Wednesday, March 26th
2025 French Lesson Reviews
Fluenz
- Hundreds of video-explanations for English-speakers
- Instructions spoken by a real person
- Pay per class, not per month
- Homeschool options
When you're learning a new language, you want to know how it relates to English, and that's natural. Not only does Fluenz give you explanations in English, you can watch an actual person via recorded video explain the concept to you.
No free lessons
There are flashcards and other activities for you to practice the language, and you can go to your dashboard called "my data” to see details of your progress. You won't get much feedback on your writing sample, though - you're either 100% right or 100% wrong, as the software can't give you any more help than that. If you want to try out Fluenz' French lessons, there's no trial period and no free lessons. You'll have to purchase a course and use the 30-day money-back period instead.
You'll learn from a real person
Rather than learn how French works from a written description or practicing flashcards and figuring out the language, you'll watch videos of a real person explaining the French concept to you. You can watch it once or rewatch if you need more time for it to sink in.
They want you to be fluent
First, you'll watch a video of the person explaining how French works. You'll practice with their "workout” or exercises and utilize their flashcards.
Five levels of French for greater fluency
In Fluenz' first level, you'll be taught enough French to build a communicative base, working toward better fluency. You'll prepare to go out for meals and other entertainment, navigate basic travel situations, make travel arrangements, and shop. In the higher levels, you'll prepare to interact socially with friends, plan trips, schedule meetings, handle financial and legal matters, discuss professional and cultural topics, and use French idioms and colloquialisms to express yourself more naturally in French.
Fluenz' key is fluency, not advanced grammar
Even in their Level 5 class, you'll only form and use the imperfect (past) tense, use possessive pronouns, and work on prepositions. You won't get further than the past tense. That said, you will get some subjunctive in Level 4 and some conditional in Level 3. But if you're looking for advanced grammar, that doesn't seem to be the focus of Fluenz.
Purchase the course you want: there's no subscription
With Fluenz, you purchase the course or courses you're interested in. You don't have to have a subscription plan that automatically renews whether or not you keep up with your lessons. It's also nice to know that with Fluenz, even if you have to stop using the course for a while, it's still yours to keep so you can pick up your lessons when you're ready.
Practice with Workouts
Fluenz calls their practice exercises Workouts. Listen to dialogs, with or without English subtitles. These are the words or phrases that will occur quite often in your exercises to improve your reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Between the activities, you'll see a video where they'll break down the meaning of these words and phrases and how they're actually used.
Perfection, please
When you write sentences during your Workouts, you can know if you are correct or not, but it's all or nothing. If you have a small mistake, the whole thing is just wrong. They don't tell you how many errors you made or where they are. This is really frustrating. We wish they would update this technology, as it's out there.
Look at your data
There's a section called "my data” and you can see how well you're doing, how many times you try before you have gotten answers correct, and how much time you have spent on each lesson. This might motivate you to compete with yourself to improve your percentages.
Costs
Fluenz offers a variety of pricing plans for their program:
- Fluenz French 1 or 2: $187
- Fluenz French 1 + 2: $258
- Fluenz French 1 + 2 + 3: $308
- Fluenz French 3 + 4 + 5: $320
- Fluenz French 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5: $398
- Homeschool Basic Fluenz French 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5: $433
- Homeschool Pro Fluenz French 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5: $568
No free trial, not even a sample
If you're interested in Fluenz, you'll need to jump in. If you need an out, you'll have to utilize their satisfaction guarantee.
30-day money-back guarantee
You have 30 days from when you purchase your course or courses to decide if you like Fluenz or not.
It's a good idea, but it needs to improve
The two main priorities of Fluenz seem to be fluency and video-recorded instruction by a live person. It really is nice to receive instruction from someone explaining the concept to you. It's also great to be able to rewatch all of it or sections that take you longer to grasp, and it's fabulous to have the focus on fluency. However, there's more to language acquisition than that. If you want to have the opportunity to learn and practice more complex grammar, Fluenz doesn't offer it. There's also no placement test - you'll have to guess where to start if you already know some French.
It lacks too much
If you're a beginner learning French, Fluenz could be good for you. They put you in conversational situations and they explain the workings of French in English. You can even watch a person explain French to you, much like in a classroom setting. But, given that there's no placement test, no choice of learning and practicing advanced grammar, terrible feedback on your writing, and no free trial or sample lessons, we just can't rate Fluenz higher.
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When we think of someone speaking French, we think soothing and seductive, as it's simply dreamy to hear. We think of the romance of Paris with the Eiffel Tower, of Southern France with the rolling lavender fields, of the Alps with the snow-capped mountains, of the coast with the warm sandy beaches. And of course there's the decadent French food and wine.
Learning French allows you to more fully enjoy French culture. When you learn French, it opens the door to learning phrases that the French speakers use in conversation, manners and mannerisms, how the French live and interact in everyday situations, and perhaps gaining an appreciation and insight into their art and history. There are so many doors to be unlocked once you take the first step.
French Lesson FAQ
Continued from above...
Naturally, when we think French we think of France. Yet French is actually a global language and the official language of 29 countries, so you can practice your French language skills in more than one place. French is also a heritage language in all or part of Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and even the US - like Louisiana.
Picking up the French language may be easier than you might think. Some of us are intimidated by the unusual sounds and the silent letters, but did you know that there are many words that look like English? We'll bet you know these French words: table, responsable, ambiance, brilliance. There are about 1,700 words in French that look like the English word, so there's a good start.
When choosing among the several options for online French lessons, here are some things to consider:
- Free trial. Look to see if there's a chance to try out the lessons before you buy them to see if this is how you want to learn and to see if you'll stay motivated. Most options include at least a free trial, and some have free access to a limited amount of lessons so you might be able to get all of what you want for free.
- How they teach. Today there is such a variety of teaching methods in the various online French lesson companies. You can learn individual words with flashcards first and then build to speaking or reading. Some teach by where you hear conversational phrases and build on those. Some build their lessons around grammar and vocabulary while others don't teach grammar specifically - you'll innately catch on the more you practice. Some cut to the chase like textbooks and some use AR and VR to keep you hooked and motivated.
- How much French you may already know. If you're a beginner, the French lesson world is your oyster - there's so much for you to choose from. If you are at the advanced level and want to polish your skills, most online programs don't teach to your level; though there are a few that could work for you.
- Your budget. There are some programs where you should be able to get quite a bit of practice for free. Others have a reasonable cost. Some have options for you to have a one-on-one instructor, and those will cost a bit more.
- One-time purchase or monthly subscription. There's the good, old fashioned way of purchasing a course, and that's where you keep the lessons, learning at your own pace, guilt-free if you need to take a long break. The subscription method is where you pay per month or year to use the product and it automatically renews at the end of that subscription time. You'll be motivated to not take a long hiatus from lessons if you know that your subscription auto renews whether you use it or not.
- Satisfaction guarantee. Most have a period of time where you can try out the courses to know if you really like them and want to continue. If you're not happy within that time, simply ask for a full refund
Top Consumer Reviews has researched and ranked the most popular French courses available today, to make it easy for you to choose how you'll want to learn French. Whether you're thinking of learning French for the first time or brushing up on what you may have taken in high school, now is a great time to learn French online as there are such a variety of French lesson programs out there. We're sure you'll find at least one that you'd like to try.
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