I've taught thousands of English speakers over the years, and I can tell you with absolute certainty: most of you make the same seven mistakes. It doesn't matter if you're British, American, Canadian, or Australian. It doesn't matter if you're a complete beginner or someone who's been studying for ten years. The same patterns come up again and again.

The good news? Once you know what to look for, these mistakes are surprisingly easy to fix. Some of them you can correct today, in the next ten minutes, just by reading this post.

Let's go through them one by one. By the end, you'll sound noticeably more French.

Mistake 1: Saying "Je suis chaud" when you mean "I'm hot"

This one is famous, and it's caused more red faces in French classrooms than I can count. In English, "I'm hot" can mean two things: I'm physically warm, or I'm attractive. In French, "Je suis chaud(e)" means something very different — and a lot more sexual than you intended.

The fix: Use "J'ai chaud" to say you're physically hot. The literal translation is "I have heat," which sounds strange in English, but it's exactly how French works. The same logic applies to cold ("J'ai froid"), hungry ("J'ai faim"), thirsty ("J'ai soif"), scared ("J'ai peur"), and tired-but-not-the-tired-you-think ("J'ai sommeil" means I'm sleepy).

In French, you don't be these states. You have them. Train yourself to use "avoir" instead of "être" for physical sensations and you'll skip a whole category of embarrassing mistakes.

Mistake 2: Pronouncing the final consonants in French words

English speakers love to pronounce every letter they see. It feels honest, like you're respecting the word. But in French, the final consonant of most words is silent, and pronouncing it is one of the fastest ways to sound foreign.

You don't say "Paris." You say "Pari." You don't say "beaucoup." You say "beaucou." You don't say "vous." You say "vou."

The fix: When you see a word ending in a consonant, default to silent. There are exceptions (the consonants in CaReFuL — c, r, f, l — are often pronounced at the end of words), but the default is silent. So "petit" becomes "p'ti," "grand" becomes "gran," "froid" becomes "froi."

The other piece of this is liaison — when a silent final consonant comes alive because the next word starts with a vowel. "Vous avez" sounds like "vou-zavez." "Les amis" sounds like "lé-zamis." This is what gives spoken French its smooth, connected sound.

If you want to see how I teach pronunciation step by step, you can try a free sample lesson from my course here and get a feel for my approach.

Mistake 3: Translating "for" as "pour" every single time

In English, "for" is one tiny word that does a lot of jobs. In French, it splits into at least three different words depending on what you mean.

• "Pour" = for a purpose or a recipient. J'ai acheté ça pour toi. (I bought this for you.)
• "Pendant" = for a duration that's complete. J'ai vécu à Paris pendant trois ans. (I lived in Paris for three years.)
• "Depuis" = for a duration that started in the past and is still going. J'habite à Miami depuis cinq ans. (I've lived in Miami for five years — and I still do.)

The fix: Before you say "pour," ask yourself what kind of "for" you mean. If it's about how long something has been happening and is still happening, it's "depuis." If it's a finished period, it's "pendant." If it's about a purpose or a recipient, it's "pour."

The "depuis" tense trick is also worth noting: French uses the present tense with "depuis," not the past. J'apprends le français depuis deux ans. (I've been learning French for two years — present tense in French, perfect continuous in English.) This trips up almost everyone.

Mistake 4: Forgetting that French nouns have a gender

I know, I know. There's no logical reason for "table" to be feminine and "livre" (book) to be masculine. There's no rule that explains why "voiture" (car) is feminine but "camion" (truck) is masculine. It just is. And English speakers, who never have to think about gender, find this exhausting.

But here's the thing: gender isn't optional. It changes the article ("le" vs "la"), it changes the adjective ("petit" vs "petite"), and it changes the pronoun ("il" vs "elle"). If you guess wrong, native speakers can still understand you, but it sounds wrong, the way "she went to a store" with "she" referring to a man would sound wrong in English.

The fix: Stop learning vocabulary as single words. Always learn the article with the noun. Don't memorize "table" — memorize "la table." Don't memorize "livre" — memorize "le livre." This way, the gender becomes part of the word in your memory, not a separate fact to recall.

