Readers recommend: favourite books for improving your french skills

FROM CLASSICS TO MEMOIRS, CONNEXION READERS GIVE THEIR TOP TIPS We recently WROTE ABOUT THE BEST BOOKS FOR IMPROVING YOUR FRENCH and also asked you for your tips. Fortunately, lots of

readers contacted us with advice, which we are sharing with you, below. If you have any more to add, do not hesitate to get in touch via [email protected]. READING TIPS

Connexion reader JK recommends reading a book and listening to it on Audible at the same time. “The advantage of Audible is, of course, that you can change the speed of the narration,” she

said. “I have yet to master the novel being read at full speed but always have it set to 0.8 initially and can generally up it to 0.9 before the end. “I tend to always read with a pencil (I

was a teacher for many years!) and underline bits or vocabulary I am not sure of so I can go back and check later.” READ ALSO: BOOKS TO HELP IMPROVE YOUR FRENCH Another tip from JK was to

use a vocabulary notebook to write down any new words you come across. “Sometimes a particular word is repeated a lot in a specific novel so that initially you might find yourself saying I

have come across that before, to thinking it’s in the notebook, to looking it up in there and finding it in your own writing, and then the next time remembering it as you read it.” JK’s

recommendations are as follows: * _Tu comprendras quand tu seras plus grande_ - Virginie Grimaldi * _Il est grand temps de rallumer les étoiles_ - Virginie Grimaldi * _Changer l'eau des

fleurs_ - Valérie Perrin * _Je revenais des autres_ - Mélissa de Costa * _Une fille comme elle_ - Marc Levy * _Le cerise sur le gâteau_ - Aurélie Valognes * _Le jour où les lions mangeront

de la salade verte_ - Raphaëlle Giordano THE CLASSICS You cannot go far wrong with the classics, as readers JM and BH pointed out. JM suggested _L’Amant _by Marguerite Duras, a very

celebrated French writer, while BH recommended _Bonjour tristesse_ by Françoise Sagan. For beginners, _Bonjour tristesse_ is a particularly good option as the language and structure are

fairly straightforward. BOOKS ABOUT MOVING TO FRANCE FOR A NEW LIFE To add to our list about moving to France to start a new life, Mark Greenside wrote in to recommend his books, I’ll Never

Be French (no matter what I do) and (Not Quite) Mastering the Art of French Living. READ ALSO: SIX BOOKS TO READ ABOUT MOVING TO FRANCE FOR A NEW LIFE JOKE BOOKS One reader recommended

telling jokes in the language you are trying to learn to improve your skills. It is true that even when your French is good, it can be difficult to capture humour in the second language,

particularly the elusive deuxième degré! Jeremy Taylor also wrote in to suggest a book he wrote to get your French comedy skills up to scratch: Language Learning Joke Books by Jeremy Taylor.

MEMOIRS MR recommends _Les Battements du cœur du colibri_ by Roselyne Febvre. He said: “It’s about a mum’s attempts to help her son overcome drug addictions. Roselyne is a France24 chief

political journalist, so she tells a story well.” RELATED ARTICLES UPDATED: YOUR TIPS ON HOW BEST TO IMPROVE FRENCH LANGUAGE SKILLS TIPS ON HOW TO PRACTISE YOUR FRENCH CONVERSATION SKILLS IN

FRANCE