Short stories in French

French short stories, from fairy tales to Maupassant

France gave the short story its master: Maupassant wrote some three hundred of them, most only a few pages long. Before you read him, this page gives you stories of your own level: fifteen tales written for learners at A2, B1 and B2, then stories you already know, retold at B1, and at the end the classics in the original.

Contes de la Bécasse is the place to meet him: seventeen stories of about 2,000 words each, told by hunters around a dinner table. Each is a classic you can finish in one sitting, and the next one starts from nothing, so a hard story costs you one evening and not the whole book.

How to choose a French story at your level

Open an A2 story and read the first page. If you tap fewer than one word in ten, that shelf is yours. If you tap almost nothing, move to B1.

Written French narrates in the passé simple, a tense nobody speaks: il fut, elle prit, ils virent. Textbooks leave it for later; stories use it from the first paragraph. Tap a form and you see its verb, and by the third story you recognise them without a table.

Listen as you read. French drops most final letters and links words together, so the sentence you hear is shorter than the one you see. Reading with the audio brings the two together.

Questions beginners ask

How long does one story take?

The stories written for learners take ten to fifteen minutes. The retellings take from half an hour. Le port takes twenty minutes, and Contes de la Bécasse is seventeen separate stories.

Are the classics simplified?

No. They are the full text: Maupassant, Stendhal and Mérimée in the original French, Poe and Dostoevsky in French translation. Only the first three shelves are written or retold for learners.

Which classic should I read first?

Le port, then any story from Contes de la Bécasse. Maupassant writes in everyday words and short paragraphs, which is why French schools read him too.