Reading Around The Edges: French

Magazines

• France Football

– very well written articles on world soccer. Most focus is on France and European competition, but there is a section in each edition on each of the major European leagues and any upcoming or current international competitions (notably the World Cup 2014).

• L’Equipe

A dedicated sports newspaper. Iconic in France and an excellently written journal which covers a huge range of sports.

• Marie Claire

• The French version is superior to the English, but similar in some ways. Lots of articles on fashion, lifestyle etc.

• Phosphore

• A mixed bag of general interest articles aimed at French teenagers.

• Géo

• Largely on scientific or ecological matters

Daily newspapers

• Le Monde is well known but quite dry,
• Libération is a little easier to read and has a good free access website.
• Le Figaro is also a good generalist news publication.

Poetry

The works of Jacques Prévert are fairly short, easy to read and are good for pronunciation because of the rhymes. The animal fables of Jean de Lafontaine are also well known internationally and are good to read for the rhymes. They were however written in the 17^th century so may be linguistically challenging.

Books

If you would like to read a full novel “L’homme qui plantait des arbres” by Jean Giono may be of interest, or “Vol de Nuit” a novella by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Both are relatively accessible.

5^th Century:

Antigone – Jean Anouilh

17th century :

Le Malade Imaginaire by Molière

La Princesse de Clèves – Marie-Madeleine de La Fayette

18th century :

Zadig or Candide by Voltaire

Les Liaisons dangereuses – Laclos

19th century :

Le Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

La Peau de Chagrin by Honoré de Balzac

Contes de la Bécasse or Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant

Les Trois Mousquetaires by Alexandre Dumas

Au Bonheur des Dames by Emile Zola

Le dernier jour d’un condamné – Victor Hugo

Une vie – Guy de Maupassant

Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

Les Malheurs de Sophie – La Comtesse de Ségur

20th century

Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Le Petit Nicolas by René Goscinny

Calligrammes by Apollinaire

L’Étranger by Albert Camus

Manon des Sources by Marcel Pagnol

Huis Clos or Le Diable et Le Bon Dieu by Jean-Paul Sartre

Le Tour du Monde en 80 Jours by Jules Verne

L’Ecume des jours – Boris Vian

Le Dernier Jour d’un Condamné by Victor Hugo

Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain Fournier

L’Amant by Marguerite Duras

Un Sac de Billes by Joseph Joffo

Le Pays des Autres by Leila Slimani

Le Soleil des Scorta by Laurent Gaude

L’Anomalie by Henry Tellier

Trois by Valerie Perrin

Le Diable au corps – Raymond Radiguet

Le Zèbre – Alexandre Jardin

Si c’est un homme – Primo Levi

Streaming Platforms

Netflix

Lovefilm

Film4 on Freeview,

If you have a Sky TV subscription, TV5 monde is broadcast in this country in French through their satellite – a good mix of programmes and an easy way to spend 10 minutes at home productively. Other channels are available online too.

Youtube and Dailymotion also have loads of clips in French, songs, extracts from tv and film, sports matches etc.

Television

www.rfi.fr - le journal en français. Short broadcast news items and news in written form too

www.telerama.fr – access to lots of French TV.

Films

Starbuck

Populaire

Casse-tête chinois

Les garçons et Guillaume, à table !

Intouchables

Jappeloup

Jack et la mécanique du cœur

Websites

LanguagesRfun: Home | languagesRfun

Languages Online : www.languagesonline.org.uk

Apps

• 94 seconds (change the language to French)
• Duolinguo.
• 7 jours sur la planète
• French with RFI
• Quizlet
• Antidote
• FluentU
• Actualités
• Radios France

Radio

www.ecouterradioenligne.com

Music

Youtube is a good starting point for this. Some artists who might appeal are :

Rap

Sexion d’assaut

MC Solaar

Stromae- rap and pop music

Pop

Christophe Mae-just like Ben Howard

Zebda

Renan Luce

Yelle

SuperBus

Old Favourites

Piaf

Brel

Cheb Khaled

Cheb Mami

Henri Salvador

Aznavour

Georges Brassens