French vocabulary lists, grouped by topic: food, travel, work, health and the body, emotions, the daily routine, days and months, plus the 100 most common nouns and verbs. Each noun carries le or la, and every page explains what the words alone don't show, from gender endings to false friends. The common nouns list is the place to start.
- French taught
- France French
- List size
- 40 to 100 words, printed in full
- Nouns
- With le or la, including the gender that l' hides
- Beyond the list
- Gender endings, false friends, verbs with their prepositions
- In context
- Lines quoted from Contos chapters on every list
- The most common French nouns: 100 everyday words with le and la100 everyday French nouns with le or la, the endings that predict gender, plurals like les yeux, and nouns with two meanings, with real story lines.
- The most common French verbs: 100 to learn first100 everyday French verbs in the infinitive, with être, avoir, aller and faire, the three verb groups, savoir versus connaître, and real story lines.
- French daily routine vocabulary: 60 words from waking up to bedtime60 French words for the daily routine: reflexive verbs like je me lève, how often with toujours and jamais, weather, chores, and real story lines.
- Days of the week and months in FrenchThe French days of the week and months, why they take no capital, lundi versus le lundi, how to write dates, seasons and real story lines.
- French words for emotions and personality: 60 words60 French words for feelings and personality, with feminine forms, avoir peur and tu me manques explained, and lines from Contos stories.
- French food vocabulary: 60 words, from le pain to l'addition60 French food and restaurant words with le or la, the gender that l' hides, du pain and de l'eau explained, and real lines from Contos stories.
- French words for the body and health: 50 words50 French words for the body and health, how to say what hurts with avoir mal à, le médecin versus le médicament, and lines from Contos stories.
- French travel vocabulary: 60 words for airports, hotels and directions60 French travel words with their articles, false friends like le parking and le camping, asking the way, and real lines from Contos stories.
- Useful everyday French verbs: 100 more to learn100 more everyday French verbs, from être d'accord to collectionner, with the preposition each one takes, reflexive verbs and false friends like rester.
- French work and office vocabulary: 60 words60 French words for work and the office, how to say your job without un or une, false friends like la tâche, and lines from Contos stories.
Which French vocabulary topic should come first?
Learn the 100 most common nouns and the 100 most common verbs before any topic. Être, avoir, aller and faire hold up most French sentences, and the nouns page shows which endings predict whether a word is masculine or feminine.
After that, follow your plans. A trip to France calls for food and travel; the travel page also flags false friends such as le parking. For talking about your own life, take the daily routine and emotions. Work, health and the body and days and months round out the everyday set, and 100 more useful verbs waits for when the first hundred feel easy.
How do you remember whether a French noun is le or la?
Learn the article with the noun from day one, and watch the endings. Many are reliable guides: words in -tion, -té and -erie are usually feminine, words in -ment and -age usually masculine. Where a noun starts with a vowel, l' hides the gender, so the list pages show it anyway.
Stories help because an adjective or an un/une nearby gives the gender away. In this A1 line, une tells you a bakery is feminine, as almost every shop name in -erie is:
Camille habite au-dessus d'une boulangerie.When you meet a new noun in a chapter, save it with its article. Over a few weeks the endings start to feel right before you can say why.
Frequently asked questions
How many French words do you need to know?
Fewer than you might fear for easy reading. Contos moves readers to A2 at 500 known words, B1 at 1,500 and B2 at 4,000. How many French words you need explains the research and what counts as a word.
What are French false friends?
Words that look English but mean something else. La librairie is a bookshop, not a library; rester means to stay, not to rest; le parking is a car park. The topic pages point out the false friends in each set.
Should I learn French words from lists or from reading?
Both, in that order. A list gives you a first look at a topic; reading shows each word in a sentence, with its gender and the words that usually go with it. Words you meet in a story are the ones worth saving as flashcards.
Are these lists for France French?
Yes. The words and examples are the ones used in France. The vocabulary is standard enough to be understood in Belgium, Switzerland and Quebec too.