French Graded Readers

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Englishman_in_France
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French Graded Readers

Postby Englishman_in_France » Sun Aug 11, 2024 6:11 pm

I looked through the French resources post but couldn't find something that I'm looking for specifically.

Back in the day of Torrents being a major way to acquire language learning stuff, I once downloaded a collection of Italian Graded Readers that went from A1 to C2. It was a way for me to build up my reading comprehension piece by piece. I remember a few of the books which included Pinocchio and another A1 book that was about language students going to a haunted house.

They will brilliant because I could listen to them or read along with them and it boosted my vocab and pattern recognition really well.

Does anyone know where I can get the equivalent in French now that Torrents aren't really a thing anymore?

I know about bi-lingual books in the UK but the postage gets a bit silly when shipping outside of the UK now (Thanks Brexit).

If anyone has any download links or places to get these types of things from that's a reasonable price, I would really appreciate it
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Amandine
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Re: French Graded Readers

Postby Amandine » Mon Aug 12, 2024 7:50 am

If there is an Alliance Française near you, their library will have loads.
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Re: French Graded Readers

Postby DaveAgain » Mon Aug 12, 2024 3:14 pm

Englishman_in_France wrote:I looked through the French resources post but couldn't find something that I'm looking for specifically.

Back in the day of Torrents being a major way to acquire language learning stuff, I once downloaded a collection of Italian Graded Readers that went from A1 to C2. It was a way for me to build up my reading comprehension piece by piece. I remember a few of the books which included Pinocchio and another A1 book that was about language students going to a haunted house.

They will brilliant because I could listen to them or read along with them and it boosted my vocab and pattern recognition really well.

Does anyone know where I can get the equivalent in French now that Torrents aren't really a thing anymore?

I know about bi-lingual books in the UK but the postage gets a bit silly when shipping outside of the UK now (Thanks Brexit).

If anyone has any download links or places to get these types of things from that's a reasonable price, I would really appreciate it
If you live in France, can't you just go to your local library?

Emmaus and recyclivre are two France based 2nd hand book retailers. Emmaus is I believe part of a national network, that has physical sites you can visit and buy things, including books! :-)
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Englishman_in_France
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Re: French Graded Readers

Postby Englishman_in_France » Mon Aug 12, 2024 4:50 pm

DaveAgain wrote:If you live in France, can't you just go to your local library?


I really live very deep in the countryside. The local library to me is probably in Strasbourg and that's 40km away.

I'm really in the middle of nowhere. We moved here from living in the centre of Rotterdam so it's a stark contrast but we prefer it.

The downside of it is having access to normal services that you just take for granted living in the city.
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Re: French Graded Readers

Postby Nogon » Mon Aug 12, 2024 7:34 pm

Sure there's no library closer to you? Do google whether there is one in the commune you live in. It might well have a library, and even if it's a tiny one and has no books appropriate for your level, they might be able to help you via interlibrary loan.
(Plain curiosity made me check Marmotier, a tiny commune with 2700 inhabitants, about 30 km from Strasbourg. And yes, they have a library.)
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Re: French Graded Readers

Postby Amandine » Mon Aug 12, 2024 10:33 pm

Sorry I misread and thought you were in the UK.

I know that Olly Richards’s Short Stories in French in available as an e-book and as an audiobook. The stories get progressively more complex and are in a variety of genres.

I’m a big Recyclivre fan generally but I couldn’t find many “Français facile” books there on a quick search, maybe I didn’t find the right keyword.
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Re: French Graded Readers

Postby DaveAgain » Tue Aug 13, 2024 7:28 am

There are also magazines targeted at language learners, Bien Dire is one that gets mentioned.

Lingq.com is a subscription website that I believe has graded resources (ShawnP has mentioned using this for German).

EDIT
One of the back issues of Bien Dire features Alsace, Bien-dire Initial no33.
Last edited by DaveAgain on Wed Aug 14, 2024 6:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Englishman_in_France
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Re: French Graded Readers

Postby Englishman_in_France » Tue Aug 13, 2024 2:55 pm

Nogon wrote:Sure there's no library closer to you? Do google whether there is one in the commune you live in. It might well have a library, and even if it's a tiny one and has no books appropriate for your level, they might be able to help you via interlibrary loan.
(Plain curiosity made me check Marmotier, a tiny commune with 2700 inhabitants, about 30 km from Strasbourg. And yes, they have a library.)


I know Marmoutier. We nearly moved there when we first arrived in France. We are even more remote than that :-D

We do have a library which is also part of the Marie which is also a school which is also the registry office :-D It's not a big library ya know. Nothing like what we have in the UK in the village libraries.

We really like living remote like this. The nearest supermarket is around 15km from us and there are no takeaways that deliver to our address because it's too far out from any of the restaurants. We are surrounded by fields, cows, sheep and chickens that wake us up every morning with their "ciquery quee" <---- that's how the French do a cockadoodledoo sound. How strange is that? :-D
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Re: French Graded Readers

Postby daegga » Tue Aug 13, 2024 4:54 pm

You can use le francais par la méthode nature like a collection of graded readers. It's 2 stories, the first one rather artificial, the main one then starts with chapter 21. Chapters get gradually more difficult, but it works without a dictionary. You might need to go back a few chapters and re-read them at times to be able to progress further though.
You can find the PDF online and audio for all chapters on YouTube.
Afterwards you are ready for real books such as Le petit Nicolas. I successfully followed this list: https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-listin ... -in-French
Pop-up dictionaries are recommended though (e.g. use a kindle)
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Re: French Graded Readers

Postby indzan » Wed Aug 14, 2024 8:09 pm

Any luck with this? I'm finding graded readers to be great for learning but I can easily read one a day and the costs are adding up. I would happily pay a Netflix type subscription for graded readers but I don't think it exists.
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