Short Stories in French for Beginners: Read for pleasure at your level, expand your vocabulary and learn French the fun way! (Readers)

by Olly Richards, Richard Simcott

An unmissable collection of eight unconventional and captivating short stories for young and adult learners.

"I love Olly's work - and you will too!" - Barbara Oakley, PhD, Author of New York Times bestseller A Mind for Numbers

Short Stories in French for Beginners has been written especially for students from beginner to intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, and most importantly - enjoyment! Mapped to A2-B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference, these eight captivating stories will both entertain you, and give you a feeling of progress when reading.

What does this book give you?

· Eight stories in a variety of exciting genres, from science fiction and crime to history and thriller - making reading fun, while you learn a wide range of new vocabulary
· Controlled language at your level, including the 1000 most frequent words, to help you progress confidently
· Authentic spoken dialogues, to help you learn conversational expressions and improve your speaking ability
· Pleasure! It's much easier to learn a new language when you're having fun, and research shows that if you're enjoying reading in a foreign language, you won't experience the usual feelings of frustration - 'It's too hard!' 'I don't understand!'
· Accessible grammar so you learn new structures naturally, in a stress-free way

Carefully curated to make learning a new language easy, these stories include key features that will support and consolidate your progress, including

· A glossary for bolded words in each text
· Full plot summary
· A bilingual word list
· Comprehension questions after each chapter.

As a result, you will be able to focus on enjoying reading, delighting in your improved range of vocabulary and grasp of the language, without ever feeling overwhelmed or frustrated. From science fiction to fantasy, to crime and thrillers, Short Stories in French for Beginners will make learning French easy and enjoyable.

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

268 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 4, 2018

Reviews

[Rosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting story collection in French for those who have been learning French and want to try more complicated sentence structures.

Unlike the usual books that are aimed at beginners, this contains eight fairly lengthy stories. Each tale is written in a moderately difficult language; don’t expect literary gems though. They are from multiple genres such as historical fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, drama and so on. So you will not find them similar in nature and you will find a wide variety of words.

At the same time, the stories are not edited too well. There is a lot of repetition in the content (which helps in reinforcement but also creates boredom.)

There are word meanings provided but the words seem to be chosen randomly. In many cases, the meanings for simple/guessable words are provided (such as exploré, construit, port and other such words which are familiar to English readers) but complicated-to-guess words such as alentours, paraissait, bêtise,… are missed out.

There are practice exercises at the end of every chapter plus a glossary of meanings for some of the difficult words. I'd recommend keeping a French dictionary handy because you will still need it.

This book will serve well as a glimpse into French for slightly advanced learners, not so much for beginners.

3.5 stars, rounding up.




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[Mallory · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am working on my French and wanted to expand modalities so picked this up. I was grateful for the advice to not stress over not knowing every word. I didn’t understand every word but I definitely got the gist of the stories pretty easily. I will say the bold words in the glossary at the end of every chapter seemed completely random which was a bit frustrating. Often they chose words that were very similar to English that were obvious. The stories are pretty simple and a little repetitive (for learning I’m sure) but it was still fun to practice my skills beyond using Duolingo. The stories are all different kind of genres which was interesting. These were fun and I would read more.

[Olivia Simmonds · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this collection of short stories is perfect for high-beginner to low-intermediate french learners. It includes many features that help with language comprehension such as word banks after chapters, chapter summaries and questions to test your understanding of the story so far. Throughout the chapters, some words were made bold if they were potentially difficult or infrequent and these would be in the vocabulary list at the end of the chapter. This is a really good idea, but sometimes it missed the mark as some words/phrases were hard to understand but not in bold and some simple words were in bold. For example, le garage was chosen to be in bold which translates to the garage in English. Also, some of the stories seemed extremely random, which can be funny to read, but they may not be too similar to real-life situations. Overall, I feel proud of myself for finishing this collection of stories in French.

[Viktorija Baikauskaitė · Rating 3 out of 5]

L'un des meilleurs livres/méthodes pour apprendre le français, en particulier pour les débutants complets.

Malheureusement, quand je l'ai acheté, j'étais déjà un peu avancée, alors je n'ai beaucoup profité par la lecture - seulement du nouveau vocab. Pour vous donner une idée, je suis au niveau B1. Les histoires étaient aussi un peu... spéciales dans le mauvais sens... mais c'est le prix à payer pour un vocabulaire accessible. Pourtant l'auteur, Olly, a bien construit le texte, par rapport à l'apprentissage: certains mots apparaissent plusieurs fois pour qu'on puisse les voir dans différents contextes.

[Ploye◡̈ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it! Helps a lot. ^^

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not profound as literature, and endings are absolutely predictable. However, chapters are a great length to be digestible and finishing an entire book is confidence building. Not sure, however, that I actually learned anything I’ll retain. But definitely worth working through.

[Grant Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really enjoyable way to improve my French. I even enjoyed doing the questions. Some of the stories were really enjoyable. In particular La créature, le chevalier and la montre. Others were a bit more obvious and basic though. There were often words I knew that were in the glossary but others that I didn't know had been missed. I think this is to be expected though.

[Jaguar Tiririca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book after living four months in France and read it after living there for 6 months. It was a very engaging book, with a lot of supportive material, who gave me feedback and confidence underway.

The stories where quite small, and the font was big. So, I got a lot of progress in the book very fast, and that made it an easy and enjoyable book to read. For me, I probably read the book a bit too late, regarding(concerning?) my French level. Since I’ve already finished Harry Potter and the Philosopher stone in French (snikskryt). Anyway, recommend this book for everyone who are at an early stage of their French learning and who wants to read a book who is understandable, and with smart and effective tools helping you underway.

[Ronak AhmadyAhangar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful learning opportunity.

[Christy Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

estoy muy orgullosa de mi misma por terminar mi primer libro en francés 🥹 y ver como con el paso de los capítulos cada vez era mas fluida mi lectura 🙂‍↕️🥲

[Jessica Hermus · Rating 4 out of 5]

perhaps below my reading level but the stories were cute

[Frede Frihagen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Veldig god bok for å lære fransk. Kapitlene er korte og skrevet på en måte som gjør språklæringen så intuitiv som mulig. I tillegg er det et enkelt sammendrag, ordliste og oppgaver på slutten av hvert kapittel som hjelper med å repetere og få mer ut av leseopplevelsen. Merket at leseevnene mine på fransk ble markant bedre mens jeg leste boken.

[Luís · Rating 3 out of 5]

É um bom livro para quem está a desenvolver a língua mas as histórias são tão más que dói haha

[Ayush · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the start of the book, author Olly Richards gives you his 6 step process to read this work. Which goes something like this.
1. Read a chapter without stopping in between. Your aim here is to understand as much as you can from context.
2. After reading the chapter once, the next step is to read the brief summary given at the end of the chapter.
3. Now since you've gotten a gist of what's going on from the summary, go back and re read the chapter.
4. Read the summary again along with the word meanings given at the end of the chapter. Go back to the text to analyse these meanings in context.
5. Solve the comprehension questions.
6. Re read the chapter in order to gain more confidence (if you wish to) as many times as you want.

When I started reading this book, for the first four chapters I tried following this process but after a point it felt ineffective. So what I did for the last four chapters was that I first tried to decipher the meaning of the words I didn't know in the story and only after this I started reading the stories out loud. This way the stories felt way more engaging, to me atleast.

I found the first five chapter to be ok, not so great but I'd say I really enjoyed the last three.
Overall it's a great book for boosting your confidence if you are learning French. The chapters are short and in my opinion very apt for lower intermediate and advanced beginners.

A good 4🌟 rating from my side.

[Valesca Deckers · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book is a good way to freshen up your French vocabulary and grammer but the plot in the short stories didn’t make much sense

[Kristen Ouellet · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️, but I’m rounding up because I read a whole book in French and I’m proud of myself 😎

[Dan Gauna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro ideal para practicar francés.

Cada capítulo tiene la duración perfecta para mantener el interés sin aburrir. Además, incluye un resumen, vocabulario y preguntas que invitan a reflexionar y analizar el texto.

Altamente recomendable para quienes están comenzando a estudiar francés y buscan una herramienta completa y accesible.

Un très bon livre pour pratiquer le français.

[Meri Monfort · Rating 4 out of 5]

tap tap molt proud d mi mateixa

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories are wide ranging, encompassing historical fiction, mystery and sci-fi / fantasy. They had a surprising depth of emotion (for only using beginner French language) that kept me wanting to read on. They're not going to win any awards but they are fun and long enough that you get a real sense of achievement at the end of each chapter.

