Bonjour à tous ! In today’s article, let’s have a little bit of fun and explore some games for learning French vocabulary. You can either play them by yourselves or with a partner, in a group setting, or even with your own French tutor! The best part ? They’re free !
5 Games for French vocabulary – Écouter
1. Le jeu du pendu
Level: All levels
Players: 2 and more
What you need: A sheet of paper and a pencil, or simply a board and a marker (using a dictionary is also possible, if needed)
This one will probably sound familiar to you, as this is the French version of the hangman! This is one of the most famous games for learning French vocabulary. The rules are simple : guess the word of your little guy ends up being hanged.
One of the players goes up to the board (or shows his blank sheet of paper) and draws what we call “la potence” (the gallows): this is where your stick man will be hanged. Usually, this is what I start with :
Next, that same player thinks of a specific word. Once done, they will draw beside the gallows blank lines: that’s supposed to be the mystery word to guess.
The game can now start. One after the other, each player guesses which letters are part of the mystery word. If they get it wrong, the player at the board starts drawing the hangman, piece by piece.
If the stick man ends up being hanged, the player on the board wins and shows the mystery word.
2. Le petit bac
Level: All levels
Players: 2 and more (but can also be played alone, just for fun)
What you need: A sheet of paper, a ruler and a pen/pencil, or simply a Word document where you can build a table.
Le “petit bac” is short for “le petit baccalauréat“. This is one of the most played games for learning French vocabulary among children, teenagers and even adults in France.
The fun part is that you can adapt it to your liking.
The main goal of this game is to build a table and fill in with specific words starting with a chosen letter. This is what it should look like:
However, that is just one of the many examples you can play le Petit Bac. The first column should be the letter (preferably randomly picked). The other columns can be adapted to any kind of topic or level of difficulty.
If you’re more into the technical side of French, for example, you can replace the other columns with “Adjectif, Nom, Verbe …”.
Each player that successfully fills in a line scores one point.
Here’s an example of filled in lines for the image above :
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3. Le jeu de la liste
Players: 1 and more
What you need: A pen and paper, a timer
A topic needs to be chosen: city, food, transportation, etc. The timer is set to 30 seconds (or 1 minute if preferred). Within that specific time frame, the player needs to write down as many words related to that topic as possible. The player that has written the most words wins.
4. Les charades
Levels: Upper intermediate – Intermediate – Advanced
Players: 2 and more
I used to play this game a lot with friends and family. I think this is one of the best games for learning French vocabulary, as it encourages you to look for words and form them.
A player thinks of a word and needs to separate each syllable (it only works if each syllable makes a word!). For example : CHAPEAU.
That player will make the other players guess that word by saying:
Mon premier est … (my first is), and describe what that first word formed by the first syllable.
Mon deuxième est … (my second is), and do the same thing for the second syllable.
When the player described all syllables, they need to finish by saying:
Mon tout est… (my all is): describe the full mystery word.
Let’s take a look at our first example : CHAPEAU
Mon premier est un animal domestique (CHAT -cat- , for syllable number 1: CHA)
Mon deuxième est organe du corps humain (PEAU -skin-, for syllable number 2 – PEAU)
Mon tout est un accessoire (CHAPEAU – hat).
Let’s try another one: Balançoire
Mon premier est le contraire de « haut ». (Answer: bas)
Mon deuxième est le contraire de « rapide ». (Answer: lent)
Mon troisième est le contraire de « matin ». (Answer: soir)
Mon tout s’accroche aux branches des arbres. (Bas – lent – soir –> Balançoire)
5. Le jeu du dictionnaire
Players: 2 and more
What you need: Paper, pencil/pen and French dictionary
The game is quite simple. One player randomly picks a word in the dictionary and asks other players to draw what they think it is or simply to write the definition that they imagine for this word. The person that guessed right scores one point.
I hope you enjoyed today’s post on some games for learning French vocabulary, and also that you will start playing them as well!
