French Short Stories for Beginners

by Lingo Mastery

Do you know what the hardest thing for a French learner is?

Finding PROPER reading material that they can handle…which is precisely the reason we’ve written this book!

Teachers love giving out tough, expert-level literature to their students, books that present many new problems to the reader and force them to search for words in a dictionary every five minutes — it's not entertaining, useful or motivating for the student at all, and many soon give up on learning at all!

In this book we have compiled 20 easy-to-read, compelling and fun stories that will allow you to expand your vocabulary and give you the tools to improve your grasp of the wonderful French tongue.

How French Short Stories for Beginners works:

Each story will involve an important lesson of the tools in the French language (Verbs, Adjectives, Past Tense, Giving Directions, and more), involving an interesting and entertaining story with realistic dialogues and day-to-day situations. The summaries follow a synopsis in French and in English of what you just read, both to review the lesson and for you to see if you understood what the tale was about. At the end of those summaries, you'll be provided with a list of the most relevant vocabulary involved in the lesson, as well as slang and sayings that you may not have understood at first glance! Finally, you'll be provided with a set of tricky questions in French, providing you with the chance to prove that you learned something in the story. Don't worry if you don't know the answer to any — we will provide them immediately after, but no cheating! So look no further! Pick up your copy of French Short Stories for Beginners and start learning French right now!

Genres: France, Language, Reference, Short Stories, Audiobook, Fiction

187 pages, Paperback

Published June 19, 2018

Reviews

[Noelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am the narrator of this audio book.
Fantastic and useful little stories for learners of the French language! :)

[Emilija · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

This was a good book for beginners, and I quite enjoyed it. I really like the vocabulary sections, especially with a gendered language like French. The stories were nice and varied.

[Gabbi Grey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great for beginners & those wanting a refresher (an audio review)

The structure of this audio is very simple – a story in French, a summary of the story in French, a summary in English, a review of the key vocabulary, and a quiz. It works brilliantly. If you have some familiarity with French, it is a great refresher. If you are new to French, I encourage you to download the PDF and follow along. If you can’t, you may be a little lost during the stories, but don’t worry, the summaries will help you catch up.

I have some knowledge of French and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Of all the stories, I enjoyed the third one the most. The story of a woman who goes to speed dating and comes away with much more than she had expected. There are cute stories, funny stories, while some are short, and some are a bit longer. All in all, they are enjoyable.

Noelia Gouty is a fabulous French narrator because she does not have a strong regional accent – she is as neutral as one could wish. Her speaking in English is not as strong and she mispronounced several words. Not a big deal and certainly not enough to detract from the book.

Overall, I enjoyed it and can recommend it to someone contemplating plunging into the beautiful romantic language that is French. For myself, it was a wonderful and engaging book.

[Southy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful short stories to build vocabulary. Split into useful sub sections. A bit dry and vocab doesn’t indicate gender.

[Autumn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this audiobook and kindle book so much! This is perfect for beginners like me who are trying to learn the language. The stories are fun, and it is a great way for me to immerse myself into the language, when I have no other way to do so. I am so happy that I have this to listen to again and again. This is worth the credit or purchase. If you are a beginner wanting to learn French, this is a must have!

[Amy Garrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took french years ago in high school... i'm now in my 30s. this was a great way to freshen up on french! i was amazed how much i remembered, and that i was able to read these stories!

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful French stories to painlessly learn a new language

Lingo Mastery continues to be a valuable resource to make French more accessible to a wider population. Following in the style of Volume 1, this new volume of 20 French short stories for beginners is full of new vocabulary and some entertaining as well as educating tales. In the Introductory Note the goal is stated well: ‘We are so happy and enthusiastic to provide you with 20 short stories that have been specifically designed for advanced beginners…This volume retains the same structure as the precedent one, for each chapter there is a story, a summary in both French and English, some French vocabulary sheets and their English equivalents as well as questions about the content story to ensure that you have properly understood them…Natural languages are rich, they are open and verbose, their form is partly the result of thousands of years of cultural and societal interactions, from the daily routines of peasants in the Middle Ages, to the rise of monarchies and empires and the ways that they have transformed the minds and the dialect of natives, indeed learning a language is about discovering a new way of perceiving the world’

What follows in this book are very well designed (excellent choices of font and making the new vocabulary stand out in bold) and the stories are entertaining while teaching a new language in an accessible manner. And so it proceeds with one of the more accessible adjuncts to mastering the French vocabulary in a manner that places words in context and thus – easy to remember!

The technique is solid and the lessons well taught. This is a very fine continued introduction to French, a book much needed at this time in our national status!

[Nicole Hughes-Chen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great

I really enjoyed this book. The stories are short but enjoyable and each one has a good handful of words in bold that the author wants the reader to focus on depending on the aim of that story (what grammar point it aims at).

