First French words for toddlers: 75 to start with.

Start with what they can see

A study of English, Cantonese and Mandarin learners aged eight to sixteen months found that babies’ first words had much in common across languages, though the mix of names for things, people words and action words differed.¹ Wordbank, an open archive of parent word checklists, repeated that comparison across fifteen languages, French from France and from Quebec among them, and the earliest words were alike again: mostly family members, social routines such as bye and peekaboo, and sounds such as vroom.² In both French samples, mommy, daddy, baby, bye, ball, sock and peekaboo were among the ten earliest words children said, and the France list also had thank you and shoe;² maman, papa, bébé, ballon and chaussure are all below.

In a study of twenty-month-olds in seven countries, France among them, names for things made up the biggest share of children’s words in every language, except among children just starting to talk.³ So people, food and things in the room make a good start.

Words in both languages count. Bilingual children are no more likely than other children to have trouble with language, and with both languages counted together they know about as many words as children learning one.⁴ An evaluation should look at every language a child uses,^{4, 5} and the standard parent word checklist has its own French versions, for France and for Quebec, adapted rather than just translated, so a check can happen in French too.^{2, 6} The bilingual toddler guide explains more.

How French sounds

French does not pronounce everything it prints, so this page does not respell the words in English; the native voices are the better guide. A few things to listen for:

• Steady vowels. French vowels hold still, without the small glide English adds: each syllable of bébé (baby) is a short, clean “ay”. An accent mark on an e changes the sound, not the stress: the è of cuillère (spoon) is the e in “bed”, and the -er ending of an action word sounds like the é of bébé: manger (eat), sauter (jump).
• Vowels through the nose. Before an n or m in the same syllable, a vowel goes partly through the nose and the n or m is not said: maman ends on an, ballon (ball) on on, and main (hand) and train on ain. The same sound comes twice in pingouin (penguin), spelled in both times. When a vowel or a second n follows, the n is an ordinary one: banane (banana) ends on a clear n, canard (duck) has no nasal sound at all, and neither does Bonne nuit (good night).
• Quiet endings. Most final consonants are silent: chat (cat), lait (milk), canard, deux (two). In vingt (twenty), the g and the t are both silent, so the word ends on its nasal vowel, and paon (peacock) is just a p and the an of maman. A few are said, as in parc (park) and fier (proud). A final e is usually silent too, but it lets you hear the consonant before it: content (happy) ends on its nasal vowel, while contente, the form for a girl, ends on a t.
• ou and u. ou is the “oo” in “food”: nounours (teddy bear), doux (gentle). u has no English match: it is an “ee” made with the lips rounded as for “oo”. It is in tu, in chaussure (shoe), and in voiture (car), where oi also makes “wa”.
• The French r. It is made at the back of the throat, a little behind where English makes g, with a soft rasp, while the tongue tip rests behind the lower teeth: fleur (flower), arbre (tree), Merci (thank you). A gentle version is fine.
• Letters that sound different. ch is the English “sh”: chien (dog), chat. j, and g before e or i, are the “s” in “measure”, as in manger. gn is the “ny” in “canyon”: montagne (mountain).
• Words that run together. An apostrophe marks a dropped vowel: Je t’aime (I love you) is je + te + aime, and J’ai fini (all done) begins with je + ai. And in liaison, a silent final letter wakes up before a vowel: deux alone ends on its vowel, but in deux amis (two friends) its x comes back as a z sound and joins the next word. The word nounours itself comes from liaison: un ours (a bear) was heard as “un nours”, then doubled the way a small child might say it.

Your family’s French may sound different from these voices, whether it comes from Montréal, Port-au-Prince or Dakar. That is French too, and the way your family says a word is a fine way to say it.

The 75 words

These are the free words from Their First Words in French, in the three stages the app uses, each with a woman’s and a man’s native voice to copy. Action words are in their dictionary form, such as manger and sauter. The same 75, plus 35 everyday phrases, are also free printable French flashcards, with English as an optional second language, and our first Spanish words list has the same 75 in Spanish.

First Words 0–24 months · 25 words

Growing Words 2–3 years · 25 words

Word Builder 3–5 years · 25 words

Le, la, un, une

Every French noun is masculine or feminine, and the small word in front of it shows which: le (the) or un (a) for a masculine word, la or une for a feminine one. Two forms hide it: before a vowel, le and la both become l’, and les is “the” for more than one. The cards show the bare word, chien rather than le chien, because the article changes with the sentence, and the picture already says which thing it is.

Gender belongs to the word, not the thing: a baby girl is still le bébé. A few more: le chien, la banane, la main, and un arbre, where un shows what l’arbre hides. In everyday talk the articles come along on their own, and a child hears them as part of the sound long before anyone calls it a rule. Some words change for a girl, as contente did above: fier becomes fière, and ami (friend) becomes amie, both with no change in sound.

Tu, vous and a few phrases

French has two words for “you”. The everyday one is tu: what a parent says to a child, what children say to each other, and what a child says to Mom and Dad. The other, vous, is the polite “you” for a stranger, and also the “you” for more than one person. For a toddler, tu does nearly all the work, and vous can wait.

In the phrases below, every “you” is tu. Sometimes it is a small word: Encore, s’il te plaît (more, please) has te, since s’il te plaît means “if it pleases you”, and a stranger would hear s’il vous plaît. Sometimes it is in the verb: tiens and dors are the tu forms, and to two children a grown-up would say tenez and dormez.

Encore means “again” as well as “more”, so the same words work for another spoonful and another turn on the swing.

Family words and the doudou

French-speaking children call their parents maman and papa, and many grown-ups keep using the words with their own parents. C’est ma maman (this is my mommy) uses ma, “my”, for a feminine word; for Dad it is mon papa. Many children in France call their grandparents mamie and papi; grand-mère and grand-père are the standard words. Every family has its own, and yours is the right one.

To a small child, a teddy bear is a nounours. In France, the one toy that goes everywhere and comes to bed has a name of its own, the doudou: a comfort object, often a soft toy, sometimes a small blanket. In Quebec, a stuffed toy is a toutou. The cards follow the French of France, as the French language page explains.

Using them in an ordinary day

A few French words can fit into a routine you already have. Here is what that might sound like:

• Breakfast: lait (milk), banane (banana), cuillère (spoon), and Encore, s’il te plaît (more, please) when the bowl is empty. The mealtime guide walks through exactly this.
• Getting dressed: chaussure (shoe), main (hand), and fini (done) when the shoes are on.
• The park: parc (park), arbre (tree), fleur (flower), canard (duck), chien (dog), ballon (ball).
• Bedtime: nounours (teddy bear), faire un câlin (hug), and Bonne nuit, dors bien (good night, sleep tight) at lights-out.

Your child’s interest gives you an opening: “canard” when they spot a duck, then a few seconds for a reply.⁷ A point, a sound or “duck” keeps the exchange going; you can answer with the French word again. The two-language card routine shows how that can work with a picture beside the real meal.

French at home in North America

French comes into North American homes from many places: France, Belgium or Switzerland; Quebec or a French-speaking community elsewhere in Canada; Haiti, where French sits alongside Haitian Creole; West, Central and North Africa, where it often shares the home with another language. In a three-language home, the same advice holds: a word in any of them counts, and a speech or language problem would show up in all of them.⁵

For many families, the grandparents are the reason. A video call with mamie or papi goes better when a toddler has something to say on cue: Je t’aime (I love you), Merci (thank you), or C’est ma maman (this is my mommy) when Mom leans into the frame. A week of saying them at bedtime gives Sunday’s call somewhere to start.

Other families are looking ahead to French immersion, a bilingual school or a Saturday class. Until school starts, and between classes, the words need somewhere to live; a minute with four cards at breakfast is not homework. In a study of twenty-nine Spanish–English two-year-olds, the share of the day each language filled predicted how each was coming along, and for English, so did the number of different people the child heard it from.⁸ A grandparent, a teacher and a babysitter each add time in French and another voice.

When only one parent speaks French, the home language has fewer voices. In a survey of 1,899 families with children aged six to ten, in which at least one parent spoke a minority language, the odds of a child speaking it were best when both parents used it and no more than one also spoke the community language; “one parent, one language” was neither necessary nor sufficient.⁹ The other parent does not need to switch; the AAP’s advice is to use the language you are most comfortable in.⁵ Knowing maman, papa and Encore, s’il te plaît well enough to answer them is a warm way to join in.

And if French is the language you chose rather than grew up with, the native voices give you the word to copy, and our guide to teaching a language you don’t speak covers accents, fluent speakers and what to expect.

Paper, app, or both

The printable cards are free, with no sign-up, and can live on the fridge or beside a favorite book. The app starts with the same free words and phrases, with a woman’s and a man’s native voice on every card, no ads, and offline play; a switch of the language pill turns lait into milk on the same picture. One $9.99 purchase opens the rest of the 1,000+ words and 500+ phrases, in all eight languages. Both are there for the word; the conversation over breakfast is yours. Neither is a treatment for language delay.