4 Fun French Language Games Before You Travel
Are you thinking “I love Paris in the springtime...”, as in one of Frank Sinatra's wonderful songs? Maybe you are traveling to France or even to Paris soon? (Picture left: Place de Vosges in spring 2008)
Then you should also know some useful French phrases with extra French pronunciation practice.
Try these fun and simple French language games. We won't promise you that you'll speak French fluently after reading this post and playing the four games. We are convinced, however, that you'll remember some of the phrases and will be able to use and pronounce them.
A Few Easy Tips
• A good way to learn phrases and expressions is to practice them as "chunks," not as a series of individual words. As we know, some phrases are idiomatic and have a meaning that's quite different from the meaning of the words in it.
• Always say phrases aloud, or if you're on a bus or in a line, mouth them to yourself, silently. Then when the coast is clear, say them OUT LOUD from memory.
• Lots of repetition is essential. We rarely learn something just by hearing and saying it once.
• Our mouth has to learn what muscles to use to make the right sounds. The particular combination of sounds that makes up a phrase has to get lodged in our brain. And, our brain has to connect sound to meaning.
1. Everyday phrases
No matter what your approach is to learning French, knowing a few conversational phrases is always useful.
Here's a French Language Game (or, just click on the picture!) to playfully learn and practice 8 conversational phrases that you're guaranteed to use often when talking in French - online, on Skype, or directly with someone at a party, at a store, on a ski-lift, in a café, etc.
2. The Verb "être" (to be)
The verb "être" is useful in many contexts. Whether you're talking about yourself, asking for information or directions, sharing stories, etc., some form of "to be" is bound to come up.
With this game you'll do a quick review of "être" as a full verb in the present, future, and conditional tenses.
(In a future game, you'll learn and review "être" as an "auxiliary" or, "helping" verb. As such, "être" is used to make compound tenses for certain verbs.)
3. Numbers make great French Language Games
Mastering the numbers in a language can be quite empowering, especially when you travel to a foreign country. But you need to be able to understand them as well as say them.
Numbers come in handy for buying at a market, paying the bill in a restaurant, buying tickets, making reservations, arranging a time to meet someone, exchanging phone numbers, giving your address, etc.
In general, knowing the numbers 1-100 will suffice. Still, French numbers from 70 to 99 are tricky and need extra attention. Here's a game to practice French numbers 21 and beyond in a fun way (with a link to numbers 1-20)
4. French sounds
When speaking English, you move your lips or tongue a certain way, for example to say "the," "he," or "rob." These are hard to pronounce for French speaker because the words contain sounds that French does not have: "th" "h" or our "r."
Similarly, French has sounds that are hard for English speakers. To produce them, you need to move your lips or tongue differently. In other words, you need to use different "mouth mechanics."
One difficulty may be that you can't really hear sounds that are not in the English language. That is because, like most people, you've gradually lost that ability in the course of growing into an adult.
However, with practice and application, you can recapture to hear and say non-English sounds, such as the French "u," French nasal vowels, and the French "r." And even if your French pronunciation won't get to perfection, it will get much better in time.
So play our French language games to practice the French "r" or "vowels and accents." You'll be amazed how a little practice will let you get the hang of it and become more comfortable in speaking.
Also, check our previous post "5 Quick French Pronunciation Steps: Mouth Mechanics 101."
And if you're having fun with our approach and these games, you'll find additional Quick Games for French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Inglés on our site.
Or why not try our FREE French Story: “Daniel en France”. With its 36 fifteen-minute Scenes you'll learn over 600 new words. But, even more importantly, you'll practice the phrases and sentences of a travel story – useful, real life language that you'll be able to put to use when visiting Paris or traveling around France.
And just maybe you'll also get enchanted by French songs such as Edith Piaf's “No, je ne regrette rien” or Joe Dassin's “Si tu n'existais pas...”. Both songs are topics of earlier posts for “learning French with a song”...
Bio: Ulrike Rettig is the co-founder of Gamesforlanguage.com. She has been a life-long language learner, growing up in Austria, the Netherlands, and Canada. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and leave any comments with contact.