à propos · about frappe

frappe is a Pokémon-style role-playing game that takes an English speaker from absolute zero to B2 on the TCF or TEF, the official French exams. Every screen uses short, simple French with a small English gloss underneath (you can switch the English off in the trainer settings once you are ready). Everything runs in your browser; your progress is saved on this device.

the adventure

The carte (map) has four regions, one per CEFR level: Saint-Bonjour the starter village (A1), Lyon (A2), Marseille (B1) and Paris (B2). Each region is made of:

• zones: vocabulary themes (home, food, work, health…). Walking into a zone starts a wild encounter: answer correctly to catch the word. Each word is a creature in your Vocadex and evolves as it moves into your long-term memory (seen → caught → trained → mastered).
• techniques: the grammar points of the level, in the grimoire. Each one has a short lesson in English (explanation, table, examples with audio, common mistakes) and a trainer battle to practise it. Stars (0–5) show how well you master it.
• five bosses, one per TCF section. Beat the listening, reading and structures bosses of a region to open the next one. The examen button runs a full mock exam that mixes every level, like the real paper, and estimates your score per section.

The aventure du jour on the map is your daily session (10–45 minutes, your choice): reviews, a few new words and techniques, drills on your weak spots and some exam practice, played as a short series of battles. Daily quests, a streak, XP, trainer levels, badges and coins for the boutique (themes, balls, battle backgrounds, sound packs, frames: cosmetics only, never real money) keep you coming back. New here? The first screen asks your trainer name, then lets you start from zero (« Je débute ») or take an adaptive placement test.

how it finds and trains your weak spots

Every answer you give, in any battle, updates one learner model in four ways:

• Memory (FSRS-6). Each word has memory cards for its meaning and, for nouns, its gender. The FSRS spaced-repetition algorithm estimates how stable each memory is and brings the word back just before you would forget it (about 90 % recall). Words you keep missing are flagged as leeches and move up your list of weak spots.
• Grammar mastery (BKT). Each technique has a Bayesian Knowledge Tracing estimate of the chance you really know it. Once it is learned, it is handed over to FSRS so that it, too, gets reviewed at the right time.
• Error tracking. Every mistake is classified (accents, gender, agreement, conjugation, tense, articles, prepositions, pronouns, word order, negation, elision, spelling, meaning, listening). The counters decay over time, so an old mistake you no longer make stops counting against you.
• Skill ratings. A Bayesian, Elo-style rating per TCF section, adjusted for question difficulty, gives a predicted TCF score (100–699) with an uncertainty range, your CEFR band and your chance of reaching B2. Writing and speaking tasks are scored out of 20.

From these, frappe ranks your weak spots (fragile words, shaky techniques, recurring error types, lagging sections) and plans each day around them: reviews first (never more than 60 % of a session), new material at a pace your future reviews can absorb, targeted drills, then exam practice weighted towards the section that is furthest from B2. Your trainer card shows the predicted scores, their history and the current weak spots, with a button to train each one.

the TCF sections (the bosses)

• 🎧 compréhension orale (listening): 29 questions in 25 minutes (TCF tout public; 39 in 35 min for TCF Canada). Each recording is played once; here the audio uses your browser's French voice, with two plays allowed at A1–A2.
• 📖 compréhension écrite (reading): 29 questions in 45 minutes (39 in 60 min for TCF Canada), from signs and short messages up to opinion pieces.
• 🧩 maîtrise des structures de la langue (grammar and vocabulary): 18 questions in 15 minutes, TCF tout public only.
• ✍️ expression écrite (writing): three tasks in 60 minutes: a short message (60–120 words), an article or letter (120–150) and a comparison of two documents with your opinion (120–180).
• 🎙️ expression orale (speaking): three tasks in about 12 minutes: a guided interview, a role-play and an opinion. With a microphone, your answer is transcribed (when your browser supports French speech recognition); otherwise you score yourself with the checklist.

Multiple-choice sections are scored from 100 to 699: A1 100–199, A2 200–299, B1 300–399, B2 400–499, C1 500–599. Writing and speaking are marked out of 20, where 10–13 is B2. Pick your target exam (TCF tout public, TCF Canada or TEF) in the trainer settings. All scores shown in frappe are estimates for practice, not official results.

the typing dojo

The dojo is the original frappe: a guided typing course in short lessons (discover the words, type running text with the next key and finger shown, sentences, dictation, translation and a final review, up to 5 stars each) and a free typing test (time, words, sentences, translation, listening, zen or your own text) with speed (mpm, words per minute), accuracy and consistency. When you type a word from memory (dictation, translation, listening), it counts as a recall answer for the same memory model, so the dojo also trains your vocabulary. The dojo's own records page keeps your typing statistics and slow letters.

accents and shortcuts

In battles, souple mode (default) accepts a missing accent but notes it as an accent slip, so accents still show up in your weak spots; in strict mode you must type the real character. In the dojo, souple lets you type e for é è ê ë and oe for œ. Accent buttons appear under every typed answer. In battles: 1–4 or A–D to choose, enter to confirm and continue, esc to leave. In the dojo: tab restarts the test. Anywhere: esc or ctrl+shift+p opens the command line.

sources

The original A1 typing themes follow Communication essentielle du français A1 (M.-L. Lions-Olivieri & E. Mottironi, Éditions Didier, 2021). The game's vocabulary, grammar lessons, exam-style questions and writing and speaking tasks were written for this site, following the CEFR and the published formats of France Éducation International (TCF) and Le français des affaires (TEF). Export a backup of your progress from the trainer card to move it to another browser.