French resources

[Amandine]

My prof on iTalki recommended this little series which is on Arte. Each episode is only between 4 and 6 minutes because it's the chat of two colleagues as they leave work each day so only lasts as long as their walk to the bus stop. All the episodes are there handily in a playlist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zWe0Mn ... 4vEypiHFcG

[MorkTheFiddle]

First episode is 6:34m. 22 skits in all.
No transcripts that I could discover, but decent closed captions/subtitles.
I understood very little of the first episode. So perfect for me!
Many thanks for the post.

[Severine]

My prof on iTalki recommended this little series which is on Arte. Each episode is only between 4 and 6 minutes because it's the chat of two colleagues as they leave work each day so only lasts as long as their walk to the bus stop. All the episodes are there handily in a playlist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zWe0Mn ... 4vEypiHFcG

Hah, the awkwardness of the first episode is magnificently done! Seems very good for practicing casual everyday speech.

[emk]

(I posted this in the Super Challenge discussion thread, but it will probably be easier to find again here. This version has been edited to remove some of the discussion.)

Guys, is there a list of French beginner-friendly books on the forum? I have not read anything in French (except for Le Petit Nicolas) and would like to start with contemporary novels.
There are tons of French novels that I would love to read, but I want to begin with the easiest material. I can't stand not knowing too many words in a book.

This is a great question!

I don't really have a good list of true beginner books, because my first French book was an interesting non-fiction book. I just sort of plowed my way through, relying on lots of guesswork. Sadly, I can't find my copy right now.

You may be able to find some links to beginner books and graded readers in the monster French resource thread. Lots of good stuff there.

Many schools start with L'Étranger, mostly because it's one of the few French books written using the passé composé (the normal spoken past tense). Some people love this book, others hate it. It's easy to find, and worth glancing at. For most other books, you're going to see either the passé simple (which is not "archaic", no matter what some teachers claim—it's the standard written "narrative" past tense of French, used for storytelling), or the present tense.

Le Petit Prince is famous, but actually it can be fairly hard for a beginner. Maybe save it until a bit later.

But the real idea I want to pitch to you is to strongly consider bandes dessinées, and France's culture of graphic novels. France produces a staggering number of really good BDs on just about every theme imaginable. You can find histories, and spy thrillers, and romances, and science fiction, and detailed stories about living in cultures around the world, and biographies of French prisoners of war, and really just about anything else you can imagine. Many popular series like Astérix have been read by basically everyone in France, but the variety is endless.

These BDs often run about 100-150 words per page and the standard format is 48 pages. The language tends to lean more towards spoken dialog, which many students of French need more of. The illustrations make it much easier to guess the meaning of words. And many popular BD series contain dozens of volumes. So if you're looking for "kids books for adults", this is a fantastic place to start looking.

Buying BDs on paper is expensive, but Izneo can provide them in digital format. They even have a subscription version, which is very useful if you want to read more than one BD a month. And unlike many kinds of French digital media, I believe most BDs on Izneo are available in the US.

For other recommendations, I'm super fond of SensCritique. This is sort of like the French version of GoodReads, but for everything. Users can make lists and write reviews, and it keeps track of the currently most popular titles in each category. I have several SensCritiques lists of easyish and interesting French material for people doing a Super Challenge.

The French term for foreigners learning French is Français langue étrangère (FLE). So, for example, you can also search SensCritique for "FLE" and get back several lists of media for people learning French. And once you find a promising list, you can find related lists (sort of like Spotify).

[ThebigAmateur]

I don't really have a good list of true beginner books, because my first French book was an interesting non-fiction book.

Thank you so much for your detailed response. What I meant by beginner-friendly was books for learners who want to start reading real native novels, not books for beginner learners. I think I know about 5,000 French words, and although it's not that much for reading books, I believe it's not that bad for starting to read simpler novels either.

What was the nonfiction book? I'm OK with reading nonfiction as well.

[Kraut]

This is ASTERIX, reading and explanation combined. Make a transcription and its translation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLRWvftSuNA

[Kraut]

Le Monde Mémorable, a ten-minute article every day

https://www.lemonde.fr/memorable/blog/frida-kahlo
https://www.lemonde.fr/memorable/blog
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... =gsw&gl=US