What are the most common mistakes French learners make?

If you’re learning French, you know how exciting it is to connect with a new culture through language! Of course, there are challenges, too, and it can feel frustrating to make mistakes in a new language. Those mistakes are a natural—and even necessary!—part of the learning journey, so take comfort in knowing other French learners are working through them, too.

We analyzed Duolingo data to determine the most common mistakes that early French learners make. Here are the top 5 errors you can expect in French!

5 of the most common errors French learners make:

1. Verb conjugation
2. Gender agreement in nouns
3. Number agreement nouns
4. Adjective agreement
5. Word order

1. Verb conjugation

Verb conjugation is one of the most challenging parts of French, especially for new learners. It will seem like French verbs change a lot more than their English counterparts! In French, you need to change the ending of the verb so that it matches the subject who is doing the action. Even though many French verb endings sound the same, they are often spelled differently. Here is the basic pattern for regular ‑er, ‑ir, and ‑re verbs.

You’ll use a different ending depending on the subject of the verb:

• Je parle anglais, mais mes parents parlent français.
  (I speak English, but my parents speak French.)
• Tu choisis toujours un éclair, mais nous choisissons des macarons.
  (You always choose an eclair, but we choose macarons.)
• Thomas attend ici, et vous attendez là-bas.
  (Thomas is waiting here, and you all are waiting over there.)

There’s another category of verbs that is challenging for new French learners, because it has a spelling change so that the pronunciation is consistent across the forms. Verbs that end in ‑ger add an “e” to the nous form to keep that “zh” sound, and verbs that end in ‑cer have a “ç” in the nous form, to keep the “s” sound.

For example:

• manger
  (to eat) becomes mangeons:
  Nous mangeons des plats libanais.
  (We eat Lebanese dishes.)
• commencer
  (to start) becomes commençons:
  Nous commençons tôt.
  (We start early.)

2. Gender agreement in nouns

In French, all nouns have grammatical gender—they are either masculine or feminine, even if they aren’t a person! There are several key patterns learners should memorize to know whether a noun is masculine or feminine.

Words associated with the noun have to match its gender, so French has multiple versions of many words, including different forms of a and the for masculine and feminine nouns:

For example:

• un château
  (a castle), since château is a masculine noun
• une chemise
  (a shirt), since chemise is a feminine noun
• le château
  (the castle)
• la chemise
  (the shirt)

If the noun starts with a vowel (like étoile, star) or a silent consonant (as in hôtel, hotel), you’ll use l’ for the: l’étoile (the star), and l’hôtel (the hotel). Both masculine and feminine nouns will use l’ if they start with a vowel!

3. Number agreement in nouns

Words associated with a noun will have to match the number of the noun, too—whether it’s singular or plural. This number agreement is one of the most common mistakes learners make. Here are a few places to look for plural agreement:

• Les filles parlent français.
  (The girls speak French.)
• Mes amis sont professeurs.
  (My friends are teachers.)
• Ils ont des desserts italiens.
  (They have some Italian desserts.)

4. Adjective agreement

And if that’s not enough agreement to keep track of… French adjectives have different forms and endings for masculine and feminine, singular and plural! The most common pattern is that feminine singular adjectives end in ‑e, masculine plural adjectives end in ‑s, and feminine plural adjectives end in ‑es:

Some adjectives follow a slightly different set of agreement rules:

• Masculine adjectives that already end in ‑e and don’t change in the feminine
• Masculine adjectives that end in ‑eau, add ‑x for the masculine plural, and end in ‑elle in the feminine
• Masculine adjective that end in ‑ou and change to ‑olle in the feminine
• Masculine adjectives that end in ‑x, don’t change in the masculine plural, and changes to ‑euse or ‑ouce in the feminine
• Certain masculine adjectives add an extra letter or an accent mark, in addition to ‑e

In French, you’ll need to remember to use plural adjectives to describe a noun, even when the noun and its adjective aren’t next to each other—that can be the most difficult part to remember!

5. Word order

Word order is another important difference between French and English, especially when it comes to nouns. In French, most adjectives come after the noun they describe, so instead of saying the black cat, in French you say the cat black: le chat noir.

However, there are some common adjectives that must go before the noun, and you can remember these with the BAGS acronym: beauty, age, goodness, and size.

Here are some examples:

• Beauty:
  un beau chien
  (a beautiful dog) or
  la jolie maison
  (the pretty house)
• Age:
  le vieux frigo
  (the old refrigerator) or
  mes jeunes enfants
  (my young children)
• Goodness:
  le bon gateau
  (the good cake) or
  une mauvaise note
  (a bad grade)
• Size:
  un grand bâtiment
  (a big building) or
  une petite voiture
  (a small car)

Mistakes are great teachers!

Don’t let your French mistakes slow you down—they’re necessary for learning, and you’ll move past them with practice!