A language learners’ forum

Here are some of my favorites that are, I think, in reach of a low-intermediate reader:

(I'm being lazy, so I took all the blurbs from Goodreads)

Guy de Maupassant - Bel ami. Guy de Maupassant's scandalous tale of an opportunistic young man corrupted by the allure of power.

André Gide - La symphonie pastorale. In beautiful, evocative prose, Gide's short novel explores such themes as love, blindness, honor, and mortality.

Jean Giono - L'homme qui plantait des arbes. The hero of the story, Elzeard Bouffier, spent his life planting one hundred acorns a day in a desolate, barren section of Provence, France. The result was a total transformation of the landscape -- from one devoid of life, with miserable, contentious inhabitants, to one filled with the scent of flowers, the songs of birds, and fresh, flowing water.

Marcel Pagnol - L'eau des collines (Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources). In Jean de Florette and Manon of the Springs, Marcel Pagnol achieves the fullest and most satisfying expression of a story that haunted him for years, a Provencal legend of vengeance exacted by a mysterious sheperdess.

Alain-Fournier - Le Grand Meaulnes. In a small village in the Sologne, Fifteen-year-old François Seurel narrates the story of his relationship with seventeen-year-old Augustin Meaulnes. Impulsive, reckless and heroic, Meaulnes embodies the romantic ideal, the search for the unobtainable, and the mysterious world between childhood and adulthood.

All of these will introduce you to new vocabulary, so the first couple chapters might be slow-going. Once you learn the author's voice, though, the stories will flow. All of these guys write in an elegant but straight-forward manner, without a lot of flourishes or modernist (or, shudder, post-modernist) tics.

And then ... when you're ready to go for it:

Victor Hugo - Les misérables and Notre-Dame-de-Paris. No blurb is necessary for these, right? Here's the thing with Hugo: he tends to go on long digressions that don't always relate much to the plot, especially in Les misérables. But when he gets back to the main plot it's a roller-coaster action ride. And they are two amazing rides. The digressions can be a pain. The main plots are accessible to everyone.

I would recommend a 1-year subscription to the monthly online audio magazine "Think French" the level of which is roughly A2-B1. http://www.thinklanguage.com/

Do people have any other recommendations for French Canadian youtubers/podcasts? I want to get a bit more of a variety of accents in the things I listen to and I am going to start with French Canada.

MamaPata wrote:Do people have any other recommendations for French Canadian youtubers/podcasts? I want to get a bit more of a variety of accents in the things I listen to and I am going to start with French Canada.

I sometimes listen to Aujourd'hui l'histoire from Radio Canada.

list of books scheduled for the Instuit francais (london) reading group.

Thu 18 October | Small Country, by Gaël Faye (2017) – tr. by S. Ardizzone

Thu 15 Nov | La Peste (The Plague), by A. Camus

Thu 13 Dec | Chanson Douce – Lullaby, by L. Slimani – tr. by S. Taylor

Thu 10 Jan | Le chercheur d’or – The Prospector, by Le Clézio – tr. by C. Dickson

Thu 21 Feb | Hhhh, by L. Binet – tr. by S. Taylor

Thu 14 Mar | Maigret et les Témoins récalcitrants – Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses, by G. Simenon – tr. by R. Schwartz

Thu 11 Apr | The Years, by Annie Ernaux – tr. by Alison L. Strayer

Thu 23 May | L’Ordre du jour – The Order of the Day, by E. Vuillard – tr. by M. Polizzotti

Thu 13 Jun | Le cœur à rire et à pleurer : Souvenirs de mon enfance – Tales from the Heart: True Stories from My Childhood, by Maryse Condé – tr. by R. Philcox

EDIT
They also have some literature based language courses

Course materials :

Oct – Dec 2018:

“Le Château de ma mère”, Marcel Pagnol

“Le Chapeau de Mitterrand”, Antoine Laurain

Jan – Mar 2019:

“D’après une histoire vraie”, Delphine de Vigan

(suite de Rien ne s’oppose à la nuit)

“Et puis, Paulette…”, Barbara Constantine

Apr – Jun 2019:

“La Chatte”, Colette

“L’Article 353 du code pénal”, Tanguy Viel

Student’s involvement: Students will be asked to take part in discussions and express their point of view in a relaxed and interactive environment.
-----------------------------------------
Course materials for 2018: The teacher will mainly use nineteenth- and twentieth-century novels.