There are also some patterns that help. Words ending in -tion, -sion, -té, -ette, and -ence are almost always feminine. Words ending in -ment, -eau, -age, and -isme are almost always masculine. Not foolproof, but useful as a default guess. I broke this down in detail in my post on how to guess the gender of French nouns if you want a deeper dive.

Mistake 5: Saying "Je suis bon" when you mean "I'm good"

In English, "I'm good" is the all-purpose answer to "How are you?" It's casual, friendly, slightly American, and it works in almost any context.

In French, "Je suis bon" doesn't mean what you think. It can sound like you're saying you're a good person, or that you're skilled at something (like "Je suis bon en maths" — I'm good at math). It does not answer "Comment ça va ?"

The fix: When someone asks how you are, the natural answers are:

• Ça va. — I'm fine / I'm good. (The most common, by far.)
• Ça va bien. — I'm doing well.
• Très bien, merci. — Very well, thanks.
• Pas mal. — Not bad.
• Bof. — Meh.

Notice how none of them start with "Je suis." French answers questions about your state with "ça va" much more than English does. If you want to dig into this further, I wrote a post on what French people say instead of "Comment ça va ?" that covers all the natural variations.

Mistake 6: Using "tu" with everyone (or "vous" with everyone)

English doesn't have this distinction. You is you, whether you're talking to your best friend, your boss, your grandmother, or a stranger. In French, you have to choose between tu (informal, for friends, family, kids, peers) and vous (formal, for strangers, older people, professional contexts, or any plural "you").

English speakers tend to make one of two mistakes. Either they default to "tu" with everyone because it feels friendlier, which can come across as rude or weirdly familiar with someone you've just met. Or they default to "vous" with everyone because it feels safer, which can feel cold and overly distant with friends.

The fix: When in doubt, start with vous with adults you don't know well. It's the polite default. The other person will usually invite you to switch with phrases like "On peut se tutoyer" (we can use "tu" with each other) or just by using "tu" with you naturally.

Use tu with:

• Children and teenagers
• Close friends and family
• Peers in casual contexts (other students, colleagues you're close with)
• Anyone who has invited you to use "tu"

Use vous with:

• Strangers (in shops, on the street, in restaurants)
• Older people you don't know well
• Professional contexts (job interviews, work emails, meetings)
• Anyone significantly older than you, until invited otherwise
• More than one person, even if you'd say "tu" to each individually

When you mess up, no one will be offended. They'll just notice. And that's fine. Getting it slightly wrong is part of learning.

Mistake 7: Trying to translate word-for-word from English

This is the biggest mistake of all, and it's the one that takes the longest to break. English speakers learning French often build sentences in English in their head, then translate each word into French, then say the result. The output sounds like English wearing a French costume.

A few examples of what happens when you do this:

• "I'm looking forward to it" → ❌ Je regarde en avant à ça (literal nonsense) → ✅ J'ai hâte.
• "It's up to you" → ❌ C'est en haut à toi (literal nonsense) → ✅ C'est toi qui décides. or Comme tu veux.
• "I miss you" → ❌ Je manque toi (wrong subject) → ✅ Tu me manques. (Literally: "You are missing to me.")
• "I'm fed up" → ❌ Je suis nourri haut → ✅ J'en ai marre.

The fix: Stop translating. Start collecting whole expressions and using them as units. When you hear a French phrase that means something specific, learn the whole phrase, not its individual words. "J'en ai marre" is one chunk. Don't break it down. Just use it.

The faster you stop translating and start absorbing French as French, the faster everything else clicks. This is one of the things I focus on most in my course, because it's the difference between students who plateau forever and students who suddenly start sounding fluent.

Putting it all together

These seven mistakes share something in common: they all come from treating French like English with different vocabulary. But French isn't a code for English. It's its own language, with its own logic, its own rhythm, and its own way of describing the world.

The students who progress fastest are the ones who let go of English. They stop asking "how do you say X in French?" and start asking "what would a French person say in this situation?" Those are very different questions, and they lead to very different answers.

If you want to know exactly which level you're at right now and what to focus on next, you can take my free placement test here. And if you'd like to see how I teach inside the course, you can try a free sample lesson to get a feel for my approach.

Pick one mistake from this list and focus on it for a week. Just one. By next month, you'll have fixed all seven, and your French will sound noticeably more natural.

À très vite, Clémence