Learning French at A1: a 30-day study plan

What A1 really asks of you

A1 does not ask you to understand everything. It asks you to cope with the most common situations: introducing yourself, asking a price, ordering, saying where you live and following simple instructions. One month is enough to build that base if you work regularly.

Plan for 45 minutes a day, six days a week. A short daily session beats one long session on Sunday.

The four-week plan

• Week 1 — sounds and introductions. The alphabet, numbers up to 100, greetings, the verb être in the present tense and subject pronouns. Goal: say ten sentences about yourself without hesitating.
• Week 2 — objects and places. Definite and indefinite articles, the verb avoir, noun gender and plurals. Goal: describe your home and your bag in twenty sentences.
• Week 3 — everyday actions. Regular -er verbs in the present, telling the time, the days of the week, negation with ne… pas. Goal: describe a typical day.
• Week 4 — real exchanges. Asking questions, the verbs aller, faire and venir, the near future. Goal: hold a three-minute dialogue at the bakery or the station.

How to spend the 45 minutes

Split every session into three blocks. Fifteen minutes of vocabulary with flashcards, fifteen minutes of active grammar, fifteen minutes of listening or speaking. The last block is the one learners skip most often, and it is the one that changes your speaking.

Write five sentences a day and read them again the next morning. You will quickly see the three mistakes you keep repeating.

Checking your progress

• Record yourself once a week on the same topic and compare the recordings.
• Redo last week’s exercises without opening the lesson again.
• Write down every unknown word you meet in real life: the list should get shorter.

After these four weeks, move on to the A1 lessons to consolidate, then start the passé composé.