The moment your feet touch French territory, you may suddenly realize that all the French words you memorized

previous ones have escaped you and suddenly your mind goes blank. When you find your brain suddenly blank and your

Suddenly tongue tied in the middle of French territory, here are some quick phrases that are sure to save the day.

A quick fix

The phrase that will definitely save the day right away would be:

Someone speaks English? Which, in French is: Does anyone speak English? You can also opt for the shorter version which is: Do you speak English or Parles’tu anglais? For a more formal version, say: Do you speak English?

When someone suddenly walks up to you and speaks to you in a barrage of French words and you don’t understand, say:

No I do not understand. If you understand, say: I understand.

Hey, let’s talk about the weather

Naturally, while you are in French territory, you want to talk about something and what better topic than to talk about the weather?

Fortunately, when the subject is the weather, it doesn’t take too many French words to make it sound fluent. If it’s cold, all you need to say is: it’s cold, which means exactly that. If the opposite is true and it is hot, then say: it is hot. When there is fog you can say: there is fog. When it’s windy, let’s say there’s wind. When there is snow on the horizon, you can express it by saying that it is snowing or that it is snowing. Talking about the weather in a nutshell is a great way to get strangers to agree with you and open up a conversation.

This is also perfect for new French speakers who want to practice their general conversation skills. For the braver souls who want to show that they know French slang better than most, they can go ahead and say it’s raining strings, which is the French version of saying it’s pouring with rain. On French soil, however, this phrase literally means that it’s raining ropes, which is their version of cats and dogs. Naturally, you want to match the actual weather to the correct phrase.

question everything

Regardless of how long you plan to stay on French territory, knowing some useful question words like our

version of how, when or where will always be useful. This is particularly true when you don’t have a human

translator anywhere near you. Since you will most likely be shopping for things, knowing how to ask the price of anything is a good idea. Say: How much does it cost? When asking how much an item costs. If asked what time does the train leave, say When does the train leave? Regardless of what other French lessons teach you, perhaps the most important question is knowing where the toilet is and discovering that all you need to say is Ou est les toilets? Which literally means where are the toilets?

Learning French for beginners doesn’t have to be complicated. Like all things, taking small steps is the key to success. French lessons are available everywhere and finding what works for you can be as simple as 1-2-3.

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