Learn French for English speakers
French stories at your level, English translation on every word. The fastest path from school French to actually reading Le Monde.
Free to start · no card · your first story in 10 seconds
What English speakers already know
Roughly 30% of English vocabulary comes from French — direct legacy of the 1066 Norman conquest. Words like restaurant, voyage, government, decision, attention map almost one-to-one. Same Latin alphabet, similar punctuation, SVO word order. You walk in with thousands of "free" words even if you've never studied French.
The friction points
- Silent letters and liaisons mean what's written and what's spoken diverge wildly — reading is friendlier than listening at first.
- Two past tenses (passé composé vs imparfait), the subjunctive, and the conditional all need exposure to feel intuitive.
- Gendered nouns with arbitrary-looking assignment (le pain, la table) — accept it early, the patterns emerge from input.
- Native colloquial French drops ne in negation, contracts pronouns, and uses idioms textbooks ignore.
False friends to know first
Words that look familiar but mean something else. The first ones to learn so you don't embarrass yourself.
What French looks like in Newt
Generated by Newt at the level you set. Tap any word for an instant English translation, definition, and pronunciation — no leaving the page.
Hier soir, j'ai vu un film français au cinéma près de chez moi.
Yesterday evening, I saw a French film at the cinema near my place.
Cinéma, film, français — half the sentence is borrowed back from English.
Si j'avais plus de temps, je lirais davantage en français.
If I had more time, I would read more in French.
Conditional (lirais) + imperfect (avais) — the building blocks of nuanced expression.
Why English speakers pick up French
Expats in Paris and Lyon, English speakers with French partners, study-abroad students, Quebec-curious Canadians, NGO workers in francophone Africa — French is one of the most-studied second languages on Earth, and most English-speaking learners plateau at B1 because they never start reading native content. This is where that bridge gets built.
Read → tap → save → repeat
- Tell Newt what you care aboutPick a topic (cycling, history, coffee, indie games — anything). Newt writes you a short French story around it at your level.
- Tap any word for instant translationTap a word — Newt shows the English translation, definition, and pronunciation in a popup. No page-switching.
- Save the ones you don't know yetSaved words land in your vocabulary list with the sentence you met them in — context comes free.
- Newt reuses them in your next storyEach new story tries to fold in 2-3 words you recently saved, so you meet them again in fresh context. That's how vocabulary actually sticks.
- Spaced repetition catches what slippedA short daily review session brings back words the algorithm thinks you're about to forget. Same idea as Anki, except you never had to build the deck.
Common questions
How is this different from Duolingo for French?
Duolingo teaches isolated phrases in a fixed curriculum. Newt generates short stories from topics you actually care about, at your current level, with every word tappable for an instant English translation. Words you save come back automatically in future stories — that's the part that makes vocabulary stick.
How is this different from asking ChatGPT to write me a French text?
ChatGPT can write you a story, but it forgets everything between sessions. It doesn't know which words you already learned, doesn't space them out for review, and doesn't quietly weave your saved words into the next story. Newt does all of that — it's a closed loop, not a one-shot prompt.
What level of French do I need to start?
Any. Newt supports A1 (complete beginner) through C1 (advanced). At A1 you'll get short, very simple texts with high-frequency vocabulary; at B2+ you'll get nuanced articles and stories. The system calibrates as you tap and save words.
Is it free?
Yes — there's a free plan with 3 fresh AI texts every day, no card required to sign up. Premium lifts the daily cap and lets you study multiple languages at once; you can upgrade anytime.
How long until I can read a real book in French?
Realistic timeline for English speakers: 4-8 months of consistent daily reading (15-30 min) to read a young-adult novel comfortably, 12+ months to read literary fiction. The single biggest predictor is hours of input — Newt's job is to make those hours easy to start.
Start reading French tonight
Pick a topic, your first story lands in 10 seconds. Free to start, no card.