Listen to our free podcasts and learn or improve your French on the go, where and when it suits you.
Take the next step and sign up for a course on the Coffee Break Academy, accessing video materials, lesson notes and bonus audio content.
Improve your vocabulary, build your language skills and keep up with the Coffee Break French team on social media.
Coffee Break French is currently available in four levels, represented by each “season”. Each season features 40 lessons.
Each series is slightly different in the way in which it is presented and in the materials provided. Scroll down for more information and to find out about our En Route course.
Each Season of Coffee Break French offers a huge amount of free content available as audio podcasts. You can access these on our website, on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify and each lesson lasts around 15-20 minutes - the perfect Coffee Break length!
If you'd like to take your learning further and make faster progress, we offer a full online course for each Season. Resources include bonus audio materials, video episodes and lesson notes. See below for further details for each Season.
The £GBP price quoted above includes VAT for the UK. VAT is added automatically at the local rate for customers purchasing within the EU. Customers from elsewhere in the world will not pay VAT. Please note also that we offer bundles of multiple seasons on the Coffee Break Academy.
Join the conversation with the Coffee French team on social media! We post regular language and cultural information on Facebook, and you can keep up with Coffee Break Languages on Instagram.
Follow Coffee Break French on Facebook and practise your language skills with our cultural and language posts three times a week.
Keep up to date with our latest news and lessons. You can find us on Twitter where we're @learnfrench.
Over on the Coffee Break Languages YouTube channel, you'll find useful videos to help you improve your French. Read on for more information.
Come behind the scenes with the Coffee Break team, and build your vocabulary and understanding with our regular Instagram stories. Follow @coffeebreaklanguages .
Join teacher Mark and learner Anna for 40 lessons of basic French. You’ll start by learning to introduce yourself and master greetings, and then work through a range of topics which are useful to anyone travelling in a French-speaking area. You’ll not simply be repeating phrases: instead you’ll learn how the language works and you’ll understand what you’re saying.
Topics include greetings, introducing yourself, talking about your family, your likes and dislikes and your job. You’ll also learn to use French in a variety of transactional situations, including ordering food and drinks, using public transport, asking for directions, going shopping and much more.
The premium version of Season 1 includes bonus materials to help you make faster progress with your learning. In addition to the main audio lesson, you’ll also have access to a video version of this lesson where you’ll see the words on the screen of your device. There’s also a bonus audio episode and comprehensive lesson notes to help you get to grips with the language taught. This course is available on the Coffee Break Academy.
Season 2 puts French grammar into a range of contexts. For example you’ll learn to use the present tense to make arrangements and talk about your daily routine. You’ll also learn to use past tenses and how to describe things using adjectives. You’ll build on the transactional areas of vocabulary covered in Season 1 and apply your new-found knowledge of the language to these areas.
The premium version of Season 2 are similar to those of Season 1 and these bonus materials will help you make faster progress with your learning. In addition to the main audio lesson, you’ll also have access to a video version of this lesson where you’ll see the words on the screen of your device. There’s also a bonus audio episode and comprehensive lesson notes to help you get to grips with the language taught. This course is available on the Coffee Break Academy.
Season 3 will help you take your French a stage further, to an upper intermediate level. You’ll be following the story of three students of the language who are taking a French course in the city of Nice on the French Riviera. Through the journal entries of Katy, Alf and Veronica, you’ll be exposed to a range of complex structures and interesting vocabulary.
Since Season 3 follows a story, we’ll not be dealing with specific topics as such in this course, but you’ll cover a whole range of vocabulary areas as you read about the adventures of our three characters. Learning a language is about building your range of language structures and by following these stories you’ll do just that. In terms of grammar, we’ll cover the future and conditional, help you build your confidence with past tenses, and you’ll also learn about a variety of grammar points.
The online course for Season 3 includes additional materials to help you make faster progress with the language. In addition to the main audio episode for each lesson, you’ll get access to a specially extended audio episode which we call the Language Study episode. In this episode we’ll explain in detail the entire text for each lesson, and you’ll be tested with some translations. You’ll also get access to the lesson notes which provide further examples of the language covered in each lesson.
Season 4 is aimed at advanced students of French. You’ll be following the story of Sylvie, who is working at a Parisian publishing company, and Matthieu, a young accountant, also working in the city. Over the course of the 40 lessons of the series, you’ll develop a solid understanding of complex grammar and idiomatic expressions. The course is presented by teacher Mark and native speaker Pierre-Benoît.
In each episode you’ll listen to a recording of email exchanges between Sylvie and her mother Monique, and between Matthieu and his friend and confidente Gabrielle. Through the exchanges you’ll cover a huge range of topics, and build your understanding of tricky French grammar points including the subjunctive, various pronouns and much more
The course includes two audio episodes per lesson. In the first of these, Mark and Pierre-Benoît pick out some key phrases and grammar points included in the text for the lesson and discuss these, providing further examples. In the second audio episode, the Language Study episode, you’ll go through the text in its entirety, and all complex grammar points will be explained. The online course also features the full transcript of both episodes, along with vocabulary and explanations.
