Foreign Language Educational Games

I am French myself and I wondered which games available in the USA would exist to help learn French. It turns out I could find 12 such card games and flashcards. Most card games are matching games that can enrich vocabulary, and others enable to play Go Fish or play alone. French Learning Card Games and Flashcards Comparison Table GameAgePlayersPriceRatingLiteracy Whiz7+1+$$★★★★☆Les Courses à Faire7+2‑4$$$$★★★☆☆Word School English/L'école des Mots Français7+1+$$$★★★☆☆French Lingo11+1+$$★★★☆☆French Deck11+1+$$★★★★☆Let’s Learn French11+1+$$★★★★★Q & R Niveau 111+2‑5$$★★★★☆French Conjugation Flash Cards11+1+$$$$★★★★★French Vocabulary Flash Cards11+1+$$★★★★☆French Conjugations – Present Tense11+1+$$$★★★★☆Travel Flips11+1+$$★★★☆☆201 French Words and Phrases You Need to Know11+1+$$★★★★☆French Icon Cards11+1+$$$★★★★★Conjudingo15+1+SS★★★★☆ French Learning Card Games Literacy Whiz (BOHS) ★★★★☆ For Families and Schools | Age 7+ | 1+ players | Price $$ | Duration 10-20 min If you’re starting to learn French, Literacy Whiz is a great card game that enables to build: Letter recognitionSpellingWord readingWord recognitionVocabulary When learning a new language, these are necessary beginning reading and spelling skills, especially since French has accented letters and special characters (ç, œ) not included in the English alphabet. With this game, players take a turn trying to identify, read, or spell the word. The cards have images to help identify the words. For an added challenge, you can encourage your child to use the word in simple sentences and give extra points for using several new words in one sentence. I recommend this game because: It’s easy to playIt allows for independent or competitive learning at home or in schoolIt has over 120 sight words, making it great for replayability The only issue with this set is it issues lowercase letters. Younger players will have difficulty identifying the letters. Conjudingo (Aritma) ★★★★☆ For Families and Schools | Age 15+ | 1+ players | Price $$ | Duration 10-20 min Conjudingo is a set of three matching card games for practicing the following conjugations: ConjuDingo CE1: Present, future and present perfect (1st group verbs and auxiliaries)ConjuDingo CE2: Present, future (2nd & 3rd groups) & imperfect (all groups)ConjuDingo CM1/CM2: past historic (all groups), present perfect (2nd & 3rd groups), irregular verbs Each of them comes with: 102 double-sided cards2 rule cards8 control cards that show conjugation rules I am biased of course (I do edit this game !), but I recommend the ConjuDingo series of games to you because they allows players to play three simple and fun games games: battle, rummy, and mistigri – a French card game similar to old maid. Conjudingo is: skill-level appropriate (you can chose the game appropriate for your, and in each game you can chose the set of cards for the tense that you want to work on)It is easy to playIt has high replayabilityYou can also play with the cards on your own to practice verb conjugations The rules are in French, so you might want to translate them before (they are very simple)... If you are interested, I can make an English version of the rules in PDF. French Lingo (Lingo) ★★★☆☆ For Families and Schools | Age 11+ | 1+ players | Price $$ | Duration 10-20 min French Lingo features a set of playing cards with basic sentences and phrases in French and English. You can use the set to play any common playing card game, such as: PokerBlackJackSpoonsRummyGo FishMemorySolitaire I like this set because it is easy to play for beginning French language players. The cards also feature simplified phonetic pronunciation, making them decodable even for students struggling with the language. It also allows students to converse in basic French. However, I only give this game three stars because some pronunciation guides are erroneous or at least somewhat misleading (the idea to make them is great though). In addition, language learning is not necessarily part of the games, so you may need to ask your students to read the cards when they have their turns. French Deck (KLOO) ★★★★☆ For Families and Schools | Age 11+ | 1+ players | Price $$ | Duration 10-20 min KLOO’s French Deck comes with color-coded cards that help your students learn to make sentences in French! The cards feature: Simple expressions like “bien sûr”Verbs in the present tense in different conjugationsCommon nouns with the matching articles like “le professeur” and “la chemise”Adjectives with both feminine and masculine spellingsPronunciation guide This set comes with two decks, and you progress from one deck to the other when you learn all the words. You can also play this game with KLOO’s French learning board game – Race to Paris. French Deck is easy to play because you only follow the pattern. The cards have color-coded arrows that tell you what type of word or card you need to pick next. I like this game because: You learn different verb conjugations with their pronounsThe nouns also come with the corresponding article, which is helpful for beginning language studentsYou can make simple, meaningful sentences that help you practice the languageIt comes with 120 cards for high replayabilityYou can make a lot of sentences with just one deck Les Courses à Faire (Orchard Toys) ★★★☆☆ For Families | Age 7+ | 2-4 players | Price $$$$ | Duration 10-20 min Go shopping in French with Les Courses à Faire. This matching card game comes with four shopping lists, four grocery carts, and a pronunciation guide to help your beginning French language students. To play: Distribute the shopping lists and carts to all playersLay all the picture cards face down on the tableHave the students take a turn flipping a picture card and finding a match in their grocery listsThe first player to finish their grocery list wins the game This set has very simple game instructions. And the shopping list already comes with pictures, so it is very easy to identify the match. I recommend this for homes because the list also shows the corresponding articles, so players will also learn and remember the proper gender for each word. However, I hope this game also comes with a list with no pictures. That way, students can test their knowledge of the language without depending on the images. The price is too steep for the number of cards included in the game, especially since it has low replayability. Let’s Learn French (The Green Board Gaming Company) ★★★★★ For Families and Schools | Age 11+ | 1+ players | Price $$ | Duration 5-10 min Boost your child’s French vocabulary and test their attention and memory skills with Let’s Learn French. It features over 400 questions in English and French. To play: players take turns picking a card and looking at the picture side. They have 10 seconds to focus on this side.Then, when the timer runs out, they need to roll the die and pass the card to the next person.The other player will read the question corresponding to the number rolled in the die.If answered correctly, the player gets to keep the card.If not, return the card to the box. Then the next person takes their turnAfter five or ten minutes of play, the player with the most cards will win the game. I highly recommend this card game because it has two levels of questions – one in English and the other in French. So, players can decide what level they’re playing based on their capabilities. The picture cards are also colored but not too busy that a young player will get distracted when looking at them. The important details are also labeled in French and English. Let’s Learn French has high replayability, and it is highly unlikely to have the same questions in different games. Word School English/L'école des Mots Français (BioToys) ★★★☆☆ For Families | Age 7+ | 1+ players | Price $$$ | Duration 10-20 min Word School English/L'école des Mots is a simple bilingual matching game where players spell the words with the tiles. This set features two-sided cards with pictures of the corresponding English or French name on each side. It is very easy to use as players only need to take turns matching the letter tiles to the spelling of the objects. I also like that the letter tiles are two-sided with lowercase and uppercase letters. You may also opt to use the card as flashcards and instead have your child spell the word with chalk as you read it to them. However, there are only 50 cards in the set. So, the game has low replayability. Q & R Niveau 1 (AGO Store) ★★★★☆ For Families and Schools | Age 11+ | 2-5 players | Price $$ | Duration 10-20 min Q & R Niveau 1 is the following instructions game where a player either has to do an action or answer a question in French. It features 54 cards – 36 question cards and 18 action cards. Players take turns drawing a card and doing what is asked. I like this set because: It has varied gameplay – answering questions or doing actionsIt has simple yes/no questions and WH-questions that help practice sentence construction in FrenchIt also has guide sentences to help beginning speakers form their answers.It lets your child practice conversing in FrenchIt also widens their French language vocabulary The issue with the game is the low number of cards. I think this game has low replayability. French Learning Flashcards French Conjugation Flash Cards (Pat’s Flash Cards Store) ★★★★★ For Families and Schools | Age 11+ | 1+ players | Price $$$$ | Duration 10-20 min Learn how to conjugate 200 verbs with French Conjugation Flash Cards. It lets you practice conjugating verbs in 11 tenses, including: Simple present (le present de l’indicatif)Simple future (le futur simple)Past perfect (le passé antérieur)Imperfect (l’imparfait) This set has color-coded cards for easy organization. This design also lets you know what level or tense you can move to next once you have mastered the simple tenses. I like these flashcards