Starting French from zero: what to do in your first four weeks

English speakers' biggest early mistake is reading French as if it were English. Spend the first week on the sound system: nasal vowels (an, on, in), the French u and r, silent final consonants, and liaison (how les amis becomes "lé-z-ami"). Once you know these rules, you can pronounce almost any written word correctly, and recognise spoken words you already know in writing.

• être (to be) and avoir (to have) in the present: you'll use them in every sentence and in the past tense later.
• Regular -er verbs in the present (parler, travailler, habiter): about 90% of French verbs follow this pattern.
• aller + infinitive for the near future: Je vais apprendre le français. An easy way to talk about plans from week two.
• Negation with ne … pas, and questions with est-ce que and intonation.
• Gender and articles (le/la/un/une): learn every noun with its article from day one.
• The 300 most frequent words, with spaced-repetition flashcards.

Words ending in -tion, -ment, -ité (= -ity), -eux (= -ous) and -ique (= -ic) are usually recognisable. Responsabilité, gouvernement, dangereux, électronique: you know them already. Learn the patterns and your passive vocabulary jumps in weeks. Read more in you already know thousands of French words.

• Collecting apps and courses instead of following one.
• Learning nouns without their gender.
• Only reading and never speaking aloud, which makes listening harder later.
• Waiting to feel "ready" before speaking. Say simple sentences from week two.