Learn French by reading at your level
Reading is one of the most reliable ways to grow a new language, but only when the text sits at the right level — close enough to understand, stretching enough to teach you something new. Beeblio helps you find that sweet spot for French by mapping every word to its frequency rank, drawn from the wordfreq corpus. Words are grouped into bands of 300, 800, 1,500, 3,000, 5,000, 8,000, and 12,000 most-common words, so you can see at a glance exactly which words you know and which ones are worth learning next.
The roughly 1,500 most frequent French words cover around 80% of everyday text, so solidifying that core vocabulary pays off quickly. Once you know your level, you can use the difficulty checker to test any article or passage before you read it, and browse the graded reading library to find French texts that match where you are right now — from beginner sentences to native-level news and literature.
Free tools
- French reading level test — 24 words, two minutes.
- The 1,000 most common French words — grouped by band.
- French text difficulty checker — paste anything.
Word lists by band
- First words — words 1–300
- Getting by — words 301–800
- Everyday — words 801–1,500
- Confident — words 1,501–3,000
- Fluent reader — words 3,001–5,000
- Advanced — words 5,001–8,000
- Near-native — words 8,001–12,000
Graded readings
- First words band — 0 readings
- Getting by band — 0 readings
- Everyday band — 0 readings
- Confident band — 0 readings
- Fluent reader band — 0 readings
- Advanced band — 0 readings
- Near-native band — 0 readings
Questions
How does Beeblio decide which French words are 'common'?
Every word is assigned a frequency rank using the wordfreq corpus, a large dataset built from real-world French text across books, news, and the web. The lower the rank number, the more often the word appears in everyday French — rank 1 is the most frequent word of all.
What French level do I need before reading can actually help me?
Reading starts to pay off as soon as you have a small core vocabulary — even a few hundred high-frequency words give you enough anchor points to work out meaning from context. Beeblio's level test shows you exactly which frequency band you're in, so you can pick texts where you already know most of the words and only a handful are new.
Can I check whether a specific French text is right for my level?
Yes — paste any French text into the difficulty checker and Beeblio will highlight each word by frequency band, showing you instantly how much of it falls within your comfortable reading range and which words lie beyond it.