French Classes in Paris
Whether you’re coming to Paris to live, or even on vacation, there are plenty of French classes for everyone from débutants (beginners), to those looking to master the complexities of those elusive French verbs.
While I don’t personally make any recommendations, you can visit their sites to check for class times, size, and prices. Some schools do offer housing for longer programs and you can even get student visas if you sign up for longer sessions, which is helpful if you’d like to stay in Paris for a while.
Another plus to enrolling in a school is with a student ID, you can get discounts in museums and at the movies. Plus many gyms, travel companies, and sporting facilities give substantial student discounts in Paris.
A few tips:
- Smaller classes may be better, but in some of the smaller schools when there’s not enough students, they tend to group people in a class with people at various levels if there’s not enough students enrolled. So you may be with people more or less advanced than you are.
- Conversely, in some of the more well-known or larger schools, the classes are very large. Consider the attention and how much you’d learn in a room of 25 people versus 6 people.
- If a school is too far away, you might not be so motivated to go to class if it takes 3 métro transfers to get there.
- Get yourself a good French dictionary and verb guide. Those French verbs are killers and you’ll need all the help you can to tackle them.
- If you’re visiting Paris and just want to meet some people, consider doing a language swap. Try one of the inexpensive language exchanges at Let Them Talk, Konversando, and Paris Parler.
- Consider a tutor. Although the interaction that happens in a classroom might be beneficial, if the class is too large, or has people of different levels (which is often the case) sometimes it’s good to get one-on-one attention. Some places to look for tutors are FUSAC, Craigslist, and Paris Pages.
French Language Schools in Paris
Establissement Privé d’Enseignment Superieur
Institut de Langues et de Commerce International
Sorbonne French Language and Civilization Courses