Studying and education — French B1/B2
Études, formation et vie étudianteStudying, training and student life
What you will be able to do
- Talk about your own educational path and map the French system (licence, master, prépa, concours) onto degrees in the UK, Ireland, the US or Canada.
- Use the plus-que-parfait for an action earlier than another past action — leaning on the English past perfect you already own, while supplying the auxiliary choice and participle agreement English never asks for.
- Handle passé composé, imparfait and plus-que-parfait together in an extended story about student life, where a single English past tense would cover all three.
- Cope with university admin in French: inscription, dossier, contrat d'études, rattrapage, Erasmus.
- Express regret and past hypotheses with si + plus-que-parfait → conditionnel passé, and stay clear of the tempting «si j'aurais su».
Dialogue — In the cafeteria, after a morning at the student registry
Vocabulary
| Français | English |
|---|---|
| la scolarité | the student registry, the academic office; also: schooling, time spent in educationOn campus it means one specific office — «aller à la scolarité» = to go to the registry — not education in general. |
| la licence | a three-year undergraduate degree (roughly a bachelor's)Major false friend: nothing to do with a licence or a driving licence. The years are called L1, L2, L3. |
| le master | a two-year master's degreeM1, M2. Note the article drops after de: «être en master de droit». |
| la filière | degree course, subject stream«changer de filière» = to switch course; «se tromper de filière» = to have picked the wrong one. |
| la grande école | an elite institution outside the university system (HEC, Polytechnique, ENS)Never render it as 'big school'. The closest cultural parallel is an Ivy League or Oxbridge college, except it sits alongside the universities rather than above them. |
| la classe préparatoire (la prépa) | the two-year intensive course that prepares students for the grandes écoles entrance exams |
| le concours | competitive entrance exam with a strictly limited number of places«être reçu à un concours» = to get in. Not the same as «un examen», which only has a pass threshold. Nothing to do with English 'concourse'. |
| le partiel | mid-term / end-of-semester examUsually plural: «les partiels» = the exam period. |
| le rattrapage | the resit session, retakes«passer en rattrapage» = to go into resits. |
| la moyenne | average mark; the pass mark (10 out of 20)«avoir la moyenne» = to pass, i.e. to get at least 10/20. |
| le relevé de notes | transcript, statement of marksWatch «une note» here: it is a mark or grade, not a note you jot down. |
| valider un semestre | to pass a semester, to get the credits signed offThe key verb of university admin: «valider ses crédits / ses ECTS». Note that «pour que» then takes the subjunctive: «pour qu'il valide son année». |
| redoubler | to repeat a yearTakes a direct object with no preposition: «redoubler sa deuxième année». |
| réviser | to revise, to study for an examA true friend for British English ('revise for an exam') but a false friend for American English, where 'revise' means to rewrite. «réviser ses cours», «réviser un partiel». |
| s'inscrire à / en | to enrol on, to sign up forPrepositions matter: «s'inscrire À l'université», but «s'inscrire EN master», «EN droit». |
| la rentrée | the start of the academic year; the whole back-to-work September seasonNo real English equivalent — it covers the national return to routine, not just the first day of term. |
| le contrat d'études | the Learning Agreement (the study contract on an Erasmus exchange) |
| la bourse sur critères sociaux | means-tested maintenance grantCollocation: «toucher / percevoir une bourse» = to receive a grant. It is a cognate of 'bursary', not of 'purse'. |
| le CROUS | the state body running halls of residence, canteens and student grantsPronounced as one word, [kʁus]: «passer au CROUS». |
| la résidence universitaire (la cité U) | hall of residence, student dorm |
| le polycopié (le poly) | the printed course handout, the photocopied lecture notes |
| l'amphithéâtre (m.), l'amphi | lecture theatreMasculine, and the everyday form is «l'amphi». |
| les travaux dirigés (les TD, m. pl.) | seminars, small-group classesThe counterpart of «le cours magistral (le CM)» = the lecture. |
| l'année de césure (f.) | a gap year taken in the middle of a degreeFeminine. Unlike a British or Irish gap year taken before university, the césure is an official pause partway through, with your place held. |
| le mémoire | dissertation, thesisMasculine! «la mémoire» is memory — a classic trap. And it does not mean 'a memoir'. |
| le stage | internship, work placementClassic false friend: nothing to do with a stage in a theatre (that is «une scène»). The person is «un(e) stagiaire». |
| l'emploi du temps (m.) | timetable, daily schedule«emploi» here means use or arrangement, not employment. |
| le dossier de candidature | the application pack, the set of documents you submitFrench «dossier» is any file or bundle of paperwork — far broader and more everyday than the English 'dossier'. |
