How to read French?

Sanguine Fan

I have basic conversational French. However, I need to learn to read and understand pretty advanced level documents for my history course next year.

What is the best way to go about this? I mean better than laboriously going through the documents word-by-word with a French dictionary at my elbow.

I would prefer to use the time between now and then to learn to read French as fluently as I can, particularly in relation to mastering the grammar. I am a bit worried about the different forms of verbs which can't really be looked up in a dictionary.

AlkalineAcid

Read a French novel! I've been doing this and it helps a lot in my opinion. Use the dictionary or verb book when you get stuck but you'll find you'll be relying on them less and less every chapter.

Chapters on Parnell St has a little section for foreign language literature in their second hand section. You could buy French books online at ebay.fr quite cheap too.

Sanguine Fan

AlkalineAcid wrote: »

Read a French novel! I've been doing this and it helps a lot in my opinion.

Thanks for the tip.

I suppose the only way to make progress is to just jump in. I am glad to read it gets easier over time.

pickarooney

Read a translated version of a book you already know. Assuming it's a good translation and an engaging story you don't mind re-reading you should be able to understand most of it and guess what you don't recognise.

Casey_81

pickarooney wrote: »

Read a translated version of a book you already know. Assuming it's a good translation and an engaging story you don't mind re-reading you should be able to understand most of it and guess what you don't recognise.

+1 on this.. Or get Le Monde - you will be able to guess what the articles are about, and the language should be relatively formal

Sanguine Fan

Thanks again for those tips.

Has anyone tried those double-language books, where the French text appears on one page, with the translation on the opposite page?

work.inprocess

Casey_81 wrote: »

+1 on this.. Or get Le Monde - you will be able to guess what the articles are about, and the language should be relatively formal

I can recommend this, not the most exciting of things though, I spent 2 years during my leaving cert reading Le Monde and Le Figaro everyday, which did not make for very exciting French topics.

French Cosmo, Vogue and other magazines are the more interesting option if you can get a download of them (as they are quite expensive in Easons - 5€ doesn't seem that bad until you see the French price of 2€ beside it)

I also read a few novels. (there are ones you can buy in the international bookshop - just off Nassau st, if you're near Dublin - which have a CD accompanying it, which helps both with aural comprehension, as well as pronunciation) The first one I read was : J'aurais préféré vivre by Thierry Cohen, which is quite manageable.

As regards the tenses : http://dictionnaire.tv5.org is a really good one if you put in the word it'll tell you the verb/tense etc.

And for grammar : http://www.bonpatron.com, excellent correction site (even for inaudible mistakes !)

Edit : Oh ! And 'L'étranger' by Albert Camus - which is on most 1st year French Literature reading lists, even though it's really easy to understand [a great one for recognising tenses too]

EricG

A very good way to learn and understand French is to watch a French film or watch TV5. They often have very interesting historical documentaries. You could watch a film with subtitles. Good luck.

enda1

pickarooney wrote: »

Read a translated version of a book you already know. Assuming it's a good translation and an engaging story you don't mind re-reading you should be able to understand most of it and guess what you don't recognise.

Completely agree with this. Try the Harry Potter series as if you are familiar with them in English, you should really improve your vocabulary and grammar. Also especially cause they are not so complicated. Then maybe some Dan Brown book for easy level but including some more "technical" concepts.

pog it

You can access Le Monde online. Always an interesting column on the back page or you could just scan it in Easons, etc. or look at copies in your local library.

It's a funner way to build up vocabulary than just sticking to novels.

confusticated

Sanguine Fan wrote: »

Thanks again for those tips.

Has anyone tried those double-language books, where the French text appears on one page, with the translation on the opposite page?

I think you're better off to just read them in French, because you'll tend to not check up on words as much and it's easier to get into the story in French. I read one like that a few years ago but recently have just read books in French and I think it helps more and gets you thinking in French too.