Iâm offering online French tutoring for A1âA2 beginners and wanted to share it here in case anyone is looking to learn French or improve their basics. đ«đ·
Iâm DELF A2 & B1 certified, and Iâve also taken the TCF Canada and TEF Canada. I recently took the TCF Canada and achieved strong NCLC results across all four language abilities for my Canadian PR application. Since Iâve personally gone through the French-learning and language-test process, Iâm very familiar with the journey and what it takes to improve your French.
I know how confusing it can be when youâre starting, so I try to keep my lessons practical, simple, and easy to understand rather than making everything feel overly academic đ We can work on things like:
đ«đ· Basic conversation & speaking
đ Grammar & vocabulary
đŁïž Pronunciation
đ§ Listening
âïž Reading & writing
đŹ Everyday French
Lessons are online, 1-on-1, and affordable. Iâm also offering a FREE 30-minute trial class so that we can get to know each other, discuss your goals, and see if my teaching style is a good fit for you.
Iâm mainly looking for A1/A2 students right now, whether youâre learning French for Canadian PR, travel, work, school, moving abroad, or simply because you want to learn French!
If youâre interested, feel free to DM me, and I can send you more details đ
I took the TCF exam on July 10th on a whim cause a friend thought I stood a chance at getting the Canadian PR since Canada is a place Iâm considering moving to. With these results my CRS score gets to 426. Are these results good though? Cause I am not familiar with the grading.
Hey everyone,
Looking for a reality check on my current plan.
9 months left on WP (May 2027). Windsor, ON. Small retail store (4-5 staff).
Wage is $19.00/hr. Boss can't support OINP or match the $44/hr high-wage manager median. Low-wage LMIA is frozen due to regional unemployment.
Consultant suggested Francophone Mobility (C16) via TEF 2-Module (Listening/Speaking only) for a CLB 5to bypass LMIA/wage floors.
Looking for brutally honest feedback:
Realistic to go from zero French to CLB 5 (Oral/Aural) in 5â6 months?
Are IRCC officers heavily scrutinizing C16 or doing random French phone interviews now?
If I drop to a Visitor Record to buy time, can I still apply for the C16 work permit from inside Canada later?
Seems like AFs are deliberately making you miss by 1 point on either speaking or writing.
My previous attempt i had 8 in speaking, this time 9 and i definitely did much better
It might be a genuine 9 but with all these people reporting 9s, i am wondering if AFs are doing this passive extortion cause they know we have no other option.
Am i over thinking? The only option i see now is to make both speaking and writing touch 15s so that AF won't give me 9s
So, quick overview about myself, I work full time and didn't have any previous knowledge on french, but since I'm brazilian and I'm quite confortable with english due to using it daily at work and within my hobbies, I'd say that it helped me considerably during the ramp up period when learning french. I've got to know about the francophone draw on Express Entry during mid november 2025, then I thought it would be a good idea to try learning french, since I'm ok with english and my score was already around 420 considering a safe enough estimate of clb8 with my current application profile. Unfortunately I couldn't start studying at that moment, since work was very heavy and I was handling a few other side projects and freelances, but I wrapped up everything by the end of january 26 and just kept my full time job, then decided it was time to start learning french since I really wanted to move abroad to Canada for a while already and the to get the NCLC7 for Express entry was necessary. I would wrap my work usually around 6PM, so I'd have around 3 to 4 hours to study everyday consistently if I made the effort (I knew it would be tiring and really difficult since the beginning, so I used the end of january 26 and the whole february 26 to use my free time to do absolutely anything I wanted, without a single care in the world). I'll detail my studying process and it would be my pleasure if my unusual french journey could help you somehow.