I am a level 2 uni student and read the stories comfortably but also learnt a lot of new words. I think it's a useful and entertaining why to learn and not overwhelming because the stories are so short.

I would definitely recommend and read more similar books to build up my confidence and see more examples of French phrases in the real world. I didn't spot any mistakes!

Great, thank you to the author

[Stefanos Baziotis · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's much better for French learners than e.g., Short Stories in French: New Penguin Parallel Text. At the same time, most stories are boring and it's clear they were created for this purpose. In other words, they don't have much literal value. So, in my opinion, it's better to pick a French book that was created with the story in mind, not to use easy language, but which _happens_ to use easy language. A good option is Le Petit Nicolas, and for sure you can find others online.

[CorrieGM · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice simple stories for beginners in french.
Each story opens with an explanation in english. Then the real story begins. After that you find a summary in french and a summary in english. Then a frenc-english vocabulary of that story and in the end a few multiple choice questions.
Most of the stories are nice.
The children stories (for instance 'Scapegoat') were less to my liking. The language of the children in it is too adult I think.

But: When you want to study french and want to read easy stories: this is the book for you.

[Michel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for learners!

I loved how each story focus on one aspect of the language. It can be about adjectives, numbers, verbs, and many different things. I would say the stories are for an “upper-beginner”, probably someone at A2 level.

Keep in mind these are short stories, mostly with a shallow plot. The focus is the usage of the language and how the author shows how to utilize that particular grammar aspect of the language.

Definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a graded reader and getting more exposure to the language.

[Anca Zelenca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent learning book

I've really enjoyed this book, it contains some funny stories and also some emotional ones. It helped me review some of the basic terms in french and I've also learned a few new words and expressions. I like the way the stories/lessons are structured and that at the end of every one of them it highlights the new terms. I highly recommend it not only for beginners!

[Jakob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Si vous voulez apprendre le français, ce livre peut être utile. Il se compose de brèves histoires didactiques, chacune avec un synopsis et une liste de vocabulaire à la fin. Quelques histoires sont même émouvantes ou amusantes.

Helpful little book to improve one's French. It consists of brief stories, each focused on a particular subject or concept, and they feature brief synopses and vocabularies at the end. A couple of the stories are somewhat funny or touching to boot, which helps.

[Piotr Karaś · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s not a good book for those who start to earn French, and want to start reading in this language. The stories are interesting, but rich vocabulary makes it pretty hard to read. The reader is inundated with lots of new words, which makes reading hard, esp. if you’re at A1, A2 or even B1 level. It is as if the author tried to impress the readers with how few words they know. However, I must admit that this feature makes this book an excellent source of vocabulary for flashcards.

[Beda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is not really a ‘read’ book but a book I am using as a resource in studying French. I have been studying French daily since January of 2023 and this book of very short stories in French is a great resource. The stories get progressively more difficult as you go along. When studying a language it usually important to have many resources, and this book is one of mine.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Les histoires sont brèves et didactiques et assez intéressantes - et c’est l’objet du livre.
Certainement les histoires ne sont pas de la grande littérature mais je les préfère un petit peu à celles de Olly Richards.
Je crois que c’est bon à lire les choses faciles et mignons avant d’apprendre ennui avec Camus, non?

[Joseph Yue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful in improving French vocabulary for sure, but the stories are generally boring and meaningless. Reading a normal short novel collection or fairy tales with a dictionary might have been just as useful but more fun.

[Steven Daw · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book served its purpose and really did improve my French. Also it has inspired me to do more reading, so it served its purpose. The thing that prevented me from giving this a higher rating was that the stories themselves were OK but a bit meh.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really helpful. Though sometimes the phrases in each story are presented out of order at the conclusion of the story which makes it hard to track down as you are reading.

[sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent resource. The audio is invaluable.

[Jack Maher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely helped learning!

[M.H. Thaung]

I haven't studied French since I was in school, and I wanted to refamiliarise myself with the language ahead of a trip. So the availability of this book was perfect timing.

I was provided with a free copy of the book. This is my honest review.

One thing that put me off initially was the stilted language in the (English) introduction. If you're in the habit of reading introductions, don't let it put you off!

The book includes 20 short stories. Each story has a glossed vocabulary and is followed by story summaries in French and English and a few questions (in French).

I found the stories readable but not trivial to understand, which felt like the right level of challenge for someone (very) rusty with the language.

I read the book on my Kindle. The glossed words were presented in bold. I can see why it was done, but I found it distracting, since my eye kept skipping over the rest of the text. Additionally, on my Kindle at least, highlighting even non-glossed words brought up a dictionary (presumably as part of the Kindle functionality) so the glossing didn't feel so necessary.

Overall, a worthwhile read. I would certainly keep an eye out for other books in the series.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up to brush up on my French, but I got tired of turning the pages of advertisements. Therefore, I abandoned this commercial about the 18 per cent mark.

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