How To Improve Your French Reading Skills

Reading in French can be hard, but it’s extremely important if you want to master French overall. Many of the words may not look like how they are pronounced and there can be plenty of silent letters to confuse you too, but you can easily overcome these with practice.

If you want to improve your French reading skills, you just need to read more and I will be going through how you should best be doing that below.

Read More In French To Improve Your French Reading Skills

If you want to improve your French reading, you need to read more. It’s that simple.

You will find that reading is hard as every word in French seems slightly unnatural, the words you recognise just don’t seem right, which is understandable as they are slightly different than English.

Your brain is not used to seeing the words like this so it’s uncomfortable. The only way to get it comfortable is to expose yourself to them more.

The more you read, the more your brain is going to get used to seeing the words in French. Just be consistent and you will get better over time.

(You can read more about – How Often Should You Study French?)

Read Comprehensible Material To Improve Your Reading In French

While reading more in French is a good idea, it’s a better idea to read material that is comprehensible.

Basically you need to read at your current level of understanding, or just a little past it. If you are reading material that is too advanced for you, it’s pointless.

Reading something where you understand nothing is just painful. You need to be reading at a level where you can at least grasp the basic concept.

If your brain is able to recognise the majority of the words it sees while reading, it is going to get used to seeing them and over time and they will become stronger in your mind.

You have to see reading more like practice, so you need to know the words already in order to practice them.

Luckily you do not need to know every single word, stumbling upon a new word actually makes the process more challenging and will engage your brain more, which is why reading just above your current level is going to be so helpful for you in improving your French reading skills.

(You can read more about – What Is Comprehensible Input In Language Learning?)

Reading More Improves Your Overall French

While I just said reading French is like practice, it is also one of the best ways to actually expand your over all French skills.

You are certainly practicing what you know already know and strengthening your foundation, but reading will introduce you to new words and new sentence structures which will help your over all French.

You may not even realise this is happening as a lot of it can be subconscious. When you are reading you are going to be seeing hundreds of grammar rules in action and your brain is going to be taking this all in. You will be basically giving yourself a subconscious map of how the French language works and how words can be paired together and how they can flow as sentences.

Reading in French is extremely powerful for this exact reason. When you look at any immersion style learning they suggest that you should read as much as you can as it will really fill the subconscious with the information it needs.

If you want to get to a good level in your overall French, you need to be reading a lot.

(You can read more about – How Can Reading In A Second Language Improve Your Overall Language Skills?)

Read Topics You Are Interested In To Improve Your French Reading

Reading material that you can grasp is really only half the battle, you also need to be reading something you actually enjoy or are interested in.

Have you ever tried reading something that is boring? Have you found yourself half way down a page and you’ve no idea what you’ve just read? It’s painful and pointless!

If you are bored with what you are reading, you will just not really pay attention or engage with the material.

Making yourself suffer like this is difficult enough when you can read the language fluently, so you can only imagine how bad this would be in French, where you are still learning.

Find material that you are interested in and you will actually want to keep reading it. You will just generally find the whole experience so much more enjoyable and you are going to make progress in your French reading skills much faster because of this.

(You can read more about – Using Kindle Unlimited To Learn French)

Try To Read And Listen To Audio At The Same Time

Reading and listening at the same time is a very good method for increasing your French reading skills.

This can be tricky to do, but there is plenty of material out there than you can both read and listen to at the same time.

Doing this is extremely beneficial to beginners. Reading the words and seeing them while you also hear them is like having a double input. It will help you get the pronunciations right as well as help you spot the silent letters.

It is very easy to read words the wrong way if you have never seen them before, having the audio makes sure this doesn’t happen.

The best material for this is audio books, you are able to read and listen at the same time. However, I will very often copy and paste sections of French websites into Google translate and use the listen function to read and listen to French at the same time.

Google Translate is not ideal due to the sort of computerised voice it has, but it’s better than nothing.

(You can read more about – How To Improve You French Listening Skills)

Read Physical Books

If we go in the opposite direction of online reading and listening, we have physically books that can help us get better at reading in French.

These are maybe better for more intermediate learners, as most French books are going to be aimed at natives, but they are still very helpful for increasing your reading skills.

There is something very powerful about having a book in your hand; it can be a lot easier to read than looking at a screen. It doesn’t really matter what the book is about, so long as you find it interesting and you can grasp what it’s about.

Finding books to read is a little harder and you will probably have to go online to order them as you probably will not find any locally. However, it can be very worth it.

If you ever visit France I would strongly advise you go to a charity shop and buy a handful full of second hand books for a few Euros. If a trip to France is not on the cards, Ebay is probably your best option.

Re-read The Same Material To Get Better At Reading In French

Reading things more than once is a very good way to improve your French reading.

This can be done in a few different ways. You can literally re-read things straight away. Read the material once to get a basic grasp and look up any words, and then read it again. You will find that you probably have a better understanding and feel more comfortable with it the second time round.

However, you should also come back and re-read things a few weeks or months later. If you are consistently reading and studying the other areas of French as well, you will find that when you come back to material you have already read, it will be much easier.

You may have just about grasped it last time, but this time you should be quite comfortable with it. Even if it is easier now, it is still good practice and also shows that you are making progress.

Conclusion

Reading in French can be difficult at first, but like anything, the more you do it, the better you get.

Reading really is one of the best ways to improve your overall French, let alone improve your reading skills.

Just find material you like and go for it. Read as much as you can every day and enjoy yourself. This shouldn’t be a chore and the more you do it, the easier it will get.

(You can read more about – Advice For Anyone Learning The French Language)