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22 August 2010

Le progrès

So it's been about five weeks since I started tutoring French, and it's going great.  At the end of this week, I will have taught twenty lessons.  Some of my students are already starting to read paragraphs and speak short sentences.  My latest student already has a vocabulary of over one hundred words.  My first student is learning both past tenses, having already conquered the present tense.  My one more advanced student is reading Les Trois Mousquetaires (abridged).  


I am going to include a list below of my must-have French books that I have in my personal collection.  



Bescherelle is the perfect book for conjugating verbs.  It has every single French verb conjugated, and it's only half an inch thick.  You won't find a
French person without it.


Larousse French English Dictionary  Everyone needs a dictionary.  Larousse will do just fine

Harry Potter a L'ecole Des Sorciers / Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter (French)) (French Edition)

If you're at a level where you can start reading French (and I would say that would be when you know all the tenses, and a sizable vocabulary) then I would recommend reading a story that you already know.  It's not necessary to look up every single word you don't know.  You can underline the words you don't know and come back to them later.  If you look up a word every time you don't know it, you'll be too exasperated to read a French book.

French Grammar (Barron's Grammar Series)

This is a tiny little book that I like because it just has great topical vocabulary.  I use it when I'm coming up with my lesson plans so my students have vocab that is all related.  

Les Trois Mousquetaires

This is the book I'm reading with my advanced student.  The vocab isn't too difficult and it's a fun story with exercises at the end of the chapters.  

Manon des Sources

This is the first genuinely French book I ever read.  It was difficult, but I learned a heck of a lot.

Now I'm going to give a list of recommended books.  

Easy French Reader

Two of my students have purchased this book.  After only a few lessons, they will know the majority of the vocab in this book, and learn a lot more from it.  I'm looking forward to starting lessons with this extra resource.  

First Thousand Words in French   My First French Book   

These two books I am recommending to parents to buy for their children (who are my clients).  Either of these two books are great.  They are both illustrated for kids who have not yet learned to read and can be read to, or just learning to read.  

Any of these books can be clicked on to direct you to the page to Amazon, if you wish to purchase them.  



3 comments:

Rose said...

Bonjour! You're a good tutor, and I'm certainly benefiting from the lessons.

I read that you're thinking of majoring in Russian. I've been studying it casually for a few months. Definitely more challenging than Romance languages, from my point of view, but it's an enriching language to learn.

A bientôt!

Anna said...

Thanks!

I'm actually thinking of minoring in Russian or German. Whichever fits my schedule.

Léna Roy said...

This is so great Anna! I love all of the book recommendations - maybe some day you can help me brush up on my French, and I of course can make good on that latte I owe you!

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