A Personal Rating of French Novel Readability

Lately I’ve been reading a range of books in French and thought I’d keep track of how difficult each was. My categories are: comfortable enough, difficult but the story kept me reading, difficult and I wasn’t motivated to continue. The decision to not continue was often made in the first two pages, and may not reflect the difficulty of the remainder of the book. For context, I passed B1 years ago with 23.5/25 for Compréhension Ecrite, and I’ve continued to read sporadically since, with a burst this year thanks to access to French books in Libby. Here goes…

Easy enoughToo hard but I kept readingToo hard and I gave upWinn-DixieAmari et le Bureau des affaires surnaturellesM. LemoncelloMotel Calivista
(translated to Canadian French from English)Arsène Lupin (inspired by watching the TV series)Mais qui a tué HenriAs-tu peur du loup ?Maigret

I will continue to update this page, since I think it will be useful for those wanting to choose books written for native speakers that are achievable. But what you should read depends on your current level.

For beginners, I recommend French comics written for language learners, followed by easy stories written for language learners (I like the Collection Découverte series by CLE International) and some very easy picture books for young children.

For early intermediate, look at stories written for language learners and start to explore comic books for native speakers of French based on your personal interests. There are a wide range to choose from.

The next phase is a mix of stories written for language learners and books written for middle grades. The J’aime Lire publications vary in how easy they are for a person with an English-speaking background to understand. Children’s novels translated from English to French are generally slightly easier than those that were originally written in French. If you have a favourite novel that you know well, reading it in French will be easier than reading a story that you don’t know well. Many people seem to like this approach but I prefer to read new things.

Penultimately, read novels for an adult audience. Again, translations will probably be easier on average than books originally written in French. Another approach is called “narrow reading”, where you focus on a single author or genre, so that you benefit from the larger percentage of vocabulary shared across books.

Finally, if it was your goal, try tackling the classic novels you are interested in, like Les Misérables.