DELF B2 Vocabulary List (Upper-Intermediate French)

DELF B2 is the last of the DELF diplomas and certifies that a candidate can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes conversation with native speakers unstrained, and can argue a viewpoint in clear detailed text. The grammar opens into the full subjunctive and the conditional; the vocabulary opens into politics, science, ethics and economics, together with the near-synonym distinctions that separate fluent B2 from effortful B2.

For candidates preparing DELF B2. Maps to CEFR B2.

About DELF B2

DELF B2 is the last of the DELF diplomas and certifies that a candidate can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes conversation with native speakers unstrained, and can argue a viewpoint in clear detailed text. The grammar opens into the full subjunctive and the conditional; the vocabulary opens into politics, science, ethics and economics, together with the near-synonym distinctions that separate fluent B2 from effortful B2.

Who this list is for

DELF B2 is the level French universities most commonly require, and holding it often waives the separate language test for admission. It suits learners who follow film without subtitles and read non-fiction without a dictionary but still notice themselves choosing the safe word. If French is now the language of your working meetings, this is the diploma that gets recognised.

How to study

At B2 the gap is lexical rather than grammatical. Read Le Monde or Libération daily and take the exact phrasing rather than the gist. Put synonym distinctions and register markers into spaced repetition, since these are precisely what cannot be looked up mid-answer. Practise the argumentative essay under time, then audit which reviewed vocabulary you failed to reach for, because recognising a word and producing it are separated by exactly the distance this exam measures.

The list (2039 words)

Some example sentences come from the Tatoeba Project (tatoeba.org), CC BY 2.0 FR. The rest were written for MindDory. Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR.

Where do the words after this list come from?

A list has an end. The words you keep for good usually turn up somewhere else — in a page you read, a show you watched, or a conversation you had — one at a time, and rarely at the level you planned for.

MindDory connects to Claude, Cursor, and other assistants that speak the Model Context Protocol, so a word you meet while you are chatting is saved to your deck as a flashcard without you leaving the conversation. There is no copy and paste, no CSV export, and no browser extension.

How the assistant connection works

Choosing an app