| la formation continue | continuing education, adult training, professional developmentFalse friend: «formation» means training or education, never a formation in the arrangement/line-up sense. |
| le doctorant / la doctorante | PhD student, doctoral researcher |
Expressions and collocations
| Expression | Meaning |
|---|---|
| sécher un cours | to skip a class, bunk off a lecture |
| être largué(e) en cours | to be completely lost in class, to have been left behind |
| bosser comme un fou / une folle | to work like mad, to slog away |
| bachoter | to cram — rote-learning the night before, with no real understanding |
| passer un examen | to sit / take an exam (WARNING: never 'to pass'; to pass = réussir / obtenir) |
| être reçu(e) à un concours | to get in — to be successful in a competitive entrance exam |
| louper un partiel | to flunk a mid-term, to fail it |
| prendre le pli | to get into the swing of it, to get used to the new routine |
| avoir un emploi du temps chargé | to have a packed timetable |
| rattraper son retard | to catch up on what you have missed |
| faire une croix sur quelque chose | to write something off, to kiss something goodbye |
| rendre son mémoire dans les temps | to hand in your dissertation on time |
Grammar
The plus-que-parfait and expressing anteriority. Passé composé vs imparfait vs plus-que-parfait
Le plus-que-parfait et l'expression de l'antériorité
Start with the good news, because for an English speaker this is one of the cheapest tenses in French. The plus-que-parfait (PQP) is the past behind the past, and it lines up almost exactly with the English past perfect: j'avais parlé = I had spoken, elle était partie = she had left. You build it with the imparfait of the auxiliary (avoir or être) plus the past participle. Everything you already do instinctively in English — pushing an event one step further back than the main narrative — transfers straight across. What English never asks of you is the two extra decisions French adds: which auxiliary, and whether the participle agrees.
Those two decisions work exactly as they do in the passé composé. Être goes with the verbs of movement and change of state (the DR & MRS VANDERTRAMP list) and with every reflexive verb, and the participle then agrees with the subject: elle était partie, nous nous étions levés. Avoir goes with everything else, and there the participle agrees only with a direct object placed BEFORE the verb: les notes qu'il avait obtenues. English has no agreement system whatsoever, so this will never come to you by ear — it has to be a deliberate check when you proofread, especially after qui/que and after a preceding pronoun.
Where the two languages genuinely march together, exploit it. Adverbs sit in the same slot in both: il avait déjà commencé = he had already started; elle n'avait jamais vécu à l'étranger = she had never lived abroad. Reported speech backshifts the same way: 'I handed in my dissertation' → she said she HAD handed in her dissertation → Elle a dit qu'elle avait rendu son mémoire. And the third conditional is a near word-for-word match: Si j'avais su que le master était aussi dense, j'aurais pris une année de césure = If I had known the master's was this heavy, I would have taken a gap year. The one trap here is the colloquial American 'If I would have known' — translate that shape literally and you produce «si j'aurais su», which is the single most stigmatised mistake in the language. After si, never a conditional.
Now the mismatches. First, French has no progressive, so English past perfect continuous collapses into a plain PQP: 'we had been revising all night' = nous avions révisé toute la nuit. Second, and more dangerous: 'had just done something' is NOT a plus-que-parfait in French. It is venir de in the imparfait — le cours venait de commencer = the lecture had just started. Third, French holds on to the PQP in places where spoken English happily drops it: after quand, lorsque, comme, parce que, une fois que, when the main clause is in the passé composé or imparfait, French wants the earlier event explicitly marked — Une fois qu'il avait validé tous ses crédits, il a pu partir. English tolerates 'Once he validated all his credits, he could leave'; French does not.
The real difficulty for an anglophone is not the PQP itself but the layer underneath it, because one English past tense fans out into two French ones. Imparfait paints the backdrop: description, state, ongoing situation, habit (il pleuvait, j'étais épuisé, chaque matin il prenait le bus — note that 'used to' and 'would' in the habitual sense both land here). Passé composé moves the story forward, one completed event after another (je suis entré, j'ai vu, j'ai compris). Plus-que-parfait steps back to explain what had happened even earlier (j'étais épuisé parce que j'avais révisé toute la nuit). A quick test: if the English version tolerates 'had' + participle, or if you could insert 'beforehand' / 'by then' / 'already', you almost certainly need the PQP.
