French recs for novels/poetry/plays/movies/music etc.

[jayd_en]

Hi linguaphilies

Comments

[ubykhlives]

I really enjoyed being able to read La Planète des Singes in the original French, being a sci-fi fan and having read Planet of the Apes a number of times in English.

[jayd_en]

I've never read Planet of the Apes, and I think there's a movie called that too, but I've never seen. I looked it up and it seems really interesting. Thanks for the rec!

[ubykhlives]

You're more than welcome! That's right, it's been adapted to film twice in English (the 1968 one is better), but both changed some important elements of the story, so even if you see the film(s) it still won't spoil the novel for you. :)

Oh, I forgot to mention Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, which also saw a cinematic release in the English-speaking world as simply Amélie. I like it a lot. It's quite funny and occasionally touching, so you might like to check it out as well.

[shanrina]

I loved the Gérard Depardieu Comte de Monte Cristo. There's also L'Auberge Espagnole (though that one's not completely in French), L'Argent de poche, and Le Pacte des Loups.

For music, I like MC Solaar, especially Solaar Pleure and La Belle et le Bad Boy. My mother, a French teacher, likes to play Corneille for her students, although I'm not really a fan so I can't recommend particular songs of his. If you're a Disney fan, Disney songs in different languages are up on YouTube, including a few songs where they have both French French and Québécois versions. There's also Eurovision entries--not all of France's entries are in French, but I know their 2013 song was.

I read Notre-Dame de Paris in English, not French, but it was good, so you might try to see if you can find a copy in French.

There are also newspapers--there's Le Figaro and Le Monde.

[jayd_en]

The Count of Monte Cristo and The Humpback of Notredame have been on my to-read list! Reading them in French is going to add a whole other level to my satisfaction. :)

I can't find thosefilms on Netflix so I'll have to search for them but I found some interesting ones on Netflix I'll watch as well.

I'll listen to a few of all of their tracks and see what's more to my taste. I love music so I'll probably exposed to that more than anything else.

Thank you!

[wordbuff]

That's quite a question, but I'll try to answer.

(1) you know enough English, obviously, for it to be of help when studying French. English has borrowed so much over the centuries, that you ALREADY passively know SEVERAL THOUSAND of the common French words

(2) But you do not know that you know them. You'll need to find this out.
The worst possible way to learn French is by spending, say, 80% of your time on grammar, and the remaining 20% on 'reading books and watching movies '. There are deep reasons for that.

(2a) First, the biggest part of leaning a language is _not_ its grammar, it's vocabulary

[wordbuff]

SO, HERE'S YOUR ALGORITHM

1. You read enough French grammar (in English) to understand their word order, and basic features of the language (gender, tense forms etc)

2. you read just enough of a basic textbook to begin to understand how it all looks and sounds. Supposedly, after this stage you'll know a few hundred most common words in 1 or 2 most common senses

3. You take a good French-French dictionary for foreign learners (such as "Dictionnaire du Française" by Josette Rey-Debove) and start reading its entries for most frequent words of French.
This is your main course, the moment when the real learning happensWhile deciphering those definitions and reading example phrases, you

[wordbuff]

P.P.S.
"Stupeur et Tremblements" (un roman d’Amélie Nothomb, publié en 1999)
Use the French original plus audiobook in French alongside an English translation.
Quite easy, well-known in the English-speaking world, and funny

[jayd_en]

This is a lot of advice and in depth. Thank you! I'll try to implement some of it :)

[blackxlupin]

musical: Notre Dame de Paris

novels: Les âmes grises, Julien Parme, La vie devant soi, L'élégance du hérisson

films: La cinquième saison, Les émotifs anonymes, Le huitième jour

[jayd_en]

Ooohh. Interesting plots. I saw Les émotifs anonymes on Netflix and it's already in my list. :) All of these interest me a lot. :D Thank you!

[blackxlupin]

Also, "Le prénom" is a recent film that I absolutely loved. You'll probably need subtitles if you're still learning, because they speak very quickly, but it's one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. I even went to see it twice. Whole-heartedly recommended.