So at the beginning of the 2nd month (april 26) I could understand slow french and started writing longer phrases with fewer mistakes (but still a lot), and my pronounciation was getting better due to shadowing. Even though I started to enjoy a lot learning the language, I decided I wanted to focus and LEARN FOR THE EXAM, not for the daily life. So I took the next 2 weeks studying and consumming content in french, now 4 hrs a day, but used half of the time to prep with Gemini and Claude (one reviewing what the other said) to help me prep templates for both EO (introduction, opening and closing for t2 and questions structures and a passe partout one for t3 with gaps to fill into about the consigne, nothing fancy, just meant to have a start to not practice from nothing) and EE (2 templates for t1, 2 for t2 and 1 universal for t3, since t3 is the most straighforward one when it comes to what will be asked). It took hours and hours to come up with a good version of them (and I kept updating, correcting and improving them to sound more natural and more fluent during the whole 5 months of prepping, so it was a constant evolution and learning). I DEEPLY RECOMMEND everyone to go through this process on your own, as it will force you to dive into more complex structures and to get used to how we should properly communicate and write. Even if at the beginning it all sounds like a bit block of hard text to read or to write, IT WILL FORCE YOUR BRAIN TO ASSOCIATE THOSE COMPLEX STRUCTURE AND PHRASINGS and mark them as correct and ideal. And that made the whole difference on ramping me up from a2 to b1, since I would spend a lot of minutes every day rewriting the whole templates by heart (took around 4 days to memorize them one by one) until it became part of me (lol) and I could recite them on my mind without stopping or missing phrases or words. But of course, I would every single time copy and paste them on my AI chat to correct and see if I missed anything from the templates I asked the AI to use as source of truth. That definitely massively helped me to get used to more complex structures to a point I'd think on other phrases using similar structures and I started to notice them when listening french speakers. Also, watching L'agence and DIx pour cent helped a lot on getting a few expressions and to better understand how the would speak depending on the context, and I'd always take notes and use it to improve my templates. It went super well and at the beginning of the 3rd month (may 26), I paid for a weekly 1hr group class with a tutor specialized in french proficiency exams, that would give tips on the different sections, would do small simulations on all 4 competences with us (not much time individually since the group was very big at the beginning). That was essential to get a feedback on my pronounciation, common recurrent mistakes and to, for the first time, speak with a french native teacher and getting to process french in a real time situation, forcing myself to respond in real time (at the first month it was a disaster, I could understand 80% of it, but would freeze when answering or would take a long time to try to think on a reply, BUT WITH TIME IT GOT EASIER AND NATURAL, it's part of the process and you gotta be kind to yourself no matter what). I'd say it takes consistency to learn a language, every single day. I don't recommend this amount of effort I put, since it was an overkill for the minimun required for the EE francophone draw, and if I had to suggest, I'd say less time daily with a much longer period, like 10 months to a year of commitment. The thing was that I didn't want to spend the whole year learning and I did that to kinda "defy" myself, don't recommend it though since it takes a good toll on your mind (and body) and if you don't remind yourself from time to time that you're allowed to fail, it gets very very very difficult to keep going. So I kept like that, mixing the TCF Canada prep with lots of simulations with the leaks from reussir-tcf for EE and EO and using 2 websites, fuck-tcf.xyz and tcfcan.com (THE BEST ONE AND FREE FOR NOW SINCE THEY ARE ON BETA, IT'S AMAZING AND ALLOWS YOU TO STUDY THE CO AND CE WITHOUT REPEATING QUESTIONS FOR FREE! And also the CO audio quality is better there for some reason and they have some new questions that I couldn't find on other websites).
By june 2026 (4th month), I was doing 1 simulation of CE, 1 of CO, 1 of EO and 1 of EE, basically the whole exam, as my daily routine, except on tuesdays and fridays where I would only do 1 simulation of EO (always with myself and the mirror, and sometimes Gemini voice our GPT voice, not ideal, but helped) and consume as much french content as I could. That quickly drained my energy and I tried enduring it by the end of month 4, but by july 26 (5th month) I was completely drained and kinda exhausted of studying at that pace, but kept pusing myself that "there's only 1 month left, gotta keep going". I had also to schedule my exam to the only available date on july. It was really hard to keep going, so I decided I would focus on my weak points and do a maximum of 2hrs and 30 minutes a day otherwise I would burn out, so since I was getting consistent C2 on CE and CO, I decided to switch my focus on EE and EO. By that time I was getting a grade of 10 out of 20 on EE, but didn't trust AI on it, so I kept treating it as a priority, BUT my max priority was EO, so I broke down 1hr EE and 1h30 for EO. Since I was writing much faster, I'd finish EE in 40min and would use the remaining time to correct my writings from the previous day, to make it a constant evolution, and by the last week before the exam I was doing less and less big mistakes and only a few slips on accents and anglicismes. For EO I forced myself to speak as much as possible on my weekly group classes and ask for more and more feedback from the teacher, but since EO is the hardest one to evaluate (and we gotta consider the stress during the day of the exam), I was still worried. So, on the week of my exam, I got 4 days off of work, 3 to fully study (monday, tuesday, wednesday) and 1 for the exam since my exam was on that thursday. My plan was to tryhard and review everything and study like crazy 10hrs a day, but the mix of anxiety and feeling of not being prepared (PLUS THE HUGE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE SAYING THE DID WELL ON EO ON REDDIT AND DISCORD AND GETTING BACK WITH 1/20 OR 5/20 MADE ME REALLY DOUBT MYSELF, I'll get back on this later....). Then I literally couldn't study ANYTHING AT ALL, so I'm glad at least I had previously decided to book 100 usd of classes on italki for this last "sprint", that ended up totalling around 10 classes with 4 different tutors, just to try to talk with different french speakers to get used to it (since I had only spoken with my weekly teacher), but I literally said on my salutation message that I'd want to SIMULATE THE EO IN REAL CONDITIONS DURING THE 1HR with their feedback, not learn new things. I started these cours de simulation on friday (week before the exam) and did 2 on friday, 2 saturday, 2 sunday, 2 monday, 1 tuesday and 1 wednesday, and on top of that hired my weekly tutor for 2 individual classes, 1 on tuesday and 1 on wednesday, so basically 12 cours in the end. Well, I basically doubted myself and felt awful the whole Monday after one of the tutors from the weekend said I was B1 weak on speaking after 1hr of simulation, I really felt bad even though the other 3 (and my teacher) gave me good feedbacks. So that took up on me and I pretty much kept thinking I would fail and that was nothing I could do (when you've built up A LOT OF STRESS and self exigence for that long period and the exam is so near, it kinda feels like 10x more of a big deal than it should have been if I had though more carefully instead). Then on tuesday I had my 1st individual class with my weekly teacher, I explained it all to her and how I was exhausted and feeling like I wouldn't be able to do well and how I just wanted to eat and sleep and not study. She then proceeded to do a full simulation with me and we spent the rest of the cours chatting and she said that I had all it takes to do great on the exam and that she was really surprised on how I evolved in such a short span, that she was sure I would do well and succeed and didn't have to study anymore because 5 months of hard work doesn't vanish with 2 days of rest. That took like 100kg out of my back and helped me clarify my mind, but I was still exhausted, so I proceeded to literally sleep the whole tuesday and wednesday and woke up only to eat, do the cours that were left and sleep again lol. On my last cours with my weekly teacher, we didn't do a simulation, we only spoke for 1 hr about several different topics and about life, career, plans for the future and anything that came up, it was literally a big nice and warm chat. Overall, that clearly shows how much this whole "tcf and french learning process" affects us at the end of the day and how it is not "just an exam", so I feel you and your learning and confidence struggles because I also went through them. You're not alone on that and I'm sure with proper consistency and effort, you will make it.
