Most people preparing for DELF A1 have no clear idea what’s actually on it. They buy a textbook, work through the chapters, and hope the coverage matches. Then a grammar point appears in the exam that nobody flagged as important.
The A1 syllabus isn’t a secret. France Éducation international builds every paper from the same defined pool of structures and themes. Once that pool is written out in front of you, preparation stops being guesswork and becomes a checklist. If you’d rather work through it with a teacher correcting you weekly, our online DELF A1 course for beginners follows this same scope from the first session.
I’ve taught A1 for over 15 years, to school students, to graduates heading to France, and to working professionals adding a language to a CV. The people who pass comfortably aren’t the ones who studied the longest. They’re the ones who knew the boundary and stopped studying things outside it. Our complete guide to the DELF exam covers how the four levels connect; this page zooms in on what A1 actually contains.
What Is Included in the DELF A1 Syllabus?
The DELF A1 syllabus is the defined set of grammatical structures, vocabulary themes, and communication tasks tested at the CEFR A1 level. It covers roughly 25 grammar points and about 500 core words. At A1, you handle simple, concrete situations using short set phrases, with repetition and support available.
The Council of Europe describes A1 as the breakthrough level. You can introduce yourself, ask and answer basic personal questions, and understand slow, clear speech about familiar things.
In practice, that’s a smaller target than beginners assume. At A1, you aren’t expected to argue, explain, or narrate. You’re expected to function. Order a coffee. Complete a form. Say where you live and what you do. Understand a station announcement.
Knowing that boundary is half the preparation. Anything that requires an opinion with justification or a story told across three tenses is at A2 level or above.
Which Grammar Points Are Tested in DELF A1?
DELF A1 grammar covers the present tense of common verbs, all three article types, noun and adjective agreement, negation with ne … pas, question forms, prepositions of place and time, and the near future. Past tenses are not part of A1. The passé composé belongs to the A2 level.
Work through this list and mark each item as solid, shaky, or new.
A1 verbs and tenses in scope
- Présent of
êtreandavoir - Présent of regular
-erverbs: parler, habiter, travailler, aimer - Présent of high-frequency irregular verbs: aller, faire, venir, prendre, pouvoir, vouloir, devoir
- Présent of regular
-irverbs: finir, choisir - Futur proche: aller + infinitive
- Présent progressif: être en train de + infinitive
- Impératif: basic instruction forms such as regardez, écoutez, tournez
- Pronominal verbs: se lever, s’appeler, se coucher
- Modal structures: il faut + infinitive, devoir, pouvoir and vouloir + infinitive
Note what is deliberately missing here. There is no past tense at A1. Candidates often expect the passé composé because many textbooks introduce it in the final chapters of a beginner course, but it falls within the A2 band, and A1 tasks focus on the present and the near future.
A1 nouns, articles, and adjective agreement
- Noun gender, masculine and feminine
- Noun plurals, including common exceptions
- Definite articles: le, la, les, l’
- Indefinite articles: un, une, des
- Partitive articles: du, de la, de l’, des
- Adjective agreement in gender and number
- Adjective position before or after the noun
- Possessive adjectives: mon, ma, mes through to leur
- Demonstrative adjectives: ce, cet, cette, ces
A1 sentence structure, negation, and questions
- Negation: ne … pas
- Negation with articles: pas de, pas d’
- Questions by intonation
- Questions with est-ce que
- Question words: qui, que, quoi, où, quand, comment, combien, pourquoi
c’estversusil estil y afor existence- Basic connectors: et, ou, mais, parce que, alors
A1 prepositions, pronouns, and short words
- Place: à, en, dans, sur, sous, devant, derrière, chez
- Countries and cities: en France, au Canada, à Delhi
- Time: à, de … à, en, le lundi
- Stressed pronouns: moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux
onused in place ofnous
A1 numbers, time, dates, and quantity
- Numbers 0 to 1000
- Telling the time, conversational and 24-hour
- Days, months, seasons, dates
- Quantity expressions: un peu de, beaucoup de, un kilo de, une bouteille de
Notice what is absent. No passé composé, no imperfect, no subjunctive, no conditional beyond fixed polite forms, and no compound relative pronouns. If a chapter is teaching you, don’t. You have walked past the exam.
Working through that grammar list takes most beginners about two months at a steady pace. The study hours behind each CEFR level show where that estimate comes from.
Where This A1 Grammar Checklist Comes From
France Éducation international publishes competency descriptors for the DELF, not a grammar syllabus. No official document says “these structures appear at A.” The inventory above is reconstructed from the CEFR reference levels for French and from the French Ministry grammar progression used in state education, cross-checked against the tasks in official A1 sample papers.
That matters for how you use it. Treat the list as the language the A1 tasks realistically demand, not as a legally fixed curriculum. Sources differ at the margins, most notably on whether the simple relative pronouns qui, que, and où belong at A1 or A2. Recognizing them at A1 is sensible; producing them is an A2 skill.
What Vocabulary Do You Need for DELF A1?
DELF A1 expects around 500 active words spread across everyday themes. You need coverage of personal information, family, food, shopping, housing, transport, time, and weather. Breadth beats depth. Thirty words across 15 themes serve you better than 200 words in three.