because: it is an excellent resource for your first few years as a French language studentit has an English translation at the back and examplesit has six different conjugations of the verb in a specified tense (je, tu, il/elle, nous, vous, ils/elles) I highly recommend this set because it takes away the need to buy several French learning books that don’t offer different tenses. French Vocabulary Flash Cards (eeBoo) ★★★★☆ For Families | Age 11+ | 1+ players | Price $$ | Duration 10-20 min French Vocabulary Flash Cards introduces eight common vocabulary words for each of the following categories: naturevehiclesmarketanimalclothingcolorshome This set comes with 56 double-sided cards with simple illustrations and examples. One side has the word and the sentence in French, while the other has English. The terms also have the corresponding articles – feminine, masculine, or plural. I like that this set comes with example sentences and their translations. It also has a separate pronunciation guide to help your beginning French language learning student. But there are only 56 cards, so your child can quickly go through the set. French Conjugations – Present Tense (Pat’s Flash Cards Store) ★★★★☆ For Families and Schools | Age 11+ | 1+ players | Price $$S | Duration 10-20 min French Conjugations – Present Tense features 200 verbs and their conjugations in the present tense. This set is created with native French speakers to ensure that you will get a representation of the most commonly used verbs in their language. Like the French Conjugation Flash Cards in this list, this set comes with a sample sentence and English translation. And I also highly recommend these flashcards if you are only starting to learn about the French language. However, if you have the budget, the 800 set offers more because it covers 11 different verb tenses. Travel Flips (Travel Flips) ★★★☆☆ For Families | Age 11+ | 1+ players | Price $$ | Duration 10-20 min Travel Flips features 60 expressions in French. The cards have the French words, phrases, or sentences with their simple pronunciation guide in front, while the English translation is at the back. I like the simple card design and the added usage example of the different expressions. However, there are a few errors in the translation and pronunciation guide. 201 French Words and Phrases You Need to Know (Barron’s Educational Series) ★★★★☆ For Families and Schools | Age 11+ | 1+ players | Price $$ | Duration 10-20 min Barron’s 201 French Words and Phrases You Need to Know features 402 flashcards – 201 common French words and 201 common French phrases. Each card shows the phonetic pronunciation, and some also provide: verb conjugationscorresponding pronounsnumbers I recommend this set because: it features commonly used words and phrases that are necessary to learn for beginning French language studentsit is color-coded according to these categories – nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, tricky words, and everyday conversationthe cards come with full-color photos that represent the words and phrasesit comes with a pronunciation guide and more learning tips However, I will only give these flashcards four stars because it is impossible to practice translating the words or phrases in French if you are looking at the English side. This side also shows the French word or phrases. French Icon Cards (Pat’s Flash Cards Store) ★★★★★ For Families and Schools | Age 11+ | 1+ | Price $$$ | Duration 10-20 min French Icon Cards is a set of 192 common French words with colored illustrations. With these flashcards, you will get: 19 animal cards27 food cards9 people cards9 family cards21 number cards15 verb cards11 object cards4 clothes cards6 transportation cards4 kitchen/dining cards7 bathroom card4 school and office cards14 locations cards4 landscapes cards7 colors cards7 adjectives and opposites cards10 prepositions cards4 emotions cards10 body cards The cards have the article and words in French on one side and the picture on the other side. In addition, the English translations are compiled in separate cards. I highly recommend this set because the design is simple and encourages students to remember the word and not rely only on the English translation. It is also great for reviewing your French vocabulary if you are already at a higher French language level. Other French Learning Games for Families and Schools Learning another language can be highly challenging, especially if it involves new letters not used in our everyday English language. Using card games and flashcards makes the process more enjoyable. They also help students remember the language more because they often come with visual cues, making the new vocabulary more memorable. If you are looking for more card games to try with your French language learning students, you can also check out the Aritma website (www.aritma.net). It features loads of helpful games for different CEFR levels.