Three details to file away. Instead of the PQP you can use the past infinitive, but only when both verbs share a subject: Après avoir rendu son mémoire, il est parti en vacances (= after handing in his dissertation). A bare exclamation of regret takes the PQP on its own: Si seulement j'avais compris plus tôt ! And when the PQP feeds a purpose clause, French switches to the subjunctive where English simply uses an infinitive — il m'a fallu six mois pour que tout soit reconnu = it took me six months to get everything recognised. English has no living subjunctive to lean on, so pour que, bien que and avant que have to be memorised as triggers rather than felt.
| Person | parler (avoir) | partir (être) | se lever (reflexive) |
|---|---|---|---|
| je / j' | j'avais parlé | j'étais parti(e) | je m'étais levé(e) |
| tu | tu avais parlé | tu étais parti(e) | tu t'étais levé(e) |
| il / elle | il avait parlé | elle était partie | elle s'était levée |
| nous | nous avions parlé | nous étions parti(e)s | nous nous étions levé(e)s |
| vous | vous aviez parlé | vous étiez parti(e)s | vous vous étiez levé(e)s |
| ils / elles | ils avaient parlé | elles étaient parties | elles s'étaient levées |
Exercise — fill in the gaps
Wpisz poprawną formę i naciśnij Enter — sprawdzi się od razu. Akcenty warto pisać, ale odpowiedź bez nich też zaliczymy (pokażemy poprawny zapis).
Exercise — translate into French
Napisz zdanie po francusku i naciśnij Enter. Dopuszczamy naturalne warianty — liczy się sens i poprawna struktura.
Quiz
The scripts were collected BEFORE I walked in — the empty desks are the result — so you need the plus-que-parfait, exactly as English says 'had already collected', with déjà in the same slot between auxiliary and participle. The imparfait would mean they were in the middle of collecting them as I came in, and the passé composé would put the collecting after my arrival.
Reported speech introduced by a past tense: French concordance des temps behaves just like English backshift. The original «j'ai rendu» ('I handed in') becomes «elle avait rendu» ('she had handed in'). The time phrase «la veille» (= the day before, not 'yesterday') confirms the anteriority.
The textbook false friend. «Passer» only means to sit or take an exam; to pass it is «réussir» or «obtenir». That is why «J'ai passé l'examen, mais je ne l'ai pas réussi» is perfectly logical: I sat the exam, but I didn't pass it.
The third conditional has a fixed shape: si + plus-que-parfait in the subordinate clause, conditionnel passé («j'aurais eu») in the main clause — a mirror image of English 'If I had sent…, I would have had…'. Never put a conditional after si, however natural the colloquial 'If I would have sent' feels.
A concours is a ranked competition for a fixed number of places, not a 10/20 threshold like an examen. Hence «être reçu à un concours»: what counts is where you come on the list, not your raw score. Note it has nothing to do with the English 'concourse'.
In compound tenses with avoir, the participle agrees with a direct object that stands BEFORE the verb. Here that object is «les notes» (feminine plural), so: obtenues. English has no agreement at all, so this one will never sound wrong to you — it has to be checked deliberately.
«Prendre le pli» is an idiom meaning to get into the swing of things, to settle into a new routine. It has nothing to do with giving up or with complaining.
Pronunciation — say it aloud
Posłuchaj wzoru, potem powiedz zdanie. Mikrofon oceni je słowo po słowie (zielone = dobrze wymówione).
France in practice
Two parallel worlds: la fac and les grandes écoles
French higher education runs on two separate tracks, and without that key a great many conversations stay opaque. On one side sits l'université (colloquially la fac): open to anyone who has passed le bac, large-scale and cheap — enrolment for a licence costs around 175 euros a year, against roughly £9,250 in England or many times that at a private American university. Applications go through Parcoursup, the national platform that plays much the same role as UCAS in the UK, and the real selection happens during first year, by attrition. On the other side stand les grandes écoles (Polytechnique, HEC, ENS, Sciences Po, the engineering schools), which you enter through le concours: a ranked examination for a hard-capped number of places, normally taken after two gruelling years in a classe préparatoire. Hence a distinction the language insists on: un examen is something you pass (réussir) once you clear the 10/20 threshold, whereas un concours is something you win, because your position on the list is what counts. That is why people say être reçu à un concours.
