First French Reader: A Beginner's Dual-Language Book [French]

Book Overview

This excellent anthology introduces newcomers to 50 great writers. Beginners can get their first taste of Voltaire, Rousseau, Balzac, Baudelaire, and Proust with passages from The Red and the Black,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: French
• ISBN: 0486461785
• ISBN13: 9780486461786
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Great book with short stories.

This book is intended for those that have some French under their belt. There are English translations, but you catch yourself looking more at that. Not really a bad thing that the translation is there. Decent short stories to help learn phrasing and conjugation. Would buy if you have at least one year of French

First French Reader (Dover books)

I am trying to brush up my French language skills. I found the dual language reader a help. It provides immediate reinforcement and I don't have to look up every word that I cannot remember. I liked some stories better than others. For a returning reader to french this is a good way to start.

"Almost" perfect

I am fairly new to the French language which I am learning on my own. I am a passionate linguist and it's so far my fifth language. English is not my first language either, but after many years in this country it is now almost like my native one. I am still reading this book and I am enjoining every bit of it. It is a collection of short stories by famous French writers of the past spanning over 400 years of French literature. It gives me an opportunity not only to broaden my French vocabulary, but also to learn about great French novelists of the past. I am not giving this book a 5 because I find that often the translation is not "word by word", but rather contextual. I still often need to look up words in the dictionary, which I hoped I could avoid by purchasing a dual language book. I do understand however that literal translation into another language is sometimes just impossible, you just have to get the meaning of the sentence as a whole rather dissect it word by word because it would not make sense if it would be translated that way. A humble suggestion to future readers of this book would be to first read the entire story in French without looking at the English version, then read it in English, then read it again in French. When you read it in French the second time you then can "guess" at the meaning of most words you missed at first saving you the time to use the dictionary.

A Delicious Smorgasbord

Appelbaum's *First French Reader* is a delightful dual-language sampling of works by significant modern French authors. In addition to the authors listed in the product description, one will also find works by René Descartes, Gustave Flaubert, George Sand, Jules Verne, Émile Zola, and Alphonse Daudet (and numerous others). The selections are short: Most are approximately two pages long. Buy this book if you are contemplating studying French literature and are unsure as to which authors suit your taste and reading ability. Surely you will find one or more in this collection that will whet your appetite for their longer works. Be sure to read Appelbaum's introduction, which provides concise commentary on each author and provides a little context for their work. As he cautions, the ordering for the works is based on the writers' dates of birth: Appelbaum does not attempt to order or grade them based on difficulty (because "difficulty" is in the eyes of the individual reader). So go ahead and enjoy tasting each one. Appelbaum's able English translations will surely prevent your contracting any form of indigestion.