Languages

The best French workbooks for self-study adults

By Ren · Updated October 20, 2026

The best French workbook for self-study adults is not the one with the most exercises. It is the one that can still mark your work when there is no teacher in the room. That comes down to three things: answers in the book, audio you can use, and explanations you can read.

Three tests for a workbook you will use alone

1. An answer key in the same book. Not a separate booklet, and not "check with your teacher". Without answers, an exercise tells you that you finished, not that you were right.
2. Audio, and what it actually covers. "Audio included" can mean recorded answers, example sentences, a few dialogues or a listening course. Each entry below says which.
3. Explanations you can read. In English, or in French simple enough that the explanation does not become another exercise.

A grammar reference with no exercises is not a workbook, and word lists are a separate job: flashcards do that better than any book.

The ranking at a glance

Books that pass all three tests come first; book 4 misses only on audio.

1. Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French Grammar (Premium 5th edition)

Annie Heminway's workbook is, in McGraw Hill's words, for "a beginning to intermediate French language learner", with "comparisons to English grammar" and "an answer key for reference and quick feedback". This edition came out on 15 January 2024; the paperback is ISBN-10 1266005595, 320 pages.

What the audio is. Recordings of the answers to more than 150 exercises and of hundreds of example sentences, plus new text-to-speech, online and in McGraw Hill's mobile app. It is not a listening course. It lets you hear the correct sentence as you check your answer, which a learner alone usually lacks.

Suits: almost anyone starting or restarting French. If you buy one book from this list, buy this one. Skip it if school French left you with most of the basics; book 3 is aimed higher.

Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French Grammar, Premium 5th edition

2. Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French All-in-One (Premium 3rd edition)

It binds Complete French Grammar together with six more titles from the series: French Nouns and their Genders Up Close, French Vocabulary, French Sentence Builder, French Pronouns and Prepositions, French Verb Tenses and French Problem Solver. Published on 13 October 2022, before book 1's 2024 edition, it runs to 656 pages. The publisher pitches it for "individual study" and as "a review workbook, companion to a basic text, and reference source".

Answer key. The publisher's page refers to the "exercise answer keys", and the previous edition's contents list an answer key in the back.

What the audio is. The app has "flashcards for all vocabulary lists throughout the book, as well as streaming audio recordings for many exercise answer keys and conversations", and this edition adds recordings of example sentences. Note "many": not every answer is recorded.

Against: at 656 pages it is a desk book, not a bag book, and it contains Complete French Grammar. Buy book 1 or book 2, not both.

Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French All-in-One, Premium 3rd edition

3. The Ultimate French Review and Practice (Premium 5th edition)

David M. Stillman and Ronni L. Gordon's book came out on 24 November 2023 and is aimed at "advanced beginners through advanced learners", not at people starting from nothing. The paperback is ISBN-10 1265405948, 448 pages. It has more than 400 exercises with an answer key, "contextualized with scene-setting instructions in French", so even the instructions are reading practice.

What the audio is. The only listening course on this list: new to this edition, the app has a listening comprehension programme that runs "from key phonetic distinctions to short narratives and longer passages", plus more than 200 extra exercises, flashcards, and diagnostic and review tests.

The feature that matters most for returners is its "systematic presentation of the differences between spoken and written French". School French is mostly written French. Spoken French often drops the ne ("je sais pas"), uses on for nous, and asks questions with a rising voice ("tu viens ?").

Suits: adults coming back from school French, and anyone who has finished book 1. Skip it if you are starting from zero; as a first book it is steep.

The Ultimate French Review and Practice, Premium 5th edition

4. Easy French Step-by-Step

Myrna Bell Rochester's book (1st edition, 2008, ISBN-10 0071453873) promises grammar "in order of importance", "more than 300 verbs, chosen by their frequency of use", and "numerous exercises and engaging readings". In the publisher's contents list, the first four chapters pair grammar with Key Vocabulary lists, and chapters 2 to 4 end with a Reading Comprehension passage. It reads like a course rather than a set of drills.

Answer key. Yes. The contents on Google Books list an Answer Key from page 351. "Answers will vary" is among the book's common phrases there, so some open items cannot be checked alone.

