Learn French by reading

In French, reading and listening belong together

French is written very differently from how it sounds. Silent letters, liaison and elision mean you can know a word on paper and still miss it in speech, or the other way round. Reading with audio connects the two: you see the sentence and hear it at the same time, and the gap closes quickly.

Reading is also the easiest way to get used to what you rarely hear in conversation. The passé simple has almost disappeared from speech, but it runs through novels and short stories. After a few chapters, il fut and elle prit stop looking strange.

French reading, level by level

Beginner · A1–A2

Short dialogues like Bonjour ! and Ma routine du matin, scenes inspired by Friends and The Office, and light articles such as Les 5 langages de l’amour. Grammar notes cover the basics, from the verb avoir to negation.

Intermediate · B1

Summaries of La psychologie de l’argent and Sapiens, retellings of Le Petit Prince and Le Diable s’habille en Prada, several seasons of Emily à Paris and a weekly news digest in French.

Upper-intermediate and above · B2+

The classics in the original: Maupassant’s Boule de suif and Contes de la Bécasse, Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur and Victor Hugo’s Cosette. Poe’s Le Chat noir is only about 2,400 words, a gentle first step into literary French.

French level test

New to French? Start here

A1–A2French short stories for beginners Fairy-tale adventures and retold classics, ten to twenty minutes each.A1–B1French books for beginners Books retold for beginners, then short unabridged classics.

Reading French in Lingard

Tap a word to see what it means in this sentence. When the words alone do not add up — il s’agit de, avoir beau, n’importe quoi — translate the whole sentence, then read it again in French.

Turn on audio to hear the pronunciation as you read, and save words and phrases as you go. They come back in short, spaced reviews, so what you read this week is still with you next month.

Browse the catalog

Every title here is also in the Lingard app. Pick a CEFR level to see only what matches your reading.

All French booksA2B1B2C1