Substack is a great place to find free content to practice reading French. However, it’s not always easy to find publications in French, as there is currently no language filter in the homepage search bar. In this post, I share tips to easily find Substack publications in French.
It was not easy getting how to tweak the search tool to get the desired result, so I want to thank Karen Cherry from PubStack Success, because I found the solution thanks to her. Her original post (in English) is linked below.
Hey, did you know all my posts are available in French? If you’re here to improve your French reading skills, I highly recommend you to read the original French-only version first, and use the English version for support, if needed. Please note the English post is not a literal translation. Happy learning!
- How to find Substack publications in French from the search bar
- A few recommendations of accessible Substack publications in French
- The Substack “around the world” map
- Substack French directories
- How to see more French posts in your Substack thread
- Why practice French reading with Substack?
- Other resources to practice French comprehensible input for free
How to find Substack publications in French from the search bar
To find publications in French, you can directly use the link below:
“https://substack.com/search/XXX?searching=all_posts&language=fr”
You have to replace XXX by a keyword or a letter:
- I you have a topic in mind about which you’d like to find publications or posts, you can directly replace XXX by that keyword (in French, of course). For example, here a direct link to search for content on Substack written in French about reading.
- If you don’t want to limit to some topics, or don’t know what to search for, you can replace by a letter. I would advise the letter “e”, as it’s probably the most occurring in the French language. Check the result using “e”.
You can now save those links in your bookmarks, so you don’t have to repeat this workaround every time. Just make sure the “French” language is selected.
I hope Substack will make it easier to see posts in a specific language in the future, because it’s both a loss for creators and readers! Here’s the video that helped me come with this solution:
Recommended publications
When you find publications in French, dont forget to check the recommended publications on that page. There’s a high chance that people who publish in French will also recommend French-speaking publications, so it’s an easy way to find new ones. For example, on my Substack dedicated to journaling in French for French learners, I recommend other publications that, I think, are both interesting and accessible to intermediate French learners. Recommendations can appear at different places, based on the author’s choice: on the publication itself, on the screen after you subscribed to the publication…
A few recommendations of accessible Substack publications in French
Here are some publications written in French and that I consider accessible to French learners (with at least intermediate level). They are written in a natural French and their grammar and spelling are good.
I will update this list every time I find an interesting publication for French comprehensible input practice, so don’t hesitate to save this post in your bookmarks!
Mon journal en français. It’s my publication, created specifically for French learners who want to practice reading comprehensible input. It’s a everyday life journal with short stories and extra explanations, and I sometimes publish other contents like media recommendations or fun news in French.
The Flonicles – Le salon de thé. Another of my publications meant for native or bilingual French speakers, where I write about slow living, organisation, consumption, travel, work, personal growth…
Anecdotes sympa. They publish short summaries of funny, unusual or surprising news in French. Posts are quite short and easy to read.
The resting twenties. A blog-like newsletter about various topics. They are a bit longer and more complex for French learners, but the style is very close to conversational French, which makes it interesting to get a more natural sense of French.
Au Microb’Scope (the French virologist). A virologist’s popular science publication about health. It’s written in a way that’s easy to understand and her texts are well structured, with lots of bullets, short paragraphs, key points highlighted…
If you know other French publications that you like to read to practice comprehensible input, please share them in the comments!
The Substack “around the world” map
Substack published the “around the world” (or “globe”) tool that allows you to filter popular posts and publications based on their origin country. You can then choose any French speaking country (France, Belgium, Switzerland…) to see what’s trending in that country.
It’s particularly interesting if you’d like to read in a particular regional French, like Belgian French or Quebec French.
However, all articles are not written in French: even when filtering on “France”, where French is the only official language, you’ll see posts in English written by authors located in France. It makes sense: posts have a higher chance of “trending” if they’re accessible to a wider audience, thus written in English.
Another point to keep in mind: trending posts are really often about the same topics, like capitalism, investments, politics, AI or IT.
Substack French directories
Some people created independent directories of French authors or publications on Substack, like this one where you can filter by category, editorial style, rhythm of publication, subscription (free, paid, mixed), and read a short description of the content: L’annuaire des scribes (Substack francophones).
Note only people who manually added their publication in the tool are listed, but it offers a chance to discover hidden gems that are not trending (not in the top 10 in their category or region).
How to see more French posts in your Substack thread
To get more recommendations in French on your Substack homepage, the only solution is to subscribe to French publications. Even I, a French speaking author and reader with a French Substack account, had to do this in order to see recommendations and news in French, and even so, I still get a few ones in English. Before subscribing to French speaking publications, I could only see English content.
Why practice French reading with Substack?
The big advantage with Substack is that you can find short contents with a regular release. For some learners, it might feel more motivating to get a regular dose of French content in a bite-size format (although some posts are pretty lengthy), than trying to read a novel for example.
In addition, you can tailor your subscriptions to receive content about topics you’re interested about, and learn vocabulary that is useful to you.
Since Substack allows to subscribe to publications to receive new posts as a newsletter, you can get a regular dose of French directly in your mailbox. This is your reminder to read French regularly in order to improve. It’s more efficient and sustainable to read a little bit regularly, than reading a big chunk every once in a while.
Another advantage is that you can generally communicate with authors via the comments section, and ask for extra information is you didn’t get something.
The variety of topics and writing styles is also interesting for learning French: you can find really professional, magazine-like articles, as well as blog-like publications with a very colloquial style, and anything in between. You choose exactly what fits your current needs! Topics range from day-to-day to very niche or in-depth analysis.
It’s a great platform to find a bit of everything you need, in one place.
Other resources to practice French comprehensible input for free
If you do prefer longer formats, or want to use a bit of both, I shared tips and resources to find free legit books in French (novels, short stories, fiction, nonfiction, comics and manga…).
For audio content, I also published a tutorial to only get recommendations in French on Youtube.
