Games to help improve your French language skills

Improving your French language skills is all about making learning fun and incorporating it into your everyday life.

One of the best ways is to go about your life in the language you are learning; from shopping and reading to watching films and playing games in French.

On the latter, here are some you can play to improve your French.

Scrabble

This is a great one to get your brain thinking and seeing words in French.

You might learn new words from other players, and it will help you to cement spelling in your brain as well as reboot your mind to think in French first rather than translating.

Crosswords

This is another good word game to help reset your mind to French. You can buy books of French crossword puzzles where the clues and words are all in French.

It will help you to remember new vocabulary as you are likely to create a link between the word and the clue it was paired with.

Cards Against Humanity

This is a great way to get your head around lesecond degré - a form of humour French people often use!

The aim of the game is pairing two cards together to make the funniest phrase.

It is always a fun one to play in your second language, and often you can end up winning by being unintentionally funny!

Quickfire fun

Everyone loves this game, whether you are at a dinner party or in a classroom with students.

To begin, everyone writes four words on four separate pieces of paper. These can pretty much be anything, from a place to a person in common that everyone knows, to a concept - anything goes.

The group is then split into teams; there can be between 2-4 people in each team depending on the group size.

Each group then has one minute to describe and guess, in French, as many of the words as possible.

Once all of the words have been guessed, you put all the words back in the bag and start again, this time describing each word with only one word - again in French.

When all of the words have been guessed, again all the words go back in the bag and the final round commences - where each team acts out the word.

This is a good quickfire game to keep people on their toes and thinking fast in French.

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Would I Lie to You?

This is based on the BBC TV show Would I Lie to You?

It starts by giving everyone five minutes to come up with an elaborate story - in French - that is either a truth or a lie.

Then each person takes it in turns to tell their story. The other players can ask questions of the storyteller to try and determine whether it is a truth or lie before everyone votes for truth or lie.

This is a good way to practise telling stories in French, as well as working on question-asking.

Read also: Updated: Your tips on how best to improve French language skills

Uno

This might sound simple, but it is great to play with people who are just starting out as well as developed learners.

You can use the same pack of Uno cards, and just make sure that all your exchanges are in French.

Le jeu du chat perdu

This is like a French version of Scabby Queen.

The aim of the game is to match pairs without being left with the singular chat perdu card.

This one is good for practising alphabet sounds.

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