The split has very concrete social consequences. The question « Tu as fait quelle école ? » is a legible status signal in France, and alumni networks (les anciens élèves) genuinely open doors in the civil service and in big business — far more than the name of a university or even your final classification. Anglophone visitors regularly misread this, because in Britain, Ireland and North America the university sits at the top of the hierarchy and the word 'school' points downwards, to pre-eighteen education (or, in American usage, to university in general). In France a grande école outranks the university, and « quelle école » is asking about the summit, not the foothills.
Marking conventions deserve a warning of their own. The scale runs 0–20, a pass is 10, mention bien starts at 14, mention très bien at 16, and marks of 18–20 barely exist. Anyone trained on a British first, or on an American GPA where a 4.0 is the goal and grade inflation is a live public debate, tends to be crushed by a 14/20 that a French examiner considers very good indeed. Day-to-day student life is organised by CROUS: halls of residence, means-tested grants and canteens where a full meal costs about 3.30 euros, or 1 euro for grant-holders. And since 2015 the gap year (l'année de césure) has been formally regulated — you can take one without losing your place, something unthinkable twenty years ago, and still a much more recent idea in France than the gap year has long been in the UK, Ireland or Australia.
Reading — real history
Les 111 000 étudiants qui cherchent un pays
Amerykańskie kampusy mogą stracić tej jesieni 111 tysięcy zagranicznych studentów, a Francja mogłaby ich przejąć - tyle że jej uniwersytety właśnie tną miejsca i podnoszą czesne.
À l'université Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne, s'inscrire en licence coûtait 178 euros par an. Pour les étudiants extracommunautaires, l'établissement a porté ce montant à 2 895 euros, et de 254 à 3 941 euros en master. Il en attend 4,5 millions d'euros. Ses dirigeants ne parlent pas d'idéologie : ils parlent de trésorerie.
Le choix n'a rien d'isolé. Selon France Universités, 54 établissements sur 75 étaient en déficit au début de 2026, et la quasi-totalité des universités ont voté un budget déficitaire pour l'année. Cinq cents millions d'euros de charges nouvelles sont tombées sur elles sans financement correspondant. À Rouen, plus de 600 places de licence doivent disparaître ; à Lille, où le trou approche 45 millions, 381 places ont déjà été supprimées.
Les effets se lisent dans les emplois du temps. Les travaux dirigés, en petits groupes, coûtent cher : on les remplace par des cours magistraux en amphithéâtre. Entre 2012 et 2022, le nombre d'enseignants pour cent étudiants est passé de 5,05 à 4,40. À Lyon, les trois universités sont en déficit pour la première fois. On ne peut pas gérer l'université française à partir d'une photographie vieille de trente ans, dit le président de Lyon-III.
Or ce moment tombe mal, ou très bien, selon le point de vue. De l'autre côté de l'Atlantique, les campus se vident. L'association NAFSA a estimé, le 11 août, que les États-Unis pourraient perdre 111 000 étudiants étrangers à cette rentrée, soit 9 % : un manque à gagner de 3,4 milliards de dollars. Les visas étudiants délivrés l'été précédent avaient chuté de 36 %, et de plus de 60 % pour l'Inde.
Ces étudiants ne renoncent pas : ils changent de carte. La Malaisie, la Thaïlande, le Japon accueillent beaucoup plus de Chinois qu'avant la pandémie. En Europe, près d'une université sur deux déclare des inscriptions en hausse. La France, qui répète depuis longtemps vouloir attirer les meilleurs, tiendrait une occasion rare. Encore faudrait-il qu'elle ait les moyens de la saisir.
Le désaccord est là. Les présidents d'université expliquent qu'ils n'ont pas le choix : sans recettes nouvelles, ce sont des formations entières qui ferment. Les syndicats étudiants répondent que l'on met un prix élevé sur l'accueil au moment précis où le monde cherche une alternative aux États-Unis, et qu'un étudiant qui hésite entre Paris et Séoul regarde d'abord le loyer et les frais. Les bourses sur critères sociaux, elles, ont baissé de 1,5 %.
Personne ne sait encore où iront les 111 000. La réponse ne se lira pas dans les discours de rentrée, mais dans les listes d'inscrits de cet automne.