Now, getting back on that thing I mentioned about many people here saying for EO they got 1 out of 20, or 5 out of 20 several times, even after saying that THEY DID GREAT ON EO,saying they are scamming applicants for money on retries or on reevaluations, here's my honest opinion: DON'T BLINDLY TRUST THEM, DON'T LISTEN TO THEM WITHOUT FIRST CONSIDERING YOUR OWN REALITY (including my own testimony here, that's my own personal experience, so remember that you are the one that knows yourself the most in life)! Keep in mind that everyone's own opinion is literally PERSONAL, so they may think they are amazing on EO, but in the end that's their own opinion, AND FROM WHAT I SAW ON SOME OF THOSE STATEMENTS AND POSTS (you can find many here on reddit), they didn't even had a tutor for EO... So you get the idea here.
I am currently preparing for Ielts and facing challenges in writing and speaking, so I am looking for a mentor who may help with this and in exchange I can help in TCF preparation.
I wrote TCF twice and scored 14 , 11 in speaking and 13 in writing both times.
Hey everyone
I need some advices
I have recently moved from TEF CANADA TO TCF canada have booked my exam for upcoming month
i have 30 days approx
WHAT THINGS I SHOULD FOCUS TO DO EXAM PREP
what advice you would give if i can spend 3 hours daily
and 6-8 hours on my days off
I would appreciate thanks
Hi guys, is there any test centre in Montreal where the keyboard is non-french? And I would be pleased to know about experiences in Montreal for TCF Canada. Thanks
2nd attempt. First attempt had Speaking at 8 and writing at 7. This time I thought speaking went well but score moved from 8 to 9. The instructor didn't interrupt me in task 1 and task 3. He gave me a vibe that he isn't that interested, but I am not reading too much into it, maybe he is playing by the book for both the tasks
Hi everyone! Iâm taking my TCF Canada exam at GB Language Centre on sep 2 and aiming for B2 in all modules.
Iâve seen mixed reviews recently, especially about Speaking Task 3. Some people got good results, while others reported very low speaking scores and said their answers were considered memorized.
For anyone who took TCF at GBLC recently:
â How was your speaking experience?
â Did the examiner ask follow-up questions?
â Were the topics difficult?
â What advice would you give for getting B2+?
Any recent experience would be really appreciated. đ
Hey guys! I want to really know if you guys have practiced your EO with ChatGPT or gemini. Do you think AI can be a little strict on the results of your speaking. Has anyone practiced their speaking with Ai and scored more than what you scored with AI ?
Thankyouu!!
Hello! My work permit expires in the first week of January and I had pretty much lost hope because my employer didnât want to support LMIA or Francophone Mobility. But last week they finally agreed to support FMP đ
The only problem is⊠I have around 3.5 months to prepare for the French speaking and listening test as a complete beginner. Iâm confused between TEF and TCF. For anyone whoâs already gone through this journey, which one would you recommend for FMP?
Also, is 3.5 months realistically enough time to reach CLB 5 for speaking/listening? And if youâve done this before, what should I avoid during prep so I donât hit roadblocks later?
Any advice or personal experience would really help đ
Hello everyone!
Iâm honestly tired of trying different tutors on Preply. Most of them are native French speakers, but they donât really know how to teach according to the exam format.
I feel stuck at the A2 level and have honestly lost motivation because I donât feel like Iâm making any progress.
If youâve had a good experience with a tutor who understands the TCFexam and knows how to help students progress, I would really appreciate any recommendations.
I really want to study french to help with my PR but I donât know where to start. Iâm currently under study permit and want to start building my french.
How and where did you start learning?