How many hours a day is an intensive course?

Full days, structured with breaks, because attention rather than stamina is the limit. The exact volume is set with you: some people want the longest days available, others do better with mornings only and afternoons spent using what they learned.

Can a complete beginner take an intensive course?

Yes. Beginners often gain the most from it, because the early stage is where forgetting between lessons does the most damage. The course is conducted in French from the first day, as all our courses are.

Do you arrange accommodation?

No. We teach; we do not organise stays, housing or visas. What we can do is tell you which centre suits where you plan to be, and each centre page gives its address and how to reach it.

How much French will I have after two weeks?

That depends on where you start and how much French you use outside the classroom, so we would rather assess your level than promise a number. What is reliable is the direction: concentrated hours move people faster than the same hours spread out.

Can lessons be combined with cultural outings?

Yes, on request. Some of the hours can take place outside the centre, at a museum, a market or a restaurant, with your teacher and always in French. Tell us what interests you in the form: the centre will suggest a programme.

Intensive French courses

Full days, not scattered hours.

This is the format for people who come to France with dates on the calendar and the intention of leaving able to hold a conversation.

Ask about intensive courses The Berlitz Method

A Paris street in the late afternoon light.

4.9on Google, from 582 reviews
11centres across France
1878the method, unchanged
A1 – C2levels, from beginner up

Why intensity works

The gaps are what slow people down.

An hour a week is an hour of learning followed by six days of forgetting. Most of the next lesson goes on recovering what was lost. Concentrate the same hours into consecutive days and the forgetting never gets started, which is why a fortnight of intensive study moves people further than a term of evening classes containing the same number of hours.

The second reason has nothing to do with the classroom. You are in the country. The lesson ends and the language carries on, in the bakery, on the train, in the queue. Learners on an intensive course get the rarest thing in language learning: immediate use.

Who comes

Two kinds of intensive.

You are coming to France for it
A few weeks with the language as the reason for the trip. Days are structured, evenings are yours, and the city does half the teaching. Centres in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Marseille, Nantes, Lille, Strasbourg, Grenoble, Versailles and Rouen.
You already live here and need to catch up
A move that came faster than expected, a job that starts in French next month, an assignment that has been extended. Blocking a week or two off is often the only thing that actually works.

Your stay in France

A month in France, and your French comes home changed.

You are spending a few weeks in France and want to make the most of them. On request, we build the lessons around your stay, with the centre closest to where you are staying.

By the half day or the full day
Lessons in the morning and the afternoon to yourself, or whole days: the pace follows your stay, not the other way round.
Outside the classroom
A museum, a market, a gallery, a lunch: your teacher comes along and the lesson carries on in French, where the language is actually used.
Prepared before you arrive
Before you come, we look at your level and at what you want to experience in France. The programme is ready when you arrive, and it adjusts as the days go by.
Plan your stay →