Why it is fourth. No audio: the publisher mentions none. That hurts in French, where "parle", "parles" and "parlent" sound the same. Pair it with a listening routine from the first week.

Suits: an absolute beginner who wants to be told what to learn next, in English.

Easy French Step-by-Step

5. Grammaire progressive du français, niveau débutant (A1)

CLE International's current printing, with downloadable audio and a web app, came out on 28 January 2025 (ISBN 978-2-09-039850-2, ISBN-10 2090398507), for ages 16–18 and adults at A1. CLE's resource site labels it the third edition. The layout is the classic French-as-a-foreign-language one: explanation on the left page, exercises and communicative activities on the right. Sixty chapters cover A1, with nearly 250 interactive exercises online and 20 self-correcting tests. CLE says it works for self-study.

Three catches for someone working alone:

• The explanations are in French. Simple French at A1, but you are learning grammar through a language you do not yet have.
• The answer key is sold separately as a livret de corrigés, ISBN 978-2-09-038102-3, a 40-page third-edition booklet, the one CLE names on the 2025 printing's page. Order both together.
• The audio covers the communicative activities only: 28 dialogues (pages 158–169) and 10 songs. No grammar exercise is recorded.

Suits: someone who already reads simple French and wants the format used in French classrooms abroad. Skip it if you are an English speaker starting from zero.

Grammaire progressive du français, débutant (A1) and the A1 corrigés booklet

Which one to buy, by the kind of learner you are

• Starting from zero, one book only: book 1.
• Starting from zero, wanting a path with readings: book 4, with daily listening alongside, since it has no audio.
• Returning from school French: book 3. If the first chapters feel hard, drop back to book 1 for a month.
• One book for the long haul: book 2, instead of book 1.
• Reading simple French, wanting the classroom format: book 5 plus the corrigés.
• Mainly wanting to understand spoken French: none of these alone. Book 3 helps; the rest is listening, not grammar.
• Mainly wanting to speak: a tutor on italki once a week, with one of these books between lessons.

Check the edition before you buy

Marketplace sellers keep older editions in circulation, and some older McGraw Hill editions came with discs (the 2011 Ultimate French Review had a CD-ROM). The Premium editions use the app instead. Match the ISBN on the listing:

The publisher pages for books 1 and 3 give only eBook ISBNs (1266000054 and 1265406197), so do not match a paperback listing against those.

How to use an answer key without fooling yourself

Glancing at the key "just for the first one" turns an exercise into reading.

1. Cover the key and finish the whole exercise, guesses included. A guess can be marked; a blank cannot.
2. Mark in a different colour, so the wrong items stand out later.
3. Log every error with its rule, one line each, on a mistakes page in your notebook.
4. Redo only the wrong items a week later, without looking at the log.
5. Read the corrected answers aloud. With books 1 and 2, play the recorded answer first where there is one, and repeat it.
6. Turn unknown words into cards instead of rereading the vocabulary list.

A worked example of the log:

The rule column is the point. If you cannot write the rule, reread the explanation before moving on; a correction you do not understand comes back.

What a workbook cannot do

No workbook answers back. You can check what you write, not what you say, and you cannot practise reacting to a question you did not expect. That is the gap a tutor fills.

italki's French tutor page says each student can book up to three trial lessons, one per tutor. Professional teachers are certified, with formal training; community tutors are native or fluent speakers without teaching credentials, focused on conversation. Prices vary with the tutor's experience and the lesson format. To see which kind helps more, book a trial lesson with one of each.

Bring the workbook. Ask the tutor to take you through the chapter you just finished, out loud, correcting as you go, and add the corrections to the same log. Between lessons, shadowing and recording yourself keep the speaking side moving.

Common questions

Do French workbooks come with answers?

Books 1 to 4 print the key in the book. Grammaire progressive sells its corrigés separately.

Is Practice Makes Perfect good for complete beginners?

Complete French Grammar is: the publisher says beginning to intermediate. The Ultimate French Review, from the same publisher, starts at advanced beginner.

Should an English speaker use a French-only workbook?

Not as a first book. Once you read simple French, the French explanations become useful reading practice; before that, they become the exercise.

Workbook or app?

A workbook makes you produce whole sentences and check them; an app is better for short daily review. If you would rather follow a structured course, the comparison below covers the options.