French reads easier than it sounds. English has borrowed so much of it that a page of French is half guessable, and then someone says a sentence out loud and every word you were relying on has lost its ending. Nearly everyone arrives able to read more than they can hear. Speaking is what closes that gap.
The classic beginner sentence, and the classic beginner fix. Note that the conversation does not pause for it.
Parle, parles and parlent are one sound. Half of what your eyes rely on is silent, which is why reading fluently teaches you almost nothing about understanding a sentence at speed.
Vous avez is not two words when spoken, it is vou-zavez. Whole phrases arrive as a single block of sound, and beginners hear one long unfamiliar word instead of three familiar ones.
The u in tu, the nasal vowels in vin, vent and bon. Your mouth has never made these shapes, and no amount of reading will teach them. They only come from saying them and being told, gently, that you are not there yet.
Most people can read French comfortably years before they can follow two French people talking to each other.
Real spoken French leans on a handful of small phrases. These buy you time and keep the other person talking, which is what you need most at the start.
| Say this | When |
|---|---|
| Vous pouvez répéter ?voo poo-vay ray-pay-TAY | Ask early and often. French speakers do not slow down for a nod. |
| Comment on dit... ?koh-mahn on DEE | The word is missing, the sentence does not have to be. Ask in the middle of it. |
| Du coupdew KOO | Starts an enormous share of spoken sentences. Roughly "so", and almost impossible to overuse. |
| Ça marchesa MARSH | "Works for me." Agreement, plans, ordering. Everywhere. |
| Je ne sais pas tropzhuh nuh say pah TROH | "I am not really sure." Softer than a flat no, and buys thinking time. |
The safe rule is vous with strangers and anyone older or senior, tu with friends, family, children and colleagues who have offered it. The rule everyone forgets is that vous with someone your own age, in a bar, is its own kind of mistake. It is not rude, it is distant.
This is exactly the sort of thing that only shows up in conversation. Dosti follows the register you set, and flags it when the choice does not fit the situation you are in.
You are hearing French at conversational speed from the first minute, with a repeat available whenever you need one and no cost to asking.
The fixed sentence comes with the reason, so avoir versus être stops being a guess.
On Pro, pronunciation is scored per sound, which is how you find out whether your vin and vent are actually landing differently.
Because spoken French runs words together. Liaison links the end of one word to the start of the next, and unstressed vowels get swallowed, so a sentence you would read easily arrives as one long sound. The only fix is hearing a lot of it, at conversational speed, with the freedom to ask for a repeat.
Metropolitan French, the standard of France. Quebec, Belgian and West African French are all welcome in what you say, and Dosti will follow your vocabulary rather than flattening it.
Vous until someone offers you tu, with one exception: people your own age in casual settings, where vous can read as cold. Dosti will use whichever you use and tell you when the choice sounds off for the situation.
Two minutes, no account. Ask for a repeat as many times as you like, nobody is counting.
Start speaking French