French sentence flashcards with audio

Updated October 2026 · by Gabriel, maker of Fluent Air

Why French needs sentences and audio

Many French letters are silent, words run into each other (les amis sounds like "lay-zah-mee"), and a word's gender changes the article and the adjectives around it. A card that says ami = friend teaches none of that. A sentence with audio does: you hear the liaison, see the agreement and learn the words that usually come with it.

What a good French sentence card looks like

1. One new word, everything else familiar. Ce marché est vraiment pas cher. is easy to remember; a sentence full of new words isn't.
2. Spoken, everyday French. Real conversation drops things textbooks keep: c'est pas grave instead of ce n'est pas grave. Learn to understand both.
3. Audio of the whole sentence, so you learn where words link and which letters you don't pronounce.
4. Both directions: French → English to understand, English → French to say it.

The French traps worth a card each

Gender

Always learn nouns with an article or an adjective that shows the gender: une petite table, un problème sérieux. The gender of a word is far easier to remember from a sentence you've heard many times than from a rule.

Être or avoir in the past

Make cards in the passé composé for common verbs of movement and change: je suis allé au marché, elle est rentrée tard. When a sentence changes because a woman is speaking (je suis allé / je suis allée), learn the one that matches you.

Silent letters and liaison

Keep the audio on and say the sentence out loud. Pairs like ils ont (with a z sound) and ils sont (with an s sound) are much easier to learn by ear than by spelling.

Little words: en and y

Learn them in fixed expressions you'll really use: j'en ai marre, on y va, il y en a deux.

False friends

Give them a sentence that makes the real meaning obvious: actuellement, je travaille à Lyon (currently, not actually), je suis très excité (careful: it's not just "excited").

Making them fast

In Fluent Air you type a French word (or the English one, if that's all you have) and get nine everyday sentences at your level, grouped by meaning. Pick the ones you like: each becomes two cards with audio and a picture. The back of the card shows the word's main forms (gender, plural, key conjugations), pronunciation tips and a short meaning in simple French. Hover or tap any word in the sentence to see what it means.

Already studying French in Anki? Import your deck with its review history. More tips in How to make Anki cards faster.