The short version. If you're a beginner aiming at A1 or A2, use Flua as your main daily study for about five weeks, then add the exam's official sample papers, writing practice with feedback and speaking practice with a tutor. If you're already around B1 and aiming at B2, the current Flua deck is below your level: spend your time on the exam's own materials.
Written by Sora Kalden, who builds Flua, so this plan puts Flua first. The reasons, and what Flua doesn't cover, are below.
For a French residence permit or nationality, the permit sets the level. Since 1 January 2026, a first multi-year residence permit asks for A2 French and the 10-year resident card for B1, each the first time you apply, and each with a civic exam, while French nationality asks for B2; accepted proof of level includes the TCF IRN, the TEF IRN or a DELF at that level (the prefecture of the Vienne). Check your own case on service-public.fr.
Every section of these exams draws on the same everyday vocabulary and grammar, and the listening sections are French spoken at natural speed. Flua teaches that base, most common words first. The French deck is 1,058 cards teaching 730 words in the order people say them most, and the forms it teaches make up 71% of all words spoken in French film and TV, counted from subtitles. The French deck teaches 730 words so far; Flua’s level model puts A1 at 700 words and A2 at about 2,000. So for an A1 exam the deck covers nearly 9 in 10 of the words in the official DELF A1 listening and reading sample papers, numbers, dates and prices included, and for an A2 exam the first part, with the rest to come from a course or tutor until Flua’s next level is published. Every sentence plays at natural speed, grammar is explained on a card before the first sentence that needs it, and the iPhone and Android apps add speaking cards.
Flua doesn't cover the exam's format and timing, writing, or a spoken exam with an examiner. For those, work through the official sample papers, get your writing corrected, and practice the speaking tasks with a tutor.
Flua’s working estimate, from its founder’s own tracked study rather than a test, is about 14 hours to A1, which Flua sets at 700 words; at the same pace per card, the French deck is about 16 hours of study, roughly five weeks at 30 minutes a day. Your own pace shows after your first session.
No independent study we know of measures how many hours any app, course or plan takes to get someone to a goal like this, so the hours here are estimates. Your own measured pace, which Flua shows after every session, is the number to trust. A few weeks won't make anyone fluent; they can take you through the most common words in the language and into your first real conversations.
Try the first cards free →Other plans: moving to France · a French exam · a job in France · a trip to France
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