– “La débacle”, Emile Zola
– “Cyrano de Bergerac” Edmond Rostand
– “Le mariage de plaisir“ Tahar Ben Jelloun
– “La petite fille de Monsieur Linh”, Philippe Claudel

Are there any other drill-based French courses apart from FSI? I've been doing FSI drills from the French Basic course for about a week, but I'm disappointed by the heavy formality of their phrases (inversions, vouvoiement for everything).

zjones wrote:Are there any other drill-based French courses apart from FSI? ...

The audio-lingual method (drill, drill, drill) was so pervasive in American high school and university language courses in the 1970's that virtually all publishers of French courses destined for classroom instruction published their own versions. In many cases, copies of the course books can still be found on the internet and, quite possibly, in the archives of some of the larger universities. The difficulty lies in locating the corresponding audio files. As the "language laboratory method" declined in popularity, and as audio recording technology continued to evolve, much of the equipment was trashed, the reel-to-reel tapes as well.

Coming back to the FSI French drills, I have a fairly large collection of audio-lingual textbooks for the teaching of German and, having familiarised myself with their contents, I must admit that the method's reputation for mind-numbing drills was well-deserved. Although I have not completed either the FSI French Basic OR the DLI French Basic courses, I have skimmed through the materials and I found that the latter's drills were a little more engaging. You can locate the files on the Yojik.eu website. You might also try the "updated" version of the FSI French Basic course which is available via Audible as "Mastering French" but which, unfortunately, is an incomplete work-in-progress.

DLI French Basic
https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/DLI/DLI-French.html

FSI Basic Courses: Updated
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=6400

Addendum: Drills in French courses
I neglected to mention that there are two Linguaphone French courses which contain drills.

Linguaphone French: Beginner-to-Advanced
Although I could be mistaken concerning exactly which “generations” are involved, as far as I can remember, in the early 1990’s, Linguaphone added a series of drills to their standard French, German, and Spanish courses. These drills were meant to illustrate, and to provide additional practice of, a selection of the grammatical features which appeared in the corresponding lessons. These Linguaphone courses are not, in themselves, audio-lingual courses. Furthermore, typical for this publisher, there is absolutely no explanation whatsoever of precisely what these drills are supposed illustrate; they were simply “tacked onto” the existing courses, thereby leaving the student to speculate as to how these materials were related to the principle sections of the course. They are, nevertheless, useful, providing you can figure out what they are meant to illustrate.

Linguaphone French for Business
In the mid-1980’s, Linguaphone began publishing a series of courses entitled “Linguaphone [language] for Business” for the self-instruction of French, German, and Spanish. I reviewed these materials under the General Linguaphone discussion thread. A key feature about these course is that they employed what I would call as a "low intensity" version of the audio-lingual method; that is, the drills are "just enough" to assist the student with the grammatical concepts deployed in the lessons but not so numerous and mind-numbingly boring as to lead to discouragement and boredom. As always, for this publisher, the accompanying notes are appallingly opaque.

Vas-y, t'es capable!

EDITED:
Tinkering.
Addendum.
Erreurs de frappe, bien entendu!

It turns out that I am very briefly going to be in Paris this week. Does anyone have any cheap and central bookshop recommendations? I appreciate cheap and central is asking for the world, but I am there for a stupidly short time (and all in the very centre) and have little money.

MamaPata wrote:It turns out that I am very briefly going to be in Paris this week. Does anyone have any cheap and central bookshop recommendations? I appreciate cheap and central is asking for the world, but I am there for a stupidly short time (and all in the very centre) and have little money.

I am no expert on Paris bookshops, but I enjoy going to Gibert Joseph on 26 Boulevard Saint-Michel. It is in the 6th arrondissement. I don't know it is is cheaper than other bookshops, but it is huge with a nice selection of language learning material as well. And if I am not mistaken they also sell second-hand books.

There are numerous bookshops in the 5th and 6th arrondissement (after all it is the area of La Sorbonne), just check out librairies Paris in Google maps. If you have the time, head that way.

An article about book stalls along the Seine mentions Quai Malaquais as an address.