That’s where self-studying candidates most often go wrong. Food vocabulary gets learned thoroughly because it’s enjoyable, and then the reading paper turns out to be about apartment listings.
The 15 themes that recur across papers:
- Personal information: name, age, nationality, address, contact details
- Family and people: relatives, simple physical description, character basics
- Work and study: common professions, workplaces, school subjects
- Numbers, dates, and time: counting, prices, appointments, opening hours
- Daily routine: waking, eating, commuting, working, sleeping
- Food and drink: meals, common items, quantities, ordering
- Café and restaurant: menus, ordering, paying, asking for the bill
- Shopping: shops, prices, sizes, colors, requests
- Clothing: everyday garments, colors, sizes
- Housing: rooms, furniture, describing where you live
- The city: shops, public buildings, landmarks, directions
- Transport: modes, tickets, stations, timetables
- Weather and seasons: describing conditions, temperature
- Leisure: sports, music, films, likes and dislikes
- Body and health: basic body parts, saying you feel unwell
Build these as themed lists rather than one alphabetical dump. When a speaking examiner hands you a topic card, your memory is retrieved by theme.
How Is Each DELF A1 Paper Structured?
The A1 exam has four papers, each worth 25 marks. Listening runs for about 20 minutes, with short recordings played twice. Reading is about 30 minutes across short everyday documents. Writing is about 30 minutes for a form plus a 40-word message. Speaking is 5 to 7 minutes in three parts.
Here’s where the syllabus surfaces in each paper.
Listening. Announcements, voicemails, and simple dialogues. Numbers, times, and prices are where marks vanish fastest, because they’re said once at natural speed.
Reading. Notices, menus, adverts, timetables, short messages. You match, tick, or write short answers. Our guide to the DELF A1 reading paper covers each question type with worked examples.
Writing. Two parts. Complete a form with personal details, then write a short message of around 40 words, such as a postcard, invitation, or note.
Speaking. Three parts: a guided interview about yourself, an information exchange using question cards, and a short role-play, usually shopping or ordering.
The written session totals about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Speaking is scheduled separately, often on a different day.
Scoring is the same at every level. You need 50 out of 100 overall and at least 5 out of 25 on each paper. That second condition fails more candidates than the first.
How Do You Know You’re Ready to Book DELF A1?
You’re ready when you can do these without preparation: introduce yourself for 90 seconds, ask five questions about a stranger, order food and pay, catch a time and price said once at normal speed, and write 40 words about your day. If any of that needs rehearsal, you aren’t there yet.
That’s a stricter test than most candidates apply to themselves, and deliberately so.
Here’s the pattern I’ve watched for 15 years. People judge readiness by how much of the book they’ve finished. The exam judges them on what they produce under pressure with no notes. Those are different skills.
Try this. Set a timer for two minutes and speak about yourself in French with no script and no pauses to think. Record it, then listen back. If you dried up at 40 seconds or drifted into English, your speaking isn’t exam-ready, whatever the workbook says.
The fix is quick at this level. A1 is the smallest of the four syllabuses, and most learners reach it in 60 to 80 hours from zero.
Once A1 is behind you, the syllabus roughly doubles in size. It is worth reading what the A2 syllabus adds next before you decide how quickly to move up.
How Should You Plan Eight Weeks of A1 Preparation?
Sequence the syllabus rather than working through a book cover to cover. Front-load the present tense and personal information, add questions and numbers in the middle weeks, then move to the near future, past introduction, and directions before finishing with timed mocks.
Weeks 1 to 2. Present tense of être, avoir and -er verbs. Articles and gender. Personal information, family, and work vocabulary. Speak about yourself out loud from day one.
Weeks 3 to 4. Negation, questions, il y a, c’est versus il est. Numbers, time, and dates. Food, café, and shopping vocabulary. Start role-play practice now, not later.
Weeks 5 to 6. Futur proche, être en train de, and modal structures with il faut, devoir, pouvoir and vouloir. Prepositions of place. Housing, city, directions, and transport vocabulary. Begin timed reading.
Weeks 7 to 8. Consolidation and past papers. Weather, leisure, and health vocabulary to close gaps. Two full mock papers under exam conditions.
One warning about the writing paper. Forty words is short, and candidates lose marks not because their French is weak but because they miss the greeting, ignore part of the instruction, or write half the required length. Follow the brief exactly.
For working professionals, fitting this around a job, eight weeks at two sessions a week is realistic, which is why most choose online French classes you can join from any city rather than a fixed classroom slot. Students with open days often manage an intensive six weeks. Either way, book the session first, because the 2026 DELF session calendar offers only four sittings a year.
Key Takeaways From the DELF A1 Syllabus
The A1 syllabus is smaller than it feels. Around 25 grammar structures and 500 words are genuinely achievable in two to three months. Spread vocabulary across all 15 themes rather than mastering just three. And treat speaking as the paper that decides your result, because it’s the only one that study time alone can’t rescue.
Print the checklist. Mark what’s shaky. Work on that and nothing else.
If you’d like an honest read on where you stand, call or WhatsApp +91 7011164582, or visit our Sector 18 Noida center. We run DELF exam coaching online in India in batches of 6 to 10 students, with a full mock in the real exam format at the end of every level.
