French Short Stories for Beginners by Lingo Mastery: book review

French Short Stories for Beginners, Volume 2 (2019) is exactly that. The book contains 20 easy-to-read short stories in French with the aim of expanding the reader’s vocabulary and grammar. There is an accompanying audio version too. And the offer of a free book, Lingo Hacks: Secrets for Learning Any Language in No Time! by Lingo Mastery.

Each story has the basic elements of language: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, tense, and so on, in day-to-day situations (more or less) with natural dialogue – i.e., in functional and descriptive language. After reading the stories, the aim is that readers can make appointments, pay for a taxi, get a haircut, etc. At the end of each story is a synopsis in French and English of what the story was about, and a list of vocabulary. Each story concludes with a set of questions to test the reader’s comprehension and deeper understanding.

The contents page is not useful because it doesn’t provide the title of the story – only “Chapter Seventeen” etc. However, the stories include: First Day of School, Job Interview, At the Animal Park, The Fun Fair, Market Day, At the Gym, Mountain Holidays, Growing Up, The Shopping List, Job Seeking, The Suit, The Lost Child, April’s Fool, Fitness, Reunion, Elevator Breakdown, Driving License, Gardening, The Dog Training Class, and The Birthday Cake.

My favourites were: Market Day, Mountain Holidays, Elevator Breakdown, and Gardening. I’ve already been reading short novels in French, so I’m more advanced than a beginner, but it was interesting to see what this type of book contained.

As readers will see, the stories are not in any logical order. For example, you read about the Job Interview before reading about Job Seeking. And the “English” in the text is American English and spelling. It is useful though as a reader that doesn’t feel too much like a language textbook, but it could be improved with a picture or two!

MARTINA NICOLLS

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Martina Nicolls is an Australian author and international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, and foreign aid audits and evaluations. She lives in Paris.

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