Reading Successfully

Reading in French is exciting, but it can also be challenging. You are still learning French, so don’t be discouraged if you’re a bit lost or confused the first time you read a piece taken from a real French publication. That’s completely normal. It usually takes two or more readings before the main ideas of a text become clear. Follow the steps below, and you will read more easily and understand more of what you read in each succeeding chapter.

Before Reading

• Good readers have a very general idea about the content of a text before they start it. Read the brief introduction that begins each chapter to understand the main idea of each reading.
• Think about what the title means and what you expect the text to be about. Even if your guesses aren’t exactly on target, you’ll still understand more than the reader who dives right into a text without a clue as to what’s going on.
• Look at the visuals accompanying the text. Guess what they are showing you about the text you’ll read.
• Do the Mise en route and practice the reading strategy presented to prepare you for the reading.
• Learn the Mots et expressions. They present key vocabulary terms essential to understanding what you will read.

While Reading

• Read the text once to form a general idea of what it is about, using the dictionary as little as possible. Check the footnotes on each page to understand unfamiliar expressions, and try to guess the meaning of new words that seem important to you. After finishing, summarize for yourself two or three ideas you understood from the text. For example, is the text about a person, place, or an event? What did you learn about this topic?
• Use everything in a text to understand it. Study charts and photos, and read all captions carefully. Notice the use of headings, bold face lettering, italics, and different fonts; these will help you to understand an author’s ideas.
• Read the Avez-vous compris? questions following the text. These cover the key ideas presented in the reading and will serve as a kind of an outline of what you should be looking for as you reread the text.
• Read the text again, more carefully this time. Try to understand the gist of one sentence or one idea at a time, not one word at a time. You won’t recognize every word, but you don’t need to in order to grasp the main ideas presented. Your goal should be to understand enough to answer the Avez-vous compris? questions following each text.

After reading

• Answer the Avez-vous compris? questions. If you are able to answer most of them, you have a good understanding of the text. If not, reread the text a third time or a fourth time.
• Close your book. Summarize what you have read in you own words, in French, orally or in writing.
• Prepare the A discuter questions assigned for class discussions and rehearse your answers aloud at home. It will take some of the pressure off when you are presenting these ideas in class if you’re not saying everything for the very first time in French.

Writing Compositions

You will soon be writing in French about subjects related to the Collage readings. The following suggestions will help you write clearly and correctly.

Find your main idea Good writers brainstorm a few different ideas before they begin to write. Don’t start writing without a plan, hoping you’ll have said something worthwhile by the end of the paper. Decide what it is you’d like to say in your paper, and write that main idea in one clear, precise sentence. If you can’t write it, you don’t have an idea.

Write simply and clearly Your writing style in your native language may be sophisticated, but you must be content in the beginning with simpler sentences in French. If an idea is too complex for you to express in French, break it down into several parts. Always use the vocabulary and grammar you’re studying in each lesson, and your French will grow at a steady rate, chapter by chapter.

Make a rough draft Do not try to produce a finished composition in one sitting. Put your rough draft aside and come back to it later to correct and revise. This will make many wording and development problems easier to resolve.

Check your paper for errors Many errors are avoidable. Take the time to make sure:

• All words are spelled correctly.
• All accent marks are correct.
• The gender of all nouns is accurate.
• Every article and adjective agrees in number and gender with its noun.
• Each sentence contains a verb conjugated to agree with its subject.
• Use of the past, present or future tense of verbs is logical and consistent.
• The paper has a title, an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

See “Pour écrire en français’’ at the end of each chapter in the Cahier d’exercices for more practice in writing good compositions in French. Et maintenant, bon courage et bon travail!