DELF A2 listening: fourteen short recordings, four exercises
DELF A2 listening is fourteen short recordings in four exercises, with twenty-two questions to answer in twenty-five minutes. Every recording plays twice. This page describes the all-multiple-choice format, the one this site prepares: you tick an option, choose a picture or match, and you never write a word. Both formats are still used in official sessions, and the other one asks for some short written answers. Two things make this paper harder than it looks. The task changes with each exercise, and the questions are not all worth the same.
Updated 10 October 2026
Four exercises, twenty-two questions, twenty-five minutes
| Exercise | Documents | Questions | Question format | Plays | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CO-Ex1 | 6 audio documents | 6 | Multiple choice with images, Multiple choice, three options | 2 | 6 |
| CO-Ex2 | 3 audio documents | 6 | Multiple choice with images, Multiple choice, three options | 2 | 6 |
| CO-Ex3 | 1 audio document | 6 | Multiple choice, three options, Multiple choice with images | 2 | 6 |
| CO-Ex4 | 4 audio documents | 4 | Matching | 2 | 7 |
| Total | 25 min | 22 | 25 |
Source · the official DELF A2 tout public format.
Announcements, radio, a voicemail, four dialogues
Nothing you hear is long. The paper opens with six announcements made in a public place, each carrying an instruction, with one question apiece. An announcement runs to twenty-five or thirty words, so it is over in two or three sentences. Three of those six questions are answered with a picture, and the other three with a written option.
Then come three short radio extracts that give information: six questions in all. The third exercise rests on a single message left on an answering machine. At seventy to eighty words it is the longest document of the paper. It carries one general piece of information and several precise ones: dates, prices, times, places. Six questions hang on that one message.
The last exercise changes the task. You hear four informal dialogues about daily life, all set in the same place. You match each dialogue with what the speakers are doing: inviting someone, refusing an offer. There are six choices for four dialogues, so two go unused. The question is no longer a fact but the purpose of the exchange.
Uneven weights: what a question can be worth
The first three exercises are worth six points each and the last one seven. Inside an exercise, nothing is flat. In the official sample paper for this format, a question is worth anything from half a point to two and a half. Those values are indicative: they are set paper by paper. The exercise totals do not move.
In that sample paper, eight questions are worth half a point each: four points between them. Six others are worth two points or more and bring twelve and a half together, which is half the paper on six answers. Three of those six sit in the matching exercise, which pays seven points for four answers.
So exercise 4 is not a tail end to rush through. One wrong match there can cost as much as five of the cheapest questions. And because the four dialogues share one list of choices, a label given to the wrong dialogue can be missing for the one that needed it.
| Exercise | Points | What each question is worth |
|---|---|---|
| CO-Ex1 | 6 | 2 · 1 · 1 · 0.5 · 0.5 · 1 |
| CO-Ex2 | 6 | 0.5 · 1 · 1 · 1 · 2 · 0.5 |
| CO-Ex3 | 6 | 0.5 · 2 · 0.5 · 0.5 · 1.5 · 1 |
| CO-Ex4 | 7 | 2 · 0.5 · 2.5 · 2 |
| Total | 25 |
Pass mark: 50 out of 100 across the four papers.
Section floor: under 5 out of 25 in any one paper and the whole exam is failed.
Source · the official DELF A2 tout public format.
A voicemail to a florist and two questions
Excerpt
Bonjour, ici monsieur Garnier. Je vous appelle parce que samedi, mes parents fêtent leurs quarante ans de mariage. Je voudrais un grand bouquet de roses, sans tulipes, s’il vous plaît : ma mère ne les aime pas. Pouvez-vous ajouter un petit panier de fruits avec le bouquet ? Rappelez-moi pour me donner le prix. Ma sœur passera à la boutique samedi matin, vers neuf heures. Merci et bonne journée !
1. Vous devez…
- A attendre un appel de M. Garnier.
- B envoyer un message à M. Garnier.
- C téléphoner à M. Garnier.
2. Qui doit prendre le bouquet ?
- A M. Garnier.
