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Intermediate French Short Stories: 10 Captivating Short Stories to Learn French & Grow Your Vocabulary the Fun Way! (Intermediate French Stories t. 1)
Improve your French skills and grow your vocabulary with these 10 entertaining French short stories!The best part of learning a new language is experiencing the culture and diving into activities that will enrich your life and vocabulary. The best way to learn a new language is by reading, and in this French book you will find yourself turning page after page to get to the end of each captivating story that will engage your mind and help you improve your French.In this book you will 10 captivating short stories that develop in circumstances such as traveling, personal relationships, among other topics that you will find easy to relate to.The stories are broken down into manageable chapters, so you always make progress with the story.Carefully written stories with you as an intermediate level reader in mind, using straightforward grammar and commonly used words so you can enjoy reading while learning new grammatical structures without being overwhelmed. Plenty of natural dialogues in each story that you would actually use in an everyday conversation, which will drastically improve your speaking and comprehension ability at the same time!At the end of each chapter there will be a comprehensive guide specially designed for intermediate level readers, it will take you through a summary of each story followed by a vocabulary of some of the words from the story to make sure that you understand the story fully.Chapter by chapter you will find yourself effortlessly reading each story. Not struggling like in basic textbooks or boring reads. You will get involved by reading the dialogue of the characters by learning how to express yourself in different contexts and more importantly by learning new French words that will get you closer to your goal of becoming fully conversational!Enjoy the book!
- GenresFrance
158 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 7, 2018
210 people are currently reading
68 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 16, 2019
At this point, I have used several Lingo Mastery products for both German and French, and I believe I have a feel for the quality that this publisher brings. On the whole, these are great learning tools, and I would be happy to use others again for the different languages I study.
First of all, to be successful, you must use the PDF that comes with the audio. You’ll get the most out of the stories if you can do any combination of listening, reading, or listening and reading at the same time. Try it at different playback speeds, too, just to get your eyes and ears used to native communication patterns.
The lessons themselves follow a pattern of intermediate-level story, bilingual story summaries, vocabulary, and review questions with answers. The stories themselves are quirky and fun, but they demand more from the language student. They are longer in length, and the new vocabulary is extensive. The really great thing about all this vocabulary is that it covers a well-rounded slice of life and gets some things that are missing from other language products.
The narrator is a native French speaker, and she has a good voice for reading the stories. She sometimes misplaces the correct stress when speaking English, but don’t let that get in your way. It highlights one of the main sound differences between the languages. English is stress-timed, and French is syllable-timed.
Disclaimer: I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
Bottom line: Recommended for intermediate and ambitious beginning French learners. You’ll power up your language skills with this if you do the work.
First of all, to be successful, you must use the PDF that comes with the audio. You’ll get the most out of the stories if you can do any combination of listening, reading, or listening and reading at the same time. Try it at different playback speeds, too, just to get your eyes and ears used to native communication patterns.
The lessons themselves follow a pattern of intermediate-level story, bilingual story summaries, vocabulary, and review questions with answers. The stories themselves are quirky and fun, but they demand more from the language student. They are longer in length, and the new vocabulary is extensive. The really great thing about all this vocabulary is that it covers a well-rounded slice of life and gets some things that are missing from other language products.
The narrator is a native French speaker, and she has a good voice for reading the stories. She sometimes misplaces the correct stress when speaking English, but don’t let that get in your way. It highlights one of the main sound differences between the languages. English is stress-timed, and French is syllable-timed.
Disclaimer: I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
Bottom line: Recommended for intermediate and ambitious beginning French learners. You’ll power up your language skills with this if you do the work.
April 7, 2021
Positives:
The stories themselves were very well constructed - full of idioms and useful vocabulary, which was repeated to allow you to build familiarity.
They were also fairly amusing and enjoyable to read and of a nice length so that you could read each in a single sitting and learn plenty without becoming overwhelmed.
I also appreciated the review questions at the end of each chapter.
Negatives:
Various words are highlighted in each story. These words are then listed, after the story, in a vocabulary list with the English translations. However, several of the highlighted words were omitted from the lists. And worse still, the lists seem to have been compiled by a machine, which has just taken from a dictionary the first single-word definition it encountered for the word. Many words have various meanings, and in a lot of cases, a completely irrelevant meaning is given, which is useless or even confusing in the context of the story. I came across several words used as nouns, for which the verb definition was given (and vice versa), making no sense whatsoever. It's a shame because the rest of the book was so well thought out and executed, and this had the potential to be a very useful component.
Even if that HAD been done correctly, I was also surprised and disappointed by the CHOICE of words and phrases highlighted. Again, this seemed rather arbitrary. More difficult words and idioms were bypassed in favour of much more elementary ones.
Overall, I would certainly recommend this book to French learners, but don't expect too much from the vocabulary lists. Be prepared to look things up for yourself.
The stories themselves were very well constructed - full of idioms and useful vocabulary, which was repeated to allow you to build familiarity.
They were also fairly amusing and enjoyable to read and of a nice length so that you could read each in a single sitting and learn plenty without becoming overwhelmed.
I also appreciated the review questions at the end of each chapter.
Negatives:
Various words are highlighted in each story. These words are then listed, after the story, in a vocabulary list with the English translations. However, several of the highlighted words were omitted from the lists. And worse still, the lists seem to have been compiled by a machine, which has just taken from a dictionary the first single-word definition it encountered for the word. Many words have various meanings, and in a lot of cases, a completely irrelevant meaning is given, which is useless or even confusing in the context of the story. I came across several words used as nouns, for which the verb definition was given (and vice versa), making no sense whatsoever. It's a shame because the rest of the book was so well thought out and executed, and this had the potential to be a very useful component.