Also I could feel my understanding and fluency improving significantly with each and every story.

I would highly recommend this if you want to learn a language or if you just want to have a bit of fun and stretch your brain.

Top tip: buy it on kindle and you can use the translation function for more of an effortless read.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm one of the author's YouTube subscribers, and would highly recommend his channel as well as this book. Olly says often that the best way to learn a language is through stories. I thoroughly enjoyed the stories in this book. I especially like that some of the stories were sci-fi/fantasy. It seems like my French reading level was slightly above this level - which I didn't realize before I picked it up - so it was a huge confidence booster to finish the book as quickly and easily as I did. On to Olly's next level book, Intermediate Short Stories in French!

[Basia Pawluk · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE BEST BOOK FOR LANGUAGE ACQUISITION! 11/10

I cannot stress this enough but you could spend 4 years learning a language through grammar and book exercises and obtain less of a language, compared to reading just this one book. Of course you need some basics to be able to understand it, but I guarantee that the amount of new words and structures you will be able to recall is going to significantly increase after that read.

Learning a language without connecting it to your native one can be difficult but surely is more beneficial in the long term. It is what happens when your read in the language without trying to translate, when you listen to it without a full understanding and when you try speaking in it (even without knowing much grammar). That way your brain creates new neuronal structures, instead of adding some connections between your language and the one you are trying to learn (this happens when you read words by translating them).

I highly recommend buying that book since it’s not very pricey and ,I have no doubt, better than most workbooks and student books you have in your room right now.

[izrtkfliers · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the first books I started reading while learning French. It was fairly effective in its goals of being a beginner-level graded reader, and the stories were actually more engaging than one would expect. However, do not expect quality writing, good descriptions, deeper meanings, or anything of that sort--these stories are utilitarian, designed purely to get you started reading French with stories that are just interesting enough to push you through.

I wasn't really sure how to rate this book, given its use as a didactic tool. Ultimately, I decided to give it a 4. It was effective in its aims of getting a beginner started in reading a language. However, I docked it from 5 because the stories were not originally written in French. All of the stories in the Short Stories in X For Beginners series are identical, regardless of language, which leads me to suspect that they were originally written in English and then translated. This leaves this book open to the possibility that some words or phrases are not 'authentic' to how an actual French writer would write or say things. Furthermore, this may dull the effective of reading more Short Stories in X for Beginners books, as one would already be familiar with the stories and so the sense of discovery would be lost.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started learning French less than a year ago on Duolingo and was curious to see if I would understand this book. Short Stories in French is a collection of 9 short stories from different genres. I think my main issue with this book is that some of the words they chose to bold - then later translate, were sort of obvious words or words you can easily deduce the meaning with context clues. For example le taxi - taxi/cab or la plante - plant. While I wasn't expecting literary masterpieces, I found that a lot of the stories were boring or felt like a drag. My favorites were La Ratatouille Folle, La Monte, and Laure la femme invisible. Bonus points for the summaries at the end of each chapter. It felt so rewarding to know I understood what was going on. I did not care for the quizzes though! I think in the future, I would want to read full length French books to improve my comprehension. I wish the audiobook came with the purchase of the book. I would have liked to have listened to make sure I am pronouncing the words correctly.

[Sara Ragaci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hace algo más de un año, empecé a estudiar francés, intento estudiar aparte de la teoría, también mediante series y libros, ya que me gusta mucho leer. Encontré este libro de oferta, que tiene pequeñas historias bastante fáciles de leer, me ha gustado mucho porque se entiende perfectamente y hay algunas palabras más difíciles que están marcadas en negrita y puedes acceder a la traducción directamente. Me ha ido genial para complementar con las clases.

[tuhseen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than most of the French books I read in school that were supposed to help me learn French. This one actually has a glossary at the end of every short story and the reading level advances as the book progresses. Really help you practice and build on your French reading abilities. Helps with growing your vocabulary.

[Maria Resende]

oui

[tanveer ⋆｡✧ · Rating 4 out of 5]

if you're looking for the ultimate guide to french, look no further! this book is the crème de la crème, the pièce de résistance, the absolute best resource out there!!

[Miguel Palma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great learning tool

[Merlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

first book in french read, let's goooooo

[Sara]

har haft denna på min "currently reading"-hylla i literally 2 år, men tyvärr har jag insett att den aldrig kommer läsas ut. tror jag läste typ halva