Le Pendentif, an Easy French Story

by Sylvie Lainé

Three easy short stories with English glossaries throughout the text.

Le pendentif (the pendant) is an easy to read and entertaining little French story for beginners! An ideal way of expanding your vocabulary.
It tells the story of a man who discovers an old pendant on the beach... Whose pendant is it...?

You will be able to understand the story even if you have been learning French for only a few months.

To understand the story, you don't need any you will find a useful glossary under each paragraph.

At the end of the book, all new words are summed up in an alphabetical glossary to help you finding words again you may have forgotten.

Genres: France, Short Stories, Fiction, Childrens

187 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Sylvie Lainé is a native French language trainer, writer and translator. She is a graduate of the University of Caen (France) in Applied Language Studies and Linguistics and a graduate of the University Erlangen-Nurnberg (Germany) in Romance Philology. Over 15 years experience of providing language training to adults allow her to understand their difficulties and challenges. In february 2013 she created the “Easy French Reader Series for Beginners”.

She wants to create carefully written and exciting stories to help her students escape grammar and exercise books. She wants her students to enjoy reading and learn the language without the feeling of overwhelm and frustration that they get from many French books. As she found nothing especially written for beginners on the Internet, she came up with the idea of writing stories herself.

She was born in Normandy and lives now in the south of France.

Reviews

[Jerrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great supplement to my language learning. These simple stories introduce vocabulary and common sayings in an organic way. There are definitions interspersed within the stories and a glossary at the back of the book. The stories themselves are rather simple and uninteresting, but they give a nice sense of accomplishment after reading.

[S · Rating 4 out of 5]

more of a pamphlet than a book, this contains three very short stories that range from entry level French (you could probably stumble through it in your first week of learning the language) to a little more difficult (mostly present indicative peppered with some other tenses and some true intermediate vocabulary is present). It has a glossary in back but it isn’t exhaustive, so you will likely have to look a few things up, and some words are translated not as straightforwardly as they could have been (for example, “reculer” is given as “to move back”; why not “to recoil“?).

The content is pretty fun; the latter two stories involve dreams, visions, and hallucinations. Recommended as a first French reader

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

Get the audio--it has a slow and fast version and that was really helpful! I like this one b/c it is a few short stories. This is my 3rd book read by the same author.

[Júlia G · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories are entertaining and the vocabulary organization is really helpful. Awesome experience.

[Bruno Lima Pessoa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for improving your French

I always thought that the best way to learn a second language is by reading and listening. Grammar is important, but only when you reach a certain level at the language. This book can give you the opportunity to learn while having fun - and this is the best way to learning anything. For this reason I recommend it to anyone who is embracing in the journey of learning a second language. If the book was longer I’d give it 5 stars. I think the story is too short.

[Karen McCamant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this little collection of short stories in French. Because I’m intent on improving my listening comprehension, I listened to the audiobook as I read each story. The inserted vocabulary was very helpful, as was the writing, which was straightforward and easy without being simple or patronizing. The stories themselves were quite sweet, and each had a uniquely engaging tone and narrator. As I continue my French language studies, I will look for more books by Sylvie Lainé.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book. Key definitions are shown on the same page so that you need not interrupt your reading to understand unfamiliar words. The stories flow well and are both cohesive and comprehensible. This book compares quite well with others of this genre. After reading it, I ordered the other four in the series by Lainé and I don't think that I will be disappointed.

[Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Il n’y a personne ici. Seulement des oiseaux sur le lac et les premières abeilles sur les fleurs de romarin. Je respire l’air frais. Je suis heureux et satisfait. Trop heureux pour craindre l’avenir.»

un livre très utile, avec beaucoup d'histoires délicieuses et diverses. certainement très utile !

[Désirée Sirbu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite nice .. great for French beginners! It's a very fast read - 3 short stories (50 pages) .. I'd definitely recommend reading them out loud (that's what I do - and I feel that it helps me with the pronunciation) ..

[Diego · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ce livre contient 3 histoires maraveilleuses:

- Le pendentif
- L'homme à tête de cheval
- La Sirène

Ils son excellents pour pratiquer un peau de francais.
Personallement, j'ai vraiment aimé les lire.

Mon préféré est "Le pendentif", sans aucun doute.

[Cesar Loya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mon première livre en français !!!

Je suis très heureux que je finis un livre en français. C'est mon premier livre en français. Merci beaucoup pour le livre simple par moi. J'adore beaucoup. Merci.

[Bene · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good intro reading (or reintroduction of you have taken a bit of time out from reading French). But for what it’s worth, definitely a good source of practice for beginners and the stories themselves have a little bit of mystery and charm to them.

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Fun stories, really good for beginners.

[Franz Vanderlinde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good story for those starting to learn French. Per-page glossary helps a lot.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazingly interesting stories for a beginner reader.

[Nor'dzin Pamo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Très bien. It was inspiring to be able to read these stories. The stories are also fun. I might get the audio version as well, as I'm sure this will further help my French learning.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading French for our daughter's wedding in Normandy.

[Emilio Del-Llano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for anyone who is learning French.

Great way to expand your French vocabulary. The definitions at the end of every section makes the
Reading flow and enjoyable.

[Leah Agirlandaboy]

If you’re on the ridge between Beginner and Advanced, this series is the sweet spot. Pro tip: Kindle will translate individual words for you!

[Baroness · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delightful short stories.

[Calla Reviews (كالا) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ne pas mal.

[Davis Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice easy introduction to written French. Sylvie Lainé's books are really good for beginners and those like myself that just want the feeling of gradual and solid improvement .

[Navmi · Rating 3 out of 5]

An accessible French read for absolute beginners. There were three stories, each a tad longer than the previous one. The pacing, vocabulary and storyline were all engaging without being overwhelming.

Also, this is the first French book I've read, ever. :)

[Vlad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Decent A1 Reader for French Beginners

The readers were great for upper beginner level French students like myself. The stories are easy to follow but also not too easy.

[Andres Rosenada · Rating 5 out of 5]

Des lectures formidables excellentes!

Je les recommande à tous les franco-phones qui aiment des lectures agréables et faciles de digérer. Ne manquez pas! Je vous conseille.

[Olivia Jimenez · Rating 4 out of 5]

C'est tres interessant.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are stories written for those who want to work at their French but don't enjoy most of the "beginning" French readers. Most of those are written for a young audience. These are stories written for adults. they do include a vocabulary but many of you won't need to refer to in constantly and this will make the flow of the story more enjoyable for you. This relatively short work is available in the Kindle format. I enjoyed it enough that I will pick up other works by this author. This is not for the advanced learner and this is not fine literature but, rather, a book for the non-advanced adult student of French.

[Temi Adefioye · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved every moment of reading this book. It was simple, fun and easy to read for a beginner like me.
Sentence I've been able to construct from words I learnt: J'aime lire livre mais je nes pas collectectueur livre
Translation: I love reading books but I'm not a book collector

[Fleur Parsons · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite engaging for a basic reader, I shall continue with Lainé's other basic readers.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked it. The stories were easy to follow, but never the less I learned some new vocabulary and phrases.