(Part 2) Top products from r/French

I'm afraid I don't know about The Kite Runner but equivalent books in French would probably push you quite hard. It's normally best with reading not to have to look too much up because it can be a drag. It's also why I'd recommend sticking to shorter works.

You might like to look into some parallel texts (ie French on one page with the corresponding translation on the opposite side). They really help when you come across difficult idioms and mean you can read easily out and about when you don't have a dictionary to hand. Here's a collection of short stories in French. There are more in this series. They will be harder than Le Petit Prince but it seems you might enjoy more literary writing.

If you're worried about difficulty you might like to look at this Easy French Reader which gets progressively harder. In fact, this might be the best stepping stone for you.

It's very good to keep up your ability to build sentences, but it doesn't go very far in terms of actually teaching you the French language. You might start making pseudo-rules and heuristics after a while. It will help make some structures fixed in your head, helping in fluency. But, you're never going to grasp beyond very basic ideas just going with Duolingo.

I use it every day, but I bought a textbook, too. The textbook teaches me the actual grammar, peculiarities, and idioms of French while Duolingo helps me practice and memorize what I've learned.

Also, if you're an absolute beginner, the Michel Thomas courses have been invaluable to me. The courses have a way of making the language a lot less daunting and make you feel like you might actually get good enough to carry a conversation.

Although it has both english and french, I can thoroughly recommend collins french visual dictionary. It has thousands of beautifully illustrated drawings and diagrams. Many of them go into really minute detail - I predict it will be invaluable from when I live in France for any period of time.

It's worth noting, though, that this book only has concrete nouns. The detail it goes into makes it great for reading up on a subject before you go into a situation, but less good for getting an overview of the language. For example, it lists the parts of a car engine in great detail. In fairness, it also has pages that list vehicles

I have used M-W, which was quite reasonable, and [Barron's] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003DMJDTG) which was comparable to M-W both in quality of definitions and in overall depth.

Both of the FR-EN dictionaries suffered from an inability to parse contractions ( e.g. l'eau ), making them useless for any contracted word. That was at least a couple years ago and I would hope it was resolved, as it was extremely annoying. The product should never have shipped with a bug that big.

My favorite kindle dictionary is Dixel - Le Robert. It's not French-English, only French, but has great definitions and great depth, and always finds the right word, even when contracted or using a rare conjugation. It can be difficult to get onto a kindle depending on where you live. That said, it's a superb French dictionary for the kindle.

I started with Chez Nous by Valdman, Pons and Scullen and found it to be pretty good. The edition I got came with a key for a lot of extra online material, including pronunciation guides, flashcards and that sort of thing. The main reason I liked the text was that it was organised around sensible, broad thematic areas, like food and drink, telling time, that sort of thing.

There's a new edition out since I bought mine a few years back, I expect it would be just as good.

Have a look at the "Collins - Easy Learning French" over on Amazon which I would recommend.

Assimil on the other hand, goes for a more everyday French.

Get a good grammar exercise book plus a bilingual dictionary and with these you shouldn't have a problem.

I love this book Mot à Mot, it carried me through A level and still helps me at University.

It's cheap and concise and full of phrases for speaking in discussions and essay writing, if anyone knows anything similar for Italian I'd be very grateful!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mot-Fifth-Advanced-French-Vocabulary/dp/1444110004/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409337992&sr=1-1&keywords=mot+a+mot

I found this but I will have to agree that the illustrated Larousse will probably be your best bet.

I've found Schaum's outline of French Grammar to be a fantastic resource.

Clear and concise - it was recommended to me by a lot of the folk from the EU schools in Brussels.

I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/French-Short-Stories-Beginners-Captivating-ebook/dp/B07DSZCPYW

I'm mid A1 level, and I can follow along with most of these stories with a few small translations. The audiobook version is great too because you get a PDF with it to follow along with the story!

Despite what many people will tell you, books like Le Petit Prince and L'Etranger are in no way easy to read if you are a true beginner. You are probably nowhere near ready to read authentic French novels if all you've done is a third of Duolingo, but if you want to try reading something anyway, I would suggest starting with something that was written specifically for beginning French students. Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Easy-French-Reader-Roussy-Sales/dp/0071428488

For listening, subscribe to Yabla.com and also listen to Francais Authentique (search for it on Youtube or a podcast app).

I have the Merriam-Webster's French-English Translation Dictionary, Kindle Edition. It is pretty fantastic, although I have found it isn't quite as comprehensive as it could be.

Link here

Read this book, it's great! https://www.amazon.com/Fluent-Forever-Learn-Language-Forget/dp/0385348118

I know you asked specifically for spy thrillers and this is as far from it as you can get, but it is easy to read for French beginners.

Le Petite Prince

Have you tried Michel Tomas? I found these excellent back int he day.

Also, I've heard very good things about this book and CD set.

This is a really good book of short stories - https://www.amazon.com/French-Short-Stories-Beginners-Captivating-ebook/dp/B07DSZCPYW

Is this the book you are talking about? https://www.amazon.com/Fluent-Forever-Learn-Language-Forget/dp/0385348118

If so, it looks interesting.

Yes of course:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0174444206?pc_redir=1405114763&robot_redir=1

I used it in my A levels (mumbles years ago) and use it now as a French teacher with students of all ages.

> Only possible downside is that definitions are also in French.

It's not free but you can buy kindle dictionarys that will give english definitions like http://www.amazon.com/Collins-French-English-Dictionary-ebook/dp/B008ZUDXXS

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Workbooks are also on Amazon.

My concern is less with the vocabulary and more with word order. In English language poetry in the twentieth century, word order often becomes abstract (E. E. Cummings is a decent example), so I'm assuming that at least some French poetry would do the same. I think my understanding of French is still at a level where I might not pick up on when a poet is taking liberties with word order, and that could lead me to make mistakes.

I'm still plan on buying the Penguin Book of French Poetry, I'll just be cautious towards the end.

I got the Collins one. I can't really comment on the quality as I haven't used it much yet, but it seems to work as advertised.

Everything, you say?