This paper presents a preliminary investigation of the psycholinguistic abilities of first-year undergraduate student learners of French. In particular, it reports on the construction and use of a battery of tests of metalinguistic knowledge, language aptitude, grammatical accuracy in French, and French linguistic proficiency, and explores the relationships among these measures with a view to establishing levels of metalinguistic knowledge in incoming undergraduates. The paper reports on pilot work and makes proposals for further research in the light of the results. Contains three references. (Author)