The TCF (Test de Connaissance du Français, or French competency test) is the French test awarded by the French Ministry of Education:
- TCF assesses candidates’ level in French for general purposes. It is intended for people who are not native French speakers who, for professional, personal or academic reasons, want to have their competency in French assessed and certified simply, reliably and quickly.
- The TCF is a standardised and graded test designed by the CIEP, a language tester and member of ALTE, using an extremely rigorous method that makes it a genuine measuring instrument.
- All candidates receive a certificate of results that positions them at one of the six levels (from A1 to C2) of the competency scale defined by the Council of Europe (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). This means that it is not possible to fail the TCF.
- Since December 2002, the TCF has been certified according to the ISO 9001: 2000 quality standard.
- There is an electronic version of the TCF that allows candidates to take the test on a computer.
