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A review by racheln23
Short Stories in French for Beginners by Olly Richards
5.0
Excellent investment for the language learner. Olly's short stories are in perfect, bite-sized chapters and are highly interesting. Although this book says it is for beginners, this is not a book that you can grab and learn a language from scratch. You must have at least a good, working base of a language to be able to make it through the stories. If you have a high A1, give it a try. If it is too hard, shelve it until you get to A2.
All stories are 3-4 chapters. Each chapter comes with a glossary of terms, which, I frequently found to be obvious words highlighted. I recommend reading the stories on a kindle and therefore having control to highlight any word that intrigues your curiosity. Although looking up every word defeats the purpose of the effortless learning that comes from reading content at your level, I loved having the control to look up a few words nagging me here and there.
The chapter ends also included a summary of the chapter, which I always found extremely satisfying to read.
Lastly, the chapters all have 5 comprehension questions. The questions were fun to complete as a reading exercise, but I did not really worry much about the occasional question I couldn't remember a concrete detail about. Most questions were incredibly simple and I enjoyed the pleasure of reading them and understanding them easily.
My complaint with the stories is that the stories mostly feel like they are just getting started when they end. These are not novels, so you will not get a bunch of content - they are short stories. It is nothing I should really complain about and I think it is more a compliment to the author that I enjoyed the stores so much I wanted more from them.
For reference, I did also buy the Intermediate book and have read one story from there. I did not find it to be any more challenging than this book, just maybe the story seemed a little longer.
I 100% recommend this book in whatever language you are learning!
All stories are 3-4 chapters. Each chapter comes with a glossary of terms, which, I frequently found to be obvious words highlighted. I recommend reading the stories on a kindle and therefore having control to highlight any word that intrigues your curiosity. Although looking up every word defeats the purpose of the effortless learning that comes from reading content at your level, I loved having the control to look up a few words nagging me here and there.
The chapter ends also included a summary of the chapter, which I always found extremely satisfying to read.
Lastly, the chapters all have 5 comprehension questions. The questions were fun to complete as a reading exercise, but I did not really worry much about the occasional question I couldn't remember a concrete detail about. Most questions were incredibly simple and I enjoyed the pleasure of reading them and understanding them easily.
My complaint with the stories is that the stories mostly feel like they are just getting started when they end. These are not novels, so you will not get a bunch of content - they are short stories. It is nothing I should really complain about and I think it is more a compliment to the author that I enjoyed the stores so much I wanted more from them.
For reference, I did also buy the Intermediate book and have read one story from there. I did not find it to be any more challenging than this book, just maybe the story seemed a little longer.
I 100% recommend this book in whatever language you are learning!