6 Best French Grammar Exercises For Intermediate Students to Build Fluency

You’ve paid for years of French classes, bought the workbooks, and maybe even hosted an exchange student. Your child can navigate a Parisian bakery with confidence, but when they try to share an opinion or tell a story, the conversation stalls. They have the vocabulary, but the words come out in a clunky, disconnected stream—this is the intermediate plateau, and it’s a frustrating place for a young learner to be stuck.

Intermediate Grammar: The Bridge to Fluency

You see your teen trying. They know the words for "movie," "friend," and "to want," but they can’t quite build the bridge to say, "I would have wanted my friend to see that movie with me." This isn’t a vocabulary problem; it’s a grammar problem. For intermediate students, grammar stops being about memorizing rules and starts being the architectural blueprint for expressing complex, nuanced thoughts.

Think of it like learning an instrument. A beginner focuses on playing the right notes. An intermediate player, however, learns how those notes connect to form chords, melodies, and emotional phrases. The grammar exercises at this stage are less like flashcards and more like a musician’s scales and arpeggios—they build the underlying structure and muscle memory needed for fluid, creative expression. Getting this part right is what transforms a robotic speaker into a confident communicator.

Mastering the Subjunctive with Cued Scenarios

Does your child’s French sometimes sound a little too direct or certain? They might say, "Je suis sûr que c’est une bonne idée" (I’m sure it’s a good idea), but struggle with "Il faut que ce soit une bonne idée" (It has to be a good idea). That subtle shift in meaning is handled by the subjunctive, a grammatical "mood" for expressing doubt, necessity, or emotion. It’s what adds subjectivity and politeness to the language.

Forget endless conjugation charts. The best way to practice this is with cued scenarios that demand an emotional or subjective response. Give them a prompt: "Your parents say you have to clean your room before you can go out. Start your response with Il faut que…" This forces them to produce, "Il faut que je fasse ma chambre," using the subjunctive in a context that feels authentic. It connects the grammatical form directly to its real-world function: expressing necessity.

Using Object Pronouns in Contextual Drills

Listen to your student speak. Do you hear a lot of repetition, like "J’ai donné le livre à Marie. Marie a lu le livre"? It’s grammatically correct, but it’s not how people actually talk. The key to sounding smooth and natural lies in mastering object pronouns—those little words like le, la, lui, leur, y, and en that replace nouns. They are the secret sauce of French fluency.

The most effective practice mimics the rhythm of a real conversation. Instead of a worksheet, use a quick-fire Q&A drill. You ask, "Tu as parlé à tes professeurs?" (Did you talk to your teachers?). They must answer, "Oui, je leur ai parlé." (Yes, I talked to them). Ask, "Tu veux de la pizza?" (Do you want some pizza?). They answer, "Oui, j’en veux." (Yes, I want some). This back-and-forth format builds the instinct to use these pronouns automatically, just like a native speaker would.

Building Complex Sentences with Relative Clauses

A common sign of an intermediate plateau is speaking in a series of short, choppy sentences. "J’ai un ami. Il habite à Paris. Il est très sympa." Fluency requires connecting these ideas into a single, elegant thought. This is the job of relative clauses, which are introduced by words like qui (who/that), que (whom/that), dont (whose/of which), and où (where).

Give your child two simple sentences and challenge them to be the architect. For example, "Voici la ville. Je suis né dans cette ville." The goal is to combine them into "Voici la ville où je suis né." (Here is the city where I was born). This exercise directly trains the brain to stop thinking in simple, isolated blocks and start building more sophisticated structures. It’s the single most effective way to elevate their descriptive abilities and make their French sound more mature.

Dictation Exercises to Connect Sound and Syntax

Has your child ever complained that they can read French just fine, but can’t understand a thing when they watch a movie? This is a classic challenge. The written French they see in textbooks is often very different from the way it’s spoken, with its liaisons, elisions, and dropped letters. Dictation, or la dictée, is the ultimate exercise for bridging this gap between the eye and the ear.

Find a short (60-90 second) audio clip of a native speaker—a news report, a podcast segment, or a movie scene. Have your student listen to it sentence by sentence, writing down exactly what they hear. Afterwards, compare their version to the official transcript. They will immediately see where they misheard "il est" as "il est" or missed the subtle sound of a plural "s." This isn’t a spelling test; it’s an intense listening workout that trains their brain to recognize grammatical structures in the flow of natural speech.

Analyzing News Headlines for Tense and Mood

Choosing between different past tenses like the passé composé and the imparfait can feel like a high-stakes guessing game for students. They know the rules, but they lack the instinct for when to use each one to tell a compelling story. For this, real-world materials are far better than textbook examples. French news headlines are a goldmine of concise, powerful grammar.

Pull up the website for Le Monde or France 24 and look at the headlines together. They are packed with decisions about tense. A headline might use the present tense to describe a past event to make it feel more immediate ("Le président arrive à Rome"). It will use the passé composé for a completed, breaking news event. Ask your child: "Why did the journalist choose this tense and not another?" This shifts their perspective from "which rule do I follow?" to "what meaning am I trying to create?"

Storytelling Prompts to Practice Conditionals

The final frontier for many intermediate learners is expressing hypothetical situations. They can talk about what is and what was, but struggle with what could be or what would have been. This is the domain of conditional sentences, or si clauses (if… then…). Mastering this structure is what unlocks the ability to negotiate, dream, and speculate—all hallmarks of true fluency.

The best way to practice is through play. Use creative storytelling prompts that require a conditional response. Ask them, "Si tu pouvais dîner avec n’importe quelle personne historique, qui choisirais-tu et pourquoi?" (If you could have dinner with any historical person, who would you choose and why?). Or, a sillier one: "Si les animaux pouvaient parler, que dirait ton chien?" (If animals could talk, what would your dog say?). These prompts are so engaging that students forget they’re practicing a complex grammatical structure. They’re just having a conversation.

Creating a Balanced Weekly Grammar Practice Plan

Seeing all these exercises can feel like you’re being asked to become a French tutor overnight. Don’t let it be overwhelming. The goal isn’t to do everything at once, but to create a consistent, balanced routine. Just like a young athlete’s training plan includes days for strength, cardio, and skill work, a language learner’s plan needs variety to be effective and sustainable.

A good weekly plan should touch on different skills—listening, speaking, and writing—without leading to burnout. Aim for consistency over intensity. Three focused 15-minute sessions are far more valuable than one miserable 45-minute slog. A balanced week might look like this:

• Monday (15 min): Contextual Drills. A rapid-fire Q&A session with object pronouns.
• Wednesday (15 min): Listening Practice. One dictation exercise with a short audio clip.
• Friday (15 min): Creative Output. A fun storytelling prompt using conditionals.

This approach builds grammar skills into your child’s routine in a manageable way. It respects their time and energy while providing the targeted practice they need to break through the intermediate plateau and finally achieve the fluency they’ve been working so hard for.

This intermediate stage is where the real magic happens. It’s the moment a learner moves from simply repeating phrases to truly creating with the language. By focusing on these types of targeted, context-rich exercises, you’re not just helping your child with their homework; you’re giving them the keys to unlock a new world of connection, culture, and self-expression.