When learning French (or any foreign language), one of the difficulties is getting used to sentence constructions, understanding causality, and decoding subtleties indicated by short words expressing links between the sentence parts.
To understand and to be able to use those specific sentence structures, you need to read a lot. However, the lack of vocabulary can limit your progression and prevent you from reading enough in your target language.
So, should you just wait until you know enough words before you read more complex texts and expose yourself to advanced sentence structures? Not necessarily! I’ll explain how I tackle this problem when learning a foreign language and feel that sentence structures are especially challenging.
Hey, did you know all my articles are available in French? If you’re learning French, I strongly advise you to practice by reading the original French version first, and use the English version for support, if needed. You can always switch by using the language option in the top bar menu. Please note the English version is not a literal translation.
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Choosing French reading material when you lack vocabulary
To start with, you have to choose which texts to read. Their level has to be challenging enough for you discover more advanced structures, compared to what you already know, but they also have to be accessible, because otherwise you might quickly quit.
But what I discovered over time is that it’s as important to find content that you actually enjoy and want to read! For too long I was sticking to children’s books and the like, but it felt so boring that I would always quit midway if I was reading a book (or quit my new habits if I was reading articles online).
Now, I’d rather go for something with a big level gap from my current level, but that I really want to read. It’s the only way to keep me motivated, although it requires more effort.
💡The level of difficulty you perceive can be influenced by how much you care about reading the text!
The other pro of choosing a topic you like is that you’ll have it easier to evaluate how good you understood.
Let’s say you’re passionate about astronomy, you’re reading a text in French and understand that “le soleil tourne autour de la terre” (the sun revolves around the Earth). There’s a high chance you’ll notice that you didn’t get the meaning right. (I took a really basic example just to illustrate the idea.)
If reading fiction, if you’re going through a book you’ve already read in your own language, you might notice more easily if some sentences make no sense, compared to what you know of the story.
Choose a text that exists in original version in your target language! To practice recognizing, understanding and using natural sentence structures in French, aim for books written by French authors or articles originally written in French.
Reading…helps you learn the structure of your target language. This is one of the biggest rewards of reading. To truly master a language, you must learn how to “normalize” the ways things are said in your native language into your target language. To normalize, basically means to make it sound normal in another language to a native speaker. Literal translations/interpretations will get you by initially, but smooth and natural delivery that sounds pleasing to native speaker ears is the hallmark of a master of the language. Reading is one of the fastest ways to reach that point.
Source: “Frustrated with reading in a foreign language? Here’s how to do it better” Keith Hayden, Dec 1, 2017, published on Medium
Start a notebook for the vocabulary
Create a notebook dedicated to this kind of practice. If you want to read a whole book (even with shorter content, like comics or manga), use the notebook only for that book.
For every page you read, search all the words that you don’t know or are not sure of. Since our focus is sentence structure, you shouldn’t care about testing your vocabulary knowledge or learning new words at that moment, because it’s not the priority. Also write the book page numbers in your notebook, so you can navigate it easily.
💡When practicing reading in your target language, focus on a single aspect at a time. The way you read can be adapted to the particular skill you’re working on at the moment.
Choose a trustworthy way of looking up vocabulary (online or paper dictionary) and only search words for the moment, not sentence meaning or expressions.
This is tiring at first, but with time you’ll have to look up less and less words as you will naturally memorize the ones that you encounter a lot.
Recommended read: Learning French expressions with manga (with concrete examples)
Deciphering sentence structures
Once all unknown or unsure words are translated for the page or the paragraph (depending on the kind of content you’re reading, the difficulty, the length…), you can try to make sense of the sentences one by one, relying on your vocabulary list.
In the same notebook, don’t hesitate to write down complicated sentences, and above all to work sentