French in five ideas
1. Spelling and sound parted ways
beaucoup is said "bo-KOO", eau is just "oh", and the final consonant is usually silent: petit sounds like "puh-TEE". This gap is the whole difficulty of French, which is why every word here carries its pronunciation.
2. Two words for "the", four for "a and the"
le livre, la maison, les livres; un livre, une maison, des livres. Gender is not guessable from the thing, only from the word, so learn the article WITH the noun.
3. The verb tells you who, but you say the pronoun anyway
je parle, tu parles, il parle all sound identical. Spanish and Italian drop the pronoun; French cannot, because without it the three are the same word out loud.
4. Negation comes in two pieces
ne ... pas wraps the verb: je ne sais pas. In speech the ne is usually dropped — je sais pas — which is what you will actually hear.
5. Liaison joins words together
les amis is said "lay-zah-MEE": a silent final consonant wakes up before a vowel. It is why spoken French sounds like one long word, and why hearing where a word ends takes practice.
Practise it with someone
Your French partner writes to you first — about their own day, with photographs from wherever they are — and what you got wrong comes back struck through, with the right version beside it.