Easy French songs to learn: 11 to start with, and 3 to save for later
The easiest French songs to learn are Joe Dassin's "Les Champs-Élysées", Kids United's "On écrit sur les murs" and Édith Piaf's "La Vie en rose". They are slow enough to follow, the singers pronounce every word, the chorus comes back again and again, and the words are ones you will use the next day. Below are 11 songs in the order I would learn them, with what each one teaches, plus three famous songs that sound easy and aren't.
What makes a song easy has little to do with how simple it feels. I look for four things. The tempo leaves a gap between words. The singer articulates instead of mumbling. A chorus repeats, so you hear the same line ten times in three minutes. And the lyrics use standard French, not slang. A pop song can be catchy and still fail all four.
Singing along is worth the effort. In a 2014 study by Ludke, Ferreira and Overy, adults who learned Hungarian phrases by singing them did better on recall tests after 15 minutes of learning than adults who learned the same phrases by speaking them.
Start here: four songs for your first weeks
1. "Les Champs-Élysées", Joe Dassin, France
This is a 1969 French cover of an English song, "Waterloo Road", and it is the one I would learn first. The chorus is a list of times and weather: "Au soleil, sous la pluie, à midi ou à minuit", in the sun, in the rain, at noon or at midnight. That is four prepositions and two time words you can reuse anywhere.
It also teaches "il y a", there is, which you will say every day: "Il y a tout ce que vous voulez" means "there's everything you could want". The verses open in the imperfect, "Je me baladais sur l'avenue", I was strolling down the avenue, which is how French tells a story.
2. "On écrit sur les murs", Kids United, France
Kids United were a group of children, and children's diction is about as clear as sung French gets. Their version from 2015 was a UNICEF campaign single and a cover of Demis Roussos's 1989 song. Nearly every line starts with "On écrit" or "On dessine", which drills "on", the everyday French word for "we". One line to learn: "le nom de ceux qu'on aime", the names of the people we love.
3. "La Vie en rose", Édith Piaf, France
Written in 1945 and released as a single in 1947, it is slow, short and probably already in your head. The line to learn is "Quand il me prend dans ses bras", when he takes me in his arms. It shows a rule English doesn't have: the pronoun "me" goes before the verb, not after it.
4. "Dernière danse", Indila, France
This is the most modern song in the first four, and in 2023 it became the first French-language song to pass one billion YouTube views. Indila sings slowly over a long, dramatic build, and the chorus repeats single words: "Et je danse, danse, danse". Learn "Je danse avec le vent, la pluie", I dance with the wind, the rain. One warning: "Sans lui je suis un peu paro" uses "paro", a clipped slang form of "paranoïaque". It's the only slang in the song.
One step up: five songs with a bit more grammar
5. "Quelqu'un m'a dit", Carla Bruni, France
Bruni half-whispers over one acoustic guitar, so there is nothing to compete with her voice. The title line is a grammar lesson on its own: "Quelqu'un m'a dit que tu m'aimais encore", someone told me you still loved me. It puts the passé composé, "m'a dit", next to the imperfect, "m'aimais", and she repeats the line in almost every verse. Hearing both tenses side by side, slowly and over and over, is the easiest way I know to feel the difference.
6. "Comme des enfants", Cœur de pirate, Québec
A slow piano ballad by Cœur de pirate, a singer from Montreal. The chorus is short and comes back often: "Mais il m'aime encore", but he still loves me, then "Et moi je t'aime un peu plus fort", and I love you a little more. Notice that she switches from "il" to "tu" between the two lines. Working out who she is talking to is half the fun.
7. "Tous les garçons et les filles", Françoise Hardy, France
Hardy's 1962 hit is about watching every couple around you while you're alone. The opening, "Tous les garçons et les filles de mon âge", all the boys and girls my age, carries straight into "se promènent dans la rue deux par deux", which gives you a reflexive verb and a counting phrase in one breath. Cœur de pirate recorded a cover too, if you prefer a newer voice.
8. "Je veux", Zaz, France
This one is faster than the others, but Zaz's 2010 debut single earns its place. The verses are a list of commands: "Donnez-moi", "Offrez-moi", give me, offer me. Then the chorus teaches the partitive article, which English doesn't have: "Je veux d'l'amour, d'la joie", I want love, joy. Notice "d'l'" and "j'suis" in the lyrics. That's the dropped "e" of spoken French, and Zaz is a good way to get used to it before you hear it from real people.
9. "Le Festin", Camille, France
Camille sings this in Pixar's Ratatouille, so plenty of learners know the tune before they know a word. The vocabulary is food and hunger, and the comparisons are easy to parse: "Les rêves des amoureux sont comme le bon vin", lovers' dreams are like good wine. A few words, like "affaibli", weakened, are literary, so read the translation first.
Stretch songs: slow, but the grammar is harder
10. "Pour que tu m'aimes encore", Céline Dion, Québec
Céline Dion is from Québec, and this song was written for her by the French songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman in 1995. Her diction is precise. The title is the reason to learn it: "pour que" always takes the subjunctive, and "pour que tu m'aimes encore", so that you'll love me again, is the clearest example of it I know in a song. The verses run through the future tense too: "J'irai chercher ton cœur", I'll go and find your heart.
11. "Ne me quitte pas", Jacques Brel, Belgium
Brel wrote it in 1959, and the title, don't leave me, comes back so often you'll have it after one listen. It's a model of the negative imperative with a pronoun. The verses are poetry, though. "Laisse-moi devenir l'ombre de ton ombre", let me become the shadow of your shadow, is lovely and you won't say it at the bakery. Learn the refrain first and come back to the verses later.
Three songs that sound easy and aren't
These turn up on beginner lists all the time. Each one has a chorus a child could sing and verses that will lose you.
"Papaoutai", Stromae, Belgium
The chorus is "Où t'es, papa où t'es?", where are you, dad, where are you. Easy. The title squashes that whole question into one word, which tells you how fast the rest moves. The verses are quick and full of wordplay, like "Des géniteurs ou des génies", begetters or geniuses. Learn it for the chorus and the listening practice, not as a first song.
"Alors on danse", Stromae, Belgium
Three words of chorus, so it looks perfect. The verses are a rapid chain of "Qui dit X dit Y" lines, and they lean on slang: "Qui dit taf te dit les thunes" means who says job says cash, with "taf" and "thunes" as slang for work and money. Useful once you're intermediate, frustrating before.
"Djadja", Aya Nakamura, France
Nakamura's 2018 hit is everywhere, but it is built on street French. "Le monde est tipeu" uses "tipeu", which is verlan, the slang that swaps a word's syllables, here for "petit", small. "Daronne" means mom. The lyrics are crude too, which is why our catalogue marks it as an 18+ lesson. Save it until you can follow the songs above without the translation.
How to learn one of these songs in a week
- Read the full translation once before you listen, so you're not guessing at the story.
- Listen to the chorus only, with the French lyrics in front of you, until you can follow every word.
- Sing the chorus along with the recording. Out loud, even quietly, is what the singing study above tested.
- Take one verse a day. Pick out one phrase from it you could use in a conversation and write it down.
- On the last day, listen without the lyrics and see how much you catch.
If you want more on why this works and how to fit it into a routine, see how to learn French with music.
