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French A1 — Phrases & Core Grammar flashcards

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Seventy prompts on the A1 essentials: tu vs vous, greetings, three ways to ask a question, articles and contractions, ne…pas, c'est vs il est, possessives, key present-tense verbs, futur proche, passé composé with avoir or être, numbers, time and dates.

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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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  1. When do you say tu and when vous to someone?
    tu to one friend, family member, child or fellow student; vous to one stranger, an older person or anyone in a formal setting, and always to two or more people.

    Watch out: When unsure, start with vous and wait for the other person to suggest On se tutoie ? (Shall we say tu?).
    Greetings & courtesy
  2. What are the three ways to turn Tu parles français. into a yes/no question?
    Intonation: Tu parles français ? (rising voice; the most common in speech)

    Est-ce que: Est-ce que tu parles français ?

    Inversion: Parles-tu français ? (formal, more written)
    Questions
  3. What are the French definite articles (the)?
    le (m.), la (f.), l' (before a vowel or silent h), les (plural)

    le livre, la table, l'école, les enfants.
    Articles & contractions
  4. How do you make Je parle italien. negative?
    Je ne parle pas italien.

    ne goes before the verb and pas after it. Before a vowel or silent h ne becomes n': Je n'aime pas.
    Negation & il y a
  5. C'est or il est: which completes ___ un médecin?
    C'est un médecin.

    Use c'est before an article or determiner + noun (c'est un ami, c'est mon frère) and before a name (c'est Paul).
    C'est vs il est
  6. What are the three forms of my, and what decides which one you use?
    mon (m. sg.), ma (f. sg.), mes (plural)

    They agree with the thing owned, not the owner: a man says ma voiture, a woman says mon vélo. Before a vowel or silent h, mon also replaces ma: mon idée.
    Possessives
  7. What are the present-tense endings of regular -er verbs?
    -e, -es, -e, -ons, -ez, -ent

    je parle, tu parles, il parle, nous parlons, vous parlez, ils parlent. The -e, -es, -e and -ent forms all sound the same.
    Present tense
  8. How do you form the near future (futur proche)? Say I am going to eat.
    aller in the present + infinitive: Je vais manger.

    Nous allons partir demain = We are going to leave tomorrow. Negative: Je ne vais pas manger.
    Future & past
  9. How do you say 70, 71 and 75 in France?
    soixante-dix (70), soixante et onze (71), soixante-quinze (75)

    Literally sixty-ten, sixty-and-eleven, sixty-fifteen: from 70 to 79 you add 10–19 to soixante.
    Numbers
  10. How do you ask the time, and say It's three o'clock?
    Quelle heure est-il ? Il est trois heures.

    Always say heures, even where English drops o'clock; 1:00 is singular: Il est une heure.
    Time & dates

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More French A1–A2 decks

Core VocabularyCore Words: Adjectives, Numbers & Small WordsCore Words: Everyday VerbsCore Words: People, Feelings & IdeasCore Words: Time, Places, Food & Free TimeIn Context: Core WordsVocabularyCore Vocabulary, Part 1Core Vocabulary, Part 2Core Vocabulary, Part 3Core Vocabulary, Part 4Core Vocabulary, Part 5GrammarIn Context: Core Words, Part 1In Context: Core Words, Part 2Practice Questions

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About these cards

Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.

Checked against:

  • Checked against the Bescherelle conjugation and grammar references, the Le Robert and Larousse online dictionaries, the TLFi and the Académie française dictionary (CNRTL), the Académie française guidance on the 1990 spelling corrections, the OQLF Banque de dépannage linguistique for Québec usage, the Base de données lexicographiques panfrancophone (BDLP, Université Laval) for Swiss usage, and the Council of Europe CEFR A1 descriptors for level placement (reference only; no text copied). All example sentences are original.

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