For intermediate/advanced learners we also offer En Route avec Coffee Break French. In this ten-lesson series you’ll join Mark and the Coffee Break team “en route” in the south of France and you’ll listen to interviews with people who live or work in the area. These conversations feature authentic French, with a whole range of different accents and speeds of delivery, so it’s the perfect way to improve your listening comprehension.
Each episode of En Route centres around a different topic, from local tourist attractions to culinary specialities. You’ll learn about what it’s like to live on a linguistic border between France and Italy, you’ll discover the local area and its history and culture, and you’ll be filled with the desire to visit this area for yourself to try out your own French!
The online course for En Route offers additional materials in the form of extended audio episodes and bonus interviews, all of which have full transcripts provided with notes and explanations about the language used where necessary. There’s also exclusive video content which will help you get to know the area that bit better – and practise your French at the same time.
Each episode of the Magazine focuses on a different topic. In addition the episdoes include a phone-in segment where the Coffee Break team will answer listeners’ questions.
Each episode of En Route centres around a different topic, from local tourist attractions to culinary specialities. You’ll learn about what it’s like to live on a linguistic border between France and Italy, you’ll discover the local area and its history and culture, and you’ll be filled with the desire to visit this area for yourself to try out your own French!
The online course for the Coffee Break French Magazine offers additional text materials to support the audio lessons. These include transcripts and notes, vocabulary lists and exercises.
We publish regular lessons both in the Coffee Break French podcast feed and on our YouTube channel. Here’s a selection of our most recent lessons.
In this episode of the Coffee Break French Magazine, we’re heading to the French-speaking area of Quebec in Canada and finding out more about how the French spoken there is different from the French spoken in France. We also look
The Past Historic (in French passé simple) is a special tense used mostly in written French to relate narrative events in the past. In this episode of Walk, Talk and Learn, Mark spots an example of the Past Historic on
In the latest episode of the Coffee Break French Magazine, we’re heading to the “crossroads of Europe”, the city of Strasbourg in the heart of Alsace. Find out about the traditions, the food, the history and the culture of this
You may be familiar with ne … plus meaning “no longer”, and ne … que meaning “only”, but what about ne … plus que? Do you know what this means? It’s a really useful phrase and in this episode of Walk,
In this episode of the Coffee Break French Magazine we’re taking a trip to the movies to see one of the all time classics of French cinema, Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête. You’ll learn more about the film
In Episode 2 of Season 1 of the Coffee Break French Magazine, we discuss the French author and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of Le Petit Prince. In the Q&A section, Mark discusses the difference between the imperfect and perfect
Coffee Break French is a production of the Radio Lingua Network and we produce all Coffee Break Languages courses, along with One Minute Languages and High Five Languages for younger learners. The Radio Lingua team is made up of experienced teachers and native speakers and we’re based in Glasgow, Scotland. To find out more about the team, visit our Meet The Team section of the website.
We offer free content in the form of audio podcasts for each of the seasons of Coffee Break French. In the audio podcasts you’ll be able to build your understanding of French and hear how words are pronounced. However, there’s no guidance on how the words are written. This is where the online course comes in. The course offers additional materials:
If you’re serious about learning French we would suggest that you consider the online course to help you make faster progress with the lessons and build a deeper understanding of the language.
*Please note that the video lessons currently feature only in Season 1 and 2 courses. We plan to add video versions of the Season 3 and 4 lessons soon.
Our audio podcasts are free and you can access them here on the website, on your favourite podcast app, or on Spotify. We offer a paid online course which provides additional materials. The cost for one season is £96.00 GBP including VAT, or $104.00 USD excluding VAT. Please see above for further information on pricing.
We do not currently have an app version of Coffee Break French. In the past we have had problems with a group of developers who have stolen our content and published it within paid-for apps. These apps are not published by Coffee Break Languages. We’ve written extensively about this situation on our website. Please do not purchase our content through these apps. The only way to access Coffee Break French lesson notes, bonus audio and video versions is through the Coffee Break Academy.
The Coffee Break French Masterclass is a special 6-month course which normally runs twice a year. This is a guided course in which intermediate learners can build their confidence and understanding of grammar in a structured way. We provide individual feedback on homework activities, and the course features six modules covering a range of topics. To find out when the next Masterclass is running, click here.
We do not currently offer one-on-one Skype lessons. If this is something which interests you, we would suggest that you sign up with our partner italki where you can access individual teachers and native speakers to practise your French. Visit italki.com to get a voucher for $10 USD in italki Credits when you purchase your first lesson.
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