French A1 — Core Vocabulary flashcards
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One hundred A1 words: thirty of the verbs beginners use most, with their key forms, forty-nine everyday nouns by theme with gender, the adverb actuellement, and twenty adjectives with all four forms, position (BAGS) and the false friends that trip up English speakers.
Learn deck · part of French A1–A2 · written against: CEFR A1–A2; standard metropolitan French; the vocabulary is 1,000 of the most frequent everyday words of an OpenSubtitles 2018 frequency list, since DELF publishes no word list. Updated 2026-10-10.
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être (v.) (je suis, nous sommes)to beEssential verbs
Nous sommes en vacances jusqu'à jeudi. — We are on holiday until Thursday.
Watch out: After il/elle est, a job on its own takes no article: Elle est infirmière = She is a nurse. After c'est it takes one: C'est une infirmière, C'est une bonne infirmière. Full present: suis, es, est, sommes, êtes, sont. -
mettre (v.) (je mets, nous mettons)to put; to put on (clothes)Everyday verbs
Mets tes bottes, le jardin est plein de boue. — Put your boots on, the garden is full of mud.
Watch out: It also measures time taken: Je mets vingt minutes pour venir = It takes me twenty minutes to get here. -
habiter (v.) (j'habite, nous habitons)to live (in a place)Home & daily life
J'habite à Bordeaux depuis deux ans. — I have lived in Bordeaux for two years.
Watch out: The h is silent, so je becomes j'. Habiter is only about where you live; vivre covers life in general. -
manger (v.) (je mange, nous mangeons)to eatFood & shopping
Le midi, nous mangeons à la cantine. — At lunchtime we eat in the canteen.
Watch out: nous mangeons keeps the e so the g stays soft; every -ger verb does this (nous voyageons). -
partir (v.) (je pars, nous partons)to leave, to set offTown & travel
Notre train part à sept heures du matin. — Our train leaves at seven in the morning.
Watch out: partir takes no direct object: say partir de + a place, or use quitter, which takes the place or the person directly: Nous quittons l'hôtel demain matin. -
français (adj.)French (français / française / français / françaises)Nature & the world
J'adore la cuisine française. — I love French cooking.
Watch out: No capital for the adjective or the language (le français); capital only for the people: les Français. -
travailler (v.) (je travaille, nous travaillons)to workWork & study
Le samedi, mon oncle travaille à la boulangerie du quartier. — On Saturdays my uncle works at the local bakery.
Watch out: Present + depuis covers an action still going on: Je travaille ici depuis mars = I have worked here since March. -
lire (v.) (je lis, nous lisons)to readFree time & culture
Le soir, ma grand-mère lit des romans policiers. — In the evenings my grandmother reads detective novels.
Watch out: An s appears in the plural: nous lisons, ils lisent. -
parler (v.) (je parle, nous parlons)to speak; to talkTalking & thinking
Vous parlez anglais ? — Do you speak English?
Watch out: Languages are masculine and take no capital: le français, l'allemand. -
grand (adj.)big; tall; great (grand / grande / grands / grandes)Describing words
Le chat dort dans un grand carton près du radiateur. — The cat sleeps in a big cardboard box near the radiator.
Watch out: A BAGS adjective (size), so it goes before the noun. Position can change the meaning: un grand homme = a great man, un homme grand = a tall man.
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About these cards
Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.
Checked against:
- Checked against the Larousse and Le Robert online dictionaries, the TLFi (CNRTL), the Bescherelle conjugation tables, the Académie française's 1990 spelling rectifications, the Larousse and Cambridge French–English dictionaries for glosses, the OQLF Grand dictionnaire terminologique for Québec usage, Service-Public.gouv.fr for French restaurant rules, Eurydice (European Commission) for French school ages, UNESCO's listing of the gastronomic meal of the French and the OpenSubtitles 2018 frequency list (hermitdave/FrequencyWords: word lists CC BY-SA 4.0) for verb frequency, with the Council of Europe CEFR A1 descriptors for level placement (reference only; no text copied). All example sentences are original.
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