Even if that HAD been done correctly, I was also surprised and disappointed by the CHOICE of words and phrases highlighted. Again, this seemed rather arbitrary. More difficult words and idioms were bypassed in favour of much more elementary ones.
Overall, I would certainly recommend this book to French learners, but don't expect too much from the vocabulary lists. Be prepared to look things up for yourself.
December 17, 2018
‘Believe in yourself and never be ashamed to make mistakes.‘
Lingo Mastery has embarked on a mission – to make French more accessible to a wider population. In the Introductory Note the goal is stated well: ‘Maybe you started learning French a while ago and are just getting back on the saddle now to pick up where you left off. Or, maybe you started learning French quite recently, but you’re already feeling ready for a more in-depth look at the language, aiming to eventually master it. In any case, learners of the intermediate level all seem to be suffering from the same issue: a lack of helpful reading material. This is why we’ve decided to write this book, which contains accessible and understandable contents tailored to your level. This can prove more helpful than complex books and texts provided out of context which you may find online, at the library or at school. Indeed, we’ve created this book to support you on your journey and to make sure that you don’t lose your enthusiasm in learning the French language: by providing appropriate contents you can easily understand and even relate to, you’ll soon find out that learning French isn’t that big of a mountain to climb, despite the drawbacks you might face along the way. It’s true: French isn’t the simplest of languages to learn, but it is definitely not the hardest either because of its many similarities to English, plus putting yourself through learning it will surely prove even more rewarding than you’d expect. Our goal with this book will be to supply you with useful, entertaining, helpful and challenging material that will not only allow you to learn the language but also help you pass the time and make the experience less formal and more fun — like any particular lesson should be. We will not bore you with grammatical notes, spelling or structure: the book has been well-written and revised to ensure that it covers those aspects without having to explain them in unnecessarily complicated rules like text books do.’
Each of the ten stories follows the pattern Résumé de l’histoire, Summary of the story, Vocabulary used, Questions about the story, and Answers. Or as the authors state, ‘Each story will tell a different tale involving unique, deep characters with their own personalities and conflicts, while ensuring that you understand the objective of the particular language device in French. Designed to be more challenging than our previous book, French Short Stories for Beginners, this book will cover more complex elements that go beyond basics. But do not fear: at no point will we introduce concepts too difficult for you to grasp, and any complicated vocabulary will be studied at the end of each story.’
The stories vary, as do the lessons taught. This is a very fine gradual advancement to further learning French, appropriate for all more experienced learners. Grady Harp, December 18
Lingo Mastery has embarked on a mission – to make French more accessible to a wider population. In the Introductory Note the goal is stated well: ‘Maybe you started learning French a while ago and are just getting back on the saddle now to pick up where you left off. Or, maybe you started learning French quite recently, but you’re already feeling ready for a more in-depth look at the language, aiming to eventually master it. In any case, learners of the intermediate level all seem to be suffering from the same issue: a lack of helpful reading material. This is why we’ve decided to write this book, which contains accessible and understandable contents tailored to your level. This can prove more helpful than complex books and texts provided out of context which you may find online, at the library or at school. Indeed, we’ve created this book to support you on your journey and to make sure that you don’t lose your enthusiasm in learning the French language: by providing appropriate contents you can easily understand and even relate to, you’ll soon find out that learning French isn’t that big of a mountain to climb, despite the drawbacks you might face along the way. It’s true: French isn’t the simplest of languages to learn, but it is definitely not the hardest either because of its many similarities to English, plus putting yourself through learning it will surely prove even more rewarding than you’d expect. Our goal with this book will be to supply you with useful, entertaining, helpful and challenging material that will not only allow you to learn the language but also help you pass the time and make the experience less formal and more fun — like any particular lesson should be. We will not bore you with grammatical notes, spelling or structure: the book has been well-written and revised to ensure that it covers those aspects without having to explain them in unnecessarily complicated rules like text books do.’
Each of the ten stories follows the pattern Résumé de l’histoire, Summary of the story, Vocabulary used, Questions about the story, and Answers. Or as the authors state, ‘Each story will tell a different tale involving unique, deep characters with their own personalities and conflicts, while ensuring that you understand the objective of the particular language device in French. Designed to be more challenging than our previous book, French Short Stories for Beginners, this book will cover more complex elements that go beyond basics. But do not fear: at no point will we introduce concepts too difficult for you to grasp, and any complicated vocabulary will be studied at the end of each story.’
The stories vary, as do the lessons taught. This is a very fine gradual advancement to further learning French, appropriate for all more experienced learners. Grady Harp, December 18
May 8, 2019
This is a great resource for the 2nd or 3rd year student studying French. It goes through each short story entirely in French and then explains it in English after. I did find the vocab sections very helpful as it repeats each vocab word first in English then in French two times. Especially helpful in an audio format so you can focus on the correct pronunciations.
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
August 24, 2022
These stories are far from "captivating" but it is still decent practice with acceptable variety. The frustrating part is that (as other reviewers have mentioned), the bold words that should appear in the glossary at the end of each chapter often don't. I think at this level of French you might as well just read a regular book, and not a book necessarily designed for learners, because the quality of the writing would be much better and overall more enjoyable.
June 1, 2020
A great tool to practice french
December 12, 2020
Intermediate French
I enjoyed this collection of short stories, useful range of vocabulary, suitable for different ages at intermediate level, may look for another!
I enjoyed this collection of short stories, useful range of vocabulary, suitable for different ages at intermediate level, may look for another!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews