For the classroom
First texts in French
For students learning French: short texts from the reader, from the shortest to the longest, to read in full. The texts are in French; each work is introduced in one sentence in English.
In the reader, the “Aa” settings enlarge the text and the space between lines; you can also highlight words to look up and add a note.
- Chanson d'automne46 words
Paul Verlaine · Poems Under Saturn · France, 1866
The first collection of a twenty-two-year-old poet, doomed to melancholy by a dark planet.
- La Cigale et la Fourmi104 words
Jean de La Fontaine · Fables · France, 1668
Talking animals act out the failings of men, in a few lines each.
- Le Corbeau et le Renard126 words
Jean de La Fontaine · Fables · France, 1668
Talking animals act out the failings of men, in a few lines each.
- Mon rêve familier128 words
Paul Verlaine · Poems Under Saturn · France, 1866
The first collection of a twenty-two-year-old poet, doomed to melancholy by a dark planet.
- Le Rat de ville et le Rat des champs140 words
Jean de La Fontaine · Fables · France, 1668
Talking animals act out the failings of men, in a few lines each.
- Le Loup et le Chien279 words
Jean de La Fontaine · Fables · France, 1668
Talking animals act out the failings of men, in a few lines each.
- Les Lapins288 words
Jules Renard · Carrot Top · France, 1894
The youngest child of a family, a redhead, who is refused everything and learns to make do.
- Les Poules492 words
Jules Renard · Carrot Top · France, 1894
The youngest child of a family, a redhead, who is refused everything and learns to make do.
- Installation990 words
Alphonse Daudet · Letters from My Windmill · France, 1869
Letters written from a Provençal windmill that no longer turns.
- Chapitre I, Phileas Fogg et Passepartout1562 words
Jules Verne · Around the World in Eighty Days · France, 1873
A London gentleman bets that he will go round the globe within a set time, accompanied by his servant.
- Le Curé de Cucugnan1609 words
Alphonse Daudet · Letters from My Windmill · France, 1869
Letters written from a Provençal windmill that no longer turns.
- Clochette1757 words
Guy de Maupassant · The Horla · France, 1887
A solitary man records, day after day, the signs of a presence he cannot see.
- La Chèvre de M. Seguin1943 words
Alphonse Daudet · Letters from My Windmill · France, 1869
Letters written from a Provençal windmill that no longer turns.
- Acte premier, la cabane du bûcheron2953 words
Maurice Maeterlinck · The Blue Bird · Belgium, 1908
On a Christmas Eve, two woodcutter's children set out to find the bird of happiness through enchanted lands.
- Chapitre I4251 words
Louis Hémon · Maria Chapdelaine · Canada, 1914
A girl of the Quebec forest caught between three suitors, who represent three ways of living in this country or of leaving it.
First texts in English · First texts in Spanish · First texts in Arabic