4 Most Common Mistakes in French (That You're Probably Making)

French is one of the most popular languages for English speakers to learn. As a result, you would think that learning the language would be easy. It isn't. It is anything but.

In this article, we want to introduce you to some of the most common mistakes in French. Hopefully, this will help you to avoid them!

False friends

Normally, when you are learning a language, you will notice that there are some words that look similar to English e.g. if you saw Fotboll in Swedish, then you would know that this means football in English.

Now, French does still have a few of these words. After all, due to the way in which modern English evolved, a lot of English words have their roots in France. However, the French also have a lot of what are known as 'false friends'. These are words that look similar to English words but are not quite exact.

False friends appear quite a lot in French, so if you are not 100% certain of the meaning of a new word, then make sure that you look it up. You do not want to learn the wrong word, right?

Using the wrong word order

This is where French can become tricky, and it is something that you will need to discuss with your French tutor. 

For the most part, in French, the adjective will always come after the noun. However, there are some adjectives where the word order will be switched up. Thankfully, there are not that many exceptions here, but the words will be fairly common ones e.g:

• Petit

• Bon

• Grand

This is easily one of the biggest mistakes to make for new French learners.

Using Google Translate

You would think that this would be obvious, but there are a lot of people that use Google Translate to translate words. It is never something that will end well.

You have to remember that French has different meanings for words and different word orders. For example, there are several different ways to say the word "time" depending on the context.

In most cases, Google Translate will translate words incorrectly.

This means that you will end up learning the wrong vocabulary. Once you have learned the wrong vocabulary, then you will have developed a habit that is pretty damn difficult for you to break.

Our French tutors suggest that you get your hands on a decent French dictionary to minimize the chances of learning the wrong words.

Using the wrong gender for words

This is something that you will learn to do properly over time. However, for English speakers, it can be a little bit confusing to see that some words have genders. Thankfully, as you learn more French, it will become easier to predict the gender of a noun.

The only real issue for most English speakers learning French is realizing that some words have multiple genders depending on the context. This normally involves people, but it can involve other situations too.

Thankfully, the best way to avoid mistakes in French is to work with a native French tutor. They will be able to provide you with all of the guidance that you need and ensure that any mistakes are kept to the absolute minimum!