How to learn French by reading

Why does reading suit French so well?

Every time you understand a sentence containing a word you half know, that word becomes a little more familiar. This incidental learning is the idea behind comprehensible input and extensive reading. Paul Nation, a leading vocabulary researcher, calls it "very fragile" in his 1997 review: a word not met again soon is lost. His answer is plenty of reading at the right level, plus some direct study of the words.

French adds a reason of its own. Much of its grammar is visible on the page and nearly invisible in speech. Il est fatigué and elle est fatiguée (he is tired, she is tired) sound identical; only the written e shows the agreement. Elle regarde and elles regardent sound the same too. Reading lets you see the system before your ear can catch it, and the free A1 chapters of the Contos library use Elle est fatiguée in three different series.

Reading also slows French down. Spoken French runs words together through liaison and elision; on the page l'immeuble is plainly le + immeuble, and you can take your time.

What should you read at each French level?

Difficulty is the choice that matters most. If too many words are new, reading turns into decoding and you stop learning from context. That is why graded readers exist, and why each Contos series is written for one level only.

Native novels can wait. Nation's 2006 study of English found that novels need a vocabulary of 8,000–9,000 word families before 98% of the words are familiar. For what that means in French, see how many French words you need.

How do you read a French chapter without stopping every line?

1. First pass: follow the story. Don't stop for single words. Who is there, where are they, what just happened?
2. Tap only what blocks you. If you can follow the sentence, keep going. Guessing is part of the skill, and French cognates make guessing easier than you expect.
3. Second pass: read slowly. Now notice endings, genders and the little words: du, au, y, en.
4. Save the phrase, not the word. French expresses many states with avoir plus a noun, and the chunk is worth more than its parts.

Chapter 1 of the A1 mystery Monsieur Leclerc's Wallet has a clear example. An old man finds his lost wallet on his doormat, with more money in it than he lost:

Save avoir peur (to be afraid) as one card and you have the pattern for a whole family of expressions. The same free chapters give you Sophie a raison (Sophie is right) in The Montmartre Twins, and at A2 elle n'a pas envie de jouer (she doesn't feel like playing) in The Little Notes of the Canal Bookshop. English says "be"; French says "have".

Why stick with one series instead of hopping between stories?

A series brings back the same people, places and objects, so the same words return without any planning. We measured it in the free chapters of the Contos French library. In the 12 A1 series, about 59% of the running words in chapter 2 had already appeared in chapter 1 of the same series. Against chapter 1 of a different A1 series, the figure was about 45%. At A2 it was about 63% against 47%.

That extra overlap is the repetition Nation says new words need. It is also why the third and fourth chapters of a series feel easier than the first: you know the building, the cast and half the vocabulary.

Then climb with a story you know. The flagship series, The Building at No. 14, about a young woman who arrives at a Paris building with one mysterious suitcase, is written separately at A1, A2, B1 and B2. Rereading the plot one level up leaves your attention free for the new language; our CEFR levels guide compares its opening at all four levels.