- B La mère de M. Garnier.
- C La sœur de M. Garnier.
Answer +
Practice message from our own question bank, in the format of exercise 3. Written for this site, not an official recording.
Neither answer is said in the words of its option. The caller says “Rappelez-moi pour me donner le prix”, and the key reads “téléphoner à M. Garnier”: the same act, another verb. He says “Ma sœur passera à la boutique”, and the question asks who is to collect the bouquet. The verb “prendre” is never spoken. A right option can reword the recording: listen for the act, not the word.
The wrong options come out of the message too. There is indeed a call to make, but option A turns it round: the shop has to ring, not the customer. The mother is mentioned, because of the flowers she dislikes, and Mr Garnier gives his name in the first sentence. The question asks who does what, and one sentence alone says it. The second play is for checking that sentence.
Twenty-five minutes across four exercises
Official timing
- CO-Ex1 · Played twice6 points
- CO-Ex2 · Played twice6 points
- CO-Ex3 · Played twice6 points
- CO-Ex4 · Played twice7 points
Source · the official DELF A2 tout public format.
A workable split
- CO-Ex15 min
- CO-Ex25 min
- CO-Ex35 min
- CO-Ex45 min
- Checking your answers5 min
One split that works. It is our arithmetic rather than an official figure, and the free lesson below proposes another.
A2 listening practice with everyday audio
Everyday audio is the right material because the paper is made of it: a platform change, a news headline, a friend proposing an outing. What transfers to the exam is the shape. One short document, its questions read first, two plays, then the next one. In the room the recording sets the pace. Practice A2 listening on documents built to those four exercise types.
The limits, said plainly. Our recordings and our questions are machine-generated to the official format. Nothing goes online until a separate automated check has worked the answers out again and found the same key. None of it is a past paper. Keep real spoken French in your week as well. Listening is marked automatically: your score counts right answers and is not an official result. Our free A2 sample paper contains no listening exercise.
- 1Sit a full timed mock first. If listening is your lowest score of the four, this paper comes first. Start a full A2 mock.
- 2Before each recording, read the question and its options or pictures. Decide what you are waiting for: a time, a place, a person, something to do.
- 3On the first play, answer what you are sure of and leave the rest open. A question settled too early makes you miss the next sentence.
- 4On the second play, listen only for the questions still open. In a message full of names, check which one the question wants.
- 5For exercise 4, read the six choices before the first dialogue, then sum up each exchange with a verb. The free lesson on listening clues trains the ear for numbers, voices and places.
Free lesson: catching numbers, voices and clues
Free lesson · study guide
Catch the signal: numbers, voices and clues
25 minutes, four exercises, every recording played twice. What to catch on the first play, and what to finish on the second.
A2 listening, in five questions
Do you hear every A2 recording twice?+
Yes. All fourteen recordings play twice, in every one of the four exercises. Nothing has to be caught on a single pass, so answer from the first play.
Are the twenty-two questions all worth the same?+
No. In the official sample paper for this format, a question is worth from half a point to two and a half. Those weights are indicative and can change from one paper to the next. The totals are stable: six points for each of the first three exercises, seven for the last.
What kinds of recordings will you hear?+
Four kinds, one per exercise: announcements in a public place, short radio extracts, a message on an answering machine, and informal dialogues set in one place. All of them are short. Our hand-written reference message, a customer’s call to a florist, appears above.
What do you have to do in exercise 4?+
You match. Four short dialogues are played, and for each you choose what the speakers are doing from six choices worded as actions: inviting someone, refusing an offer. Two choices are never used. In the official sample paper, the best-paid answers are here.
How is A2 listening different from B1 listening?+
The length is the same and the shape is not. B1 fills its twenty-five minutes with three longer recordings, a conversation then two radio documents, and every question offers three written answers. There are no pictures and no matching. The B1 listening page sets that paper out.
Keep reading
The other A2 pages
Ready to find your A2 level?
Take a full mock or practice one section at a time. See your predicted score before exam day.