A short test of the French words you know. It ends with the share of everyday French sentences you could follow word for word, and what it would take to raise it. Free, in your browser, no account.
Flua Index test · French
You'll see French words in everyday sentences, the most common first. Recall what each underlined word means, check, and say whether you knew it. The test narrows in on where your French stops, one word at a time.
The Flua Index is the share of everyday sentences you could follow word for word. A sentence counts only when you know every word in it, so one unknown word keeps the whole sentence out. That makes it strict on purpose: knowing most of a language's words still leaves many sentences with one you don't know.
The sentences are everyday example sentences from Tatoeba (CC-BY 2.0 FR). Flua checks a sample of them, spread from easy to hard by how common their rarest word is in OpenSubtitles film and TV subtitles, one word at a time against the words you know. The Flua app shows learners the same number, counted on the cards they have actually learned.
How the test places you. It is the placement check from the Flua app. It shows words from Flua's deck for the language, which starts with the most common ones, and narrows in on where your knowledge stops. It keeps checking around that point, so one forgotten word or one lucky guess doesn't move it far. If you know nearly every card in the deck, it goes on past it with less common French words, each in an example sentence.
What is counted, and what is estimated. Where you place in Flua's deck is an estimate from your answers. From there the Index is counted exactly, on the deck's own cards up to that point: the sample sentences made only of words those cards teach, leaving out any sentence with a word you said you didn't know. Past the deck it is a rougher estimate: it assumes you know every word down to a frequency rank, and it stops at about the 10,000 most common French words.
Its limits. It is a self-report, so it is only as good as your answers; it asks around your level more than once, which keeps one slip from moving it far. It counts words, not grammar or listening speed, and following a sentence on the page is easier than catching it at full speed. It also undercounts: context often carries you through a sentence with one unknown word, and the Index doesn't count those.
Your answers stay in this browser tab. Nothing is saved to an account. The cards and their audio load from Flua as you go, like any web page, and since each next card depends on your last answer, those requests follow your path through the test.
The Flua Index is the share of everyday sentences in a language that you could follow word for word, counting a sentence only when you know every word in it. Flua, a language-learning app, shows it to its learners as they study; this test measures it for anyone, in the browser, with no account.
There's no pass mark. The bar is strict, so any number above zero stands for real sentences you could follow. Learning every card in Flua's French deck, its beginner material, takes the Index to about 11%, and the deck plus all of the roughly 10,000 most common French words would reach about 63%.
Because one unknown word keeps a whole sentence out of it. A learner who knows most words of a language still meets an unknown word in many sentences, so the Index rises slowly at first and faster as the common words fill in.
The test's result shows it from where you placed. For scale, Flua's French deck has 1,058 cards in all, about 16 hours of study at 55 seconds a card with every review included, the pace behind Flua's published estimates.
No. Your answers stay in this browser tab, so a refresh keeps your place, and nothing is saved to an account. The cards and their audio load from Flua as you go, like any web page, and since each next card depends on your last answer, those requests follow your path through the test.
Try the first French cards free →No account needed. Your first 150 cards are free, and what you learn free stays reviewable free.
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