Skip to content
News
A French Teacher’s Letter to Expats about French
January 1, 2026/
I’ve been teaching French for twelve years now, which means I’ve spent quite some time watching perfectly intelligent adults discover that their mouth apparently wasn’t designed for this language. It’s like that scene in Ratatouille where Linguini tries to explain how the rat controls him by pulling his hair, except here it’s me trying to explain why “oiseaux” has seven letters but only three sounds and everyone looking at me like I’m lying.
This week, a student asked me why we have so many letters we don’t pronounce. I told her it’s because French spelling was standardized centuries ago and nobody wanted to update it. She didn’t laugh.
Before you start learning French: Grammar is not going to be your only problem. It’s also understanding that we have numbers that require mental arithmetic. Ninety-nine is “quatre-vingt-dix-neuf.” Four times twenty plus nineteen. We got to seventy and decided to just start doing math instead of inventing new words.
I have students who’ve studied for five years and still panic when ordering coffee. And I have students who’ve been at it for six months who somehow just accept the chaos. The difference isn’t always about intelligence or effort. Sometimes people are just better at making peace with adversity.
For example we have this sound, the French “r,” that you make in the back of your throat. English speakers try to roll it. Wrong. It’s that sound you make when you’re about to spit. Romance, right?
If you don’t have already quit when you start to learn about gender, then you should be good. Every noun has a gender and there’s no real system. Yes you read it right, every noun in French has one. Every. Single. One. A table is feminine, a desk is masculine. Make sense? No. Will you be tested on this? Yes.
And the actual speaking? We don’t say half the letters. “Je ne sais pas” becomes “chai pa” in real conversation. You spend months learning proper French and then French people just speed through it like they’re late for something.
I told you before, some of my students eventually quit. They tried, it didn’t click, they learn Spanish instead where at least things are pronounced how they’re written. I don’t blame them. French is not easy.
But the ones who stick with it usually have a moment where something shifts. Maybe it’s finally understanding someone speaking at normal speed. Maybe it’s getting the “u” sound right. Maybe it’s just accepting that “quatre-vingt-dix-neuf” is genuinely how we say ninety-nine and moving on with your life.
I tell people the truth, which is sometimes there’s not always a good reason for anything. Explaining why we say “j’ai chaud” when we’re hot instead of “je suis chaud” because the second one means you’re horny in slang, or at least that you’re ready for something. Why do we have seventeen verb tenses when most languages get by with three or four.
But if you’re staying, if you’re really committed, then accept it now. It’s going to be confusing for months. Maybe years. The rules won’t start making sense because sometimes there aren’t really rules, just patterns with exceptions.
Though I’ll tell you what I’ve noticed: the people who stop fighting it, who just accept that French is what it is and show up repeatedly, are the ones who eventually get fluent. Badly at first. Making mistakes. It’s part of the journey.
But eventually, Ça fait sens.
Courage. You’re doing better than you think.
Benjamin
