Picture description — practise describing in French (level A2)
Describing a person, a place or an object is task 1 of the TCF IRN written production, and the DELF A2 monologue draws on the same skills. Here the picture is the prompt: describe the scene, record or type your answer, and get AI feedback.
Pick a picture and start: your description is evaluated by an AI.
Un repas de famille
A family meal
À l’arrêt de bus
At the bus stop
Au parc
In the park
Chez le médecin
At the doctor's
Au marché
At the market
Au café
At the café
En classe
In class
À la plage
At the beach
Un soir d’hiver
A winter evening
Au supermarché
At the supermarketWhat picture description trains for in the TCF IRN and the DELF A2
Describing a person, a group of people, a place or an object is exactly what task 1 of the TCF IRN written production asks for — “in a short message”, between 30 and 60 words. It is also the basic move of the speaking test: in writing and in speech alike you are asked who, what, where, and what it looks like.
So the picture is not the topic — it is a prompt. It forces you to find concrete vocabulary (people, clothes, objects, the place, the time of day) and to position things relative to each other with prepositions: on, in, next to, in front of, behind, on the left, on the right, in the background.
Mind the format: in the TCF IRN, a production that misses the required word count can have the whole written-production skill reported as “A1 non atteint”. Practise writing short and complete, not long and vague.
How this practice works
Type your description in the text field, or record it — speech is transcribed automatically. You then get a detailed analysis: what the instructions asked for and what you covered or missed, language errors with their corrections, suggestions for more precise vocabulary, and an example of a successful answer.
It is free and needs no account; a quick bot check is the only gate. The evaluation is produced by an artificial-intelligence system: it is neither an official mark nor an official level. The TCF has no pass mark at all — the préfecture decides which level it requires.
Frequently asked questions — picture description
Is picture description a TCF IRN exercise?
Not under that name. Describing a person, a place or an object is the content of task 1 of the written production (30–60 words), and the same skill is used in the speaking test. Here the picture is a prompt for practising that skill.
How many words should I write?
For TCF IRN task 1: between 30 and 60 words. Tasks 2 and 3 ask for 40–90. Missing those bounds can be expensive: the paper may be reported as “A1 non atteint” for the whole skill.
How is my description assessed here?
An AI looks at how well you followed the instructions, at morphosyntax, vocabulary and coherence, then explains each correction and offers a rewrite. No pass verdict is computed: in the TCF, written and spoken production are marked out of 20 and converted into a level (A2 = 2–5/20), and there is no pass mark.
Can I practise for free?
Yes. AI-graded practice is free and needs no registration — only a quick bot check.
How do I improve quickly?
Describe varied pictures, first aloud and then in writing, holding yourself to the word bounds. Compare your answer with the sample and fix only the points flagged: it is the short feedback loop that moves the needle, not volume.