Category: Free French Listening Comprehension Practice

Tip: don’t click the ‘play’ buttons on this page. Instead…

  1. use this page to browse among the sample listening exercises.
  2. Then, once you find an exercise that you like, click the title of that exercise to go to the individual exercise page.

The sound-looping tool works better from the individual listening pages than it does from this page.

2 minutes of French listening

From the FluentListener newsletter
Direct link for members : Le soldat inconnu vivant – The living uknown soldier

Hello All,
To help you with your listening habit: 2 minutes of listening today – play this sound 6 times.

It doesn’t matter if you hear one word or all of them. All that matters is that you learn to recognize one or two new words today.


For members: link to the complete interview: Le soldat inconnu vivant – The living uknown soldier

Best regards,
David Tolman

Hearing ‘je lui ai dit’ in spoken French

Some of you will make the mistake of thinking, ‘If it’s this hard, then I’m not ready for spoken French.’
Please watch this video for my thoughts on that.

Subscribers, this is from the Fleuriste interview. Original interview and slow-echoing version are here… Une Fleuriste à Saint-Rémy de Provence

French pronunciation – be careful with SH sounds

Video for this exercise.
The two steps to correcting your pronunciation are…

  1. notice that the word is NOT pronounced as you thought
  2. make the correct pronunciation automatic by saying it out loud a few times

Today’s lesson came to mind this weekend when I heard a fellow American pronounce the French word ‘dictionnaire’ with an SH sound. So, instead of pronouncing it as the French do, deek See oh naire, she said deek SHee oh naire.


Subscribers, this is from the Fleuriste interview. Original interview and slow-echoing version (like you hear in today’s exercise) are here… Une Fleuriste à Saint-Rémy de Provence

Dropped vowels in spoken French

Video Lesson Tip: to focus on a particular word, move the green bars closer together.

Subscribers – get the whole interview here: Monsieur Halloumi – épicier à Paris

More short French listening exercises

French listening exercise – renting a cottage in Provence

Tip: to focus on a particular word, move the green bars closer together.
Original :

Slowed-down 25%



Already a paying member? Complete interview: Louer un gîte rural en France.
Download the MP3s and PDF

Not ready to join but want to improve your French? Sign up for our email newsletter and get a new sample every week.