What apps do very well

Apps (Duolingo, Busuu, Memrise and the rest) win on three fronts: consistency (reminders and streaks build a daily habit, which is genuinely valuable), core vocabulary through spaced repetition, and the starting phase, the first 3 to 6 months, when you need to pile up words and simple structures without pressure. For a complete beginner, fifteen minutes of app a day is an excellent entry point: cheap, and with no fear of looking foolish.

Their hidden strength is psychological: they make learning painless. That is also their limit.

What they will never do

Get you speaking. No app puts you through a real conversation: unpredictable, with someone who reacts, interrupts you, rephrases. Yet conversation is THE skill most learners are after, and it only develops by doing it.

Correct your actual mistakes. An app marks closed answers right or wrong. It will never tell you: “you have been making this pronunciation mistake systematically for three weeks”, “your sentence is correct but no French person would say it that way”, “you are avoiding the passé composé because you are not confident with it”. That personal diagnosis, which stops you from hard-wiring mistakes that cost far more to fix later, is the core of a teacher’s job.

Take you past the plateaus. Moving from A2 to B1, then B1 to B2, means producing language: building your own sentences, arguing a point, telling a story. The closed exercises in apps structurally cap out around A2: that is the famous wall users hit after a year.

The real comparison: cost per progress, not cost per month

The app looks unbeatable: a few euros a month against lessons priced one by one. But the right calculation is cost per actual progress. A year of app alone typically lands you at a shaky A2: you understand simple sentences and produce very little. A year combining a weekly lesson with a teacher and guided self-study lands you at a solid B1, able to hold a conversation. If your goal is to SPEAK French (travel, work, an exam, family), a teacher is not a luxury: it is the only road that gets you there.

The trap to avoid: the app as a comfort zone. It gives you the feeling of progress (points, levels, streaks) without ever exposing you to the productive discomfort of the real language. Plenty of long-time users confuse mastering their app with mastering French.

The smart combination

What we recommend, depending on where you are. Complete beginner: app every day for 3 months for vocabulary and habit, THEN add a regular lesson as soon as you can build sentences. From A1-A2: the lesson becomes the core (conversation, correction, direction), the app stays a vocabulary top-up for dead time. From B1: gradually swap the app for authentic content (podcasts, dictations, reading), your time pays off better there. At every level, the formula that works is a weekly lesson + 20-30 minutes of daily self-study. Neither one without the other.