French stories for beginners, free PDF
Three true stories in easy French, written with words that look like English. You can read them on your first day, and every word that does not look familiar is explained right under the paragraph.
Download the stories
- Flight MH370PDF ↓
A Boeing 777 with 239 people on board leaves Kuala Lumpur at night and disappears from every radar screen. The search that followed covered two oceans.
13 pages · 1,786 words · 475 KB · read it online
- Amelia EarhartPDF ↓
A girl from Kansas sees a plane at a fair and is not impressed. Twenty years later she is the most famous pilot in the world, flying around it.
15 pages · 1,846 words · 562 KB · read it online
- The Enigma MachinePDF ↓
A machine with more settings than anyone could ever try, and the mathematicians in Poland and Britain who read its messages anyway.
11 pages · 1,417 words · 425 KB · read it online
Free, with no sign-up. You can print them and share them.
What is in each PDF
- The full story, about 1800 words, set in large type for print or screen.
- Words you already know are left alone. About 79% of the words are cognates such as international, information, passagers, names, or one of about 50 small grammar words listed on page 2.
- Every other word is explained once, under its paragraph, with its meaning and then where the word comes from.
- A word list at the end, so you can cover one side and test yourself.
This is a note as it appears in the PDF:
monde: world. Monde comes from Latin mundus, "world," the root of English "mundane," worldly, ordinary.
Why a beginner can read these
English took thousands of words straight from French, and thousands more from Latin, the language French grew from. So a large part of French is already familiar to an English speaker: international, information, passagers, moment, décision, mystère. These words are called cognates.
Most beginner stories are written with the most common words, which are the least familiar ones. These stories are written the other way round. They lean on cognates, so the story carries you forward, and the unfamiliar words arrive a few at a time with a note beside them.
Each note gives the meaning and then the origin of the word, because the origin is usually a link to an English word you know. A word with a link is much easier to remember than a word on a flashcard.
Questions
Are the PDFs really free?
Yes. All three download straight away, with no sign-up. You can print them and share them.
What level are they?
Level One, for complete beginners who speak English. You do not need any French to start. If you have studied a little, you will read faster and use fewer notes.
Is there audio?
The PDFs are text only. In the Superlexa app the stories have audio narration, and you can tap any word for its meaning and origin.
Can I read the stories online instead?
Yes. All three are on the French page, where you can tap a word to see its meaning.