre en France https://www.fun-mooc.fr/en/cours/vivre-en-france-a1/

Those are 3 sources that I’ve found especially useful and a short, daily spoken conversation with ChatGPT or Gemini helps to put it all in practice. For the truly curious, I’ll attach a pdf of a few of the other YouTube channels that I watch where I pick-and-choose individual videos rather than follow a study plan as with the two mentioned above. Good studying! 👩‍🎓👨‍🎓

Some YouTube channels for French practice pdf

Illustration notes: Across the top of today’s post is from The Perfect French by Dylane and the photo in the first paragraph is Ivan Kabacoff from France TV5 Monde, thank you!