With les fêtes (the holidays) wrapping up, I hope everyone was able to enjoy Noël (Christmas), Hanoucca (Hanukkah), or any other fête during these cold winter months.

Le nouvel an (the new year) is nearly here and while everyone is busy putting up their new calendrier (calendar), it’s a good time for us here at the French blog to look back on some of our best posts of 2017.

Voici les meilleurs posts de 2017 (here are the best posts of 2017)!

10) Buying Billets Or Taking Tickets? – Confusing Words In French

Saviez-vous qu’il y a deux façons en français de dire le mot anglais ticket ?
Did you know there are two ways in French to say the English word ticket?

This confusing pair can lead to a lot of mistakes from thinking in English. It may be difficult to grasp at first, but after reading the post it should be clear when and why French people use le billet and le ticket.

9) Rainbows

Knowing le vocabulaire des couleurs (color vocabulary) is an important skill to have if you ever need to describe something in French. You can get by without knowing how to say les vis (screws), but something as basic as les couleurs will make it very hard to describe a painting or faire le shopping (go shopping)!

8) French pronunciation basics (Part 2) (Part 3)

La prononciation française (French pronunciation) is incredibly hard to get right. When you start to learn French it can feel like some letters do nothing while others do more than they should.

This pronunciation series goes through some of the most important aspects of French pronunciation, giving detailed advice for the difficult French u, liaisons, and how final consonants influence how a word is said.

It can be a lot to take in and hard to apply, but thankfully the series includes audio examples for every sound explained, often with a piece of music that will have you singing and learning in no time.

7) French Film: Un Peu, Beaucoup, Aveuglément

If you’re looking for something to watch on Netflix, instead of watching a movie you already know, one of 2017’s most popular posts has an idea that will help you not only find a movie, but also help you learn French.

Un peu, Beaucoup, Aveuglément is a great movie featuring the incredibly talented Clovis Cornillac as both lead actor and le réalisateur (the director). It’s a fun romantic comedy with a very French humor that is best heard in its original language, so if you decide to watch it, be sure to do so en VOST!

6) Funny French Expressions

Sometimes les expressions can leave you scratching your head wondering how having hair in your hand means you are lazy, but fortunatley les expressions also often make you laugh with how silly they can sound.

If you want to learn the meaning of having a cockroach or the carrots are cooked en français, then you definitely need to read this post and have a good laugh as you learn funny French expressions.

5) Les Meilleurs livres de 2016 (Best French Books in 2016) 

One of our most well received posts last year was a look at 2016’s best livres français (French books). Take a look at the list and try to find un livre that looks interesting to you, because having un livre to read en français is a sure way to help you continue learning while having fun getting absorbed in une histoire (a story)!

4) The Best French Music of 2016! 

Similar to les meilleure livres français de 2016 (the best French music of 2016), another popular post took a look back at 201’s best French music. Take a look at all les tubes (the hits) from 2016 and see if you find une chanson (a song) you want to add to your playlist for 2018!

3) What Are the French Parts of Speech? 

When learning une langue (a language), learning how to say les classes de mots (the parts of speech) is important in order to properly organize all le vocabulaire (the vocabulary) you have to memorize.

les noms, les adjectifs, les verbes et les adverbes
nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs

Heureusement (luckily), les classes de mots are easy to remember, or at least easier to remember than la conjugaison (the conjugation)!

2) Can You Pronounce These 10 Difficult French Words? 

La prononciation (pronunciation) can be difficult and it’s no surprise that two of our most popular posts this past year dealt with the topic. Parfois (sometimes), it takes hours and hours of practice just to be able to hear the right sound, never mind actually say it!

One way to practice pronunciation is to learn des virelangues (some tongue twisters), but you can’t avoid listening and repeating individual words to learn how to say them.

If you have ever had trouble pronouncing accueillir (to welcome) or écureuil (squirrel), make sure you read this post to learn exactly how to say them with the right pronunciation!

1) 5 French Idioms You Should Know

Learning about les idiotismes (idioms) is always fun. La surprise (the surprise) of how detached une expression is from the literal meaning of the words can make them hard to understand, but easy to remember for how odd they sound. Par exemple (for example), try to explain why it’s raining cats and dogs means it’s raining heavily to a non-native English speaker!

This popular post gives you a hit on the hand for understanding some of the most popular French idioms, and if you don’t understand what that means, you definitely need to read it for yourself!

This is just a small look at some of our best posts from 2017, but what these popular posts show us all is that all of our readers are always ready to learn more French!