Key vocabulary
- les droits d'inscription (m. pl.) — czesne, opłata za wpis na studia
- un établissement — placówka, uczelnia
- la trésorerie — stan kasy, płynność finansowa
- un déficit — deficyt, niedobór w budżecie
- une charge — obciążenie, koszt do pokrycia
- extracommunautaire — spoza Unii Europejskiej
- une licence — studia licencjackie (I stopnia)
- un master — studia magisterskie (II stopnia)
- les travaux dirigés (m. pl.) — ćwiczenia w małych grupach
- un cours magistral — wykład (dla całego rocznika)
- un amphithéâtre — aula wykładowa
- une bourse sur critères sociaux — stypendium socjalne
- un manque à gagner — utracone wpływy, niezrealizowany zysk
- chuter — gwałtownie spaść
- une rentrée — początek roku szkolnego/akademickiego
- saisir une occasion — wykorzystać okazję
- un loyer — czynsz
Check how much you understood. Click the answer.
Tekst mówi wprost: władze uczelni nie mówią o ideologii, mówią o stanie kasy. Podwyżka ma przynieść 4,5 mln euro. To decyzja finansowa, nie polityczna ani programowa.
TD to zajęcia w małych grupach, wykład - dla całego rocznika w auli. Zamiana oznacza mniej kontaktu z prowadzącym, co potwierdza też spadek liczby wykładowców na stu studentów z 5,05 do 4,40.
Jedyna przyczyna, którą tekst podaje, to liczba wydanych wiz studenckich: minus 36% wobec poprzedniego lata i ponad 60% w przypadku Indii. O amerykańskim czesnym ani o zamykaniu kierunków w USA tekst nie mówi.
Na tym polega cała oś tekstu: świat szuka alternatywy dla USA, a francuskie uczelnie akurat teraz tną miejsca i podnoszą opłaty. Szansa i słabość zbiegają się w czasie.
Rektorzy: bez nowych wpływów trzeba zamykać kierunki. Związki studenckie: wysoka cena odstrasza właśnie wtedy, gdy kandydat porównuje Paryż z Seulem, patrząc na czynsz i opłaty.
Talk about it
- Polskie uczelnie od lat rekrutują studentów z Ukrainy, Białorusi czy Indii. Czy Polska powinna traktować odpływ studentów z USA jako szansę - i czym miałaby ich przyciągnąć, skoro nie stać jej na konkurowanie stypendiami z Niemcami?
- We Francji spór dotyczy tego, czy student spoza UE ma płacić kilkanaście razy więcej niż Francuz (2 895 wobec 178 euro to szesnastokrotność). Jak to wygląda w Polsce i czy uważasz taką różnicę za sprawiedliwą?
- Uczelnie francuskie oszczędzają, zamieniając ćwiczenia na wykłady w auli. Czy z własnego doświadczenia (lub obserwacji) uznałbyś to za oszczędność akceptowalną, czy za realny spadek jakości studiów?
Final task — Write an email to the registry, then act out the scene at the counter
Part 1 — written (150–180 words). You are on an Erasmus exchange in Lyon. Write a formal email to la scolarité explaining why your contrat d'études was not signed in time. Build the text on three time planes: what you had done BEFORE you left — at least four plus-que-parfait forms (j'avais envoyé, on m'avait dit, je m'étais inscrit(e), personne ne m'avait prévenu(e)); what happened after you arrived — passé composé; what the situation and circumstances were at the time — imparfait. Ask for an appointment and for permission to take two subjects in the resit session (le rattrapage). Hold the formal register throughout: « Madame, Monsieur », « Je me permets de vous contacter au sujet de… », « Je vous remercie par avance de votre compréhension », « Veuillez agréer, Madame, Monsieur, l'expression de mes salutations distinguées. » A word on tu and vous, since English gives you no signal at all. Everyone in the dialogue is a student talking to other students, so it is tu throughout. An email to an administrative office is vous without exception — and vous is not merely 'polite you': switching to tu unasked reads as an intrusion, not as warmth. Verbs and agreements follow: vous avez, and «vous êtes inscrit(e)» singular even though the verb form looks plural. Stay on vous until the other person offers «on peut se tutoyer ?». Part 2 — spoken (3 minutes). Act out a counter scene at the registry with a partner (or record both roles yourself). The student asks to have enrolment on a module reopened; the clerk refuses, citing the regulations and the closed deadline. The student must use « Si j'avais su…, j'aurais… » at least once, plus two expressions from the unit (e.g. rattraper son retard, faire une croix sur, prendre le pli). End on a compromise, not on one side winning. Self-check: count the tenses in your email. If there is not a single plus-que-parfait in it, you have almost certainly flattened everything into the English simple past — go back to the paragraph about what you had done before leaving and rewrite it from scratch. Then check every participle after avoir for a direct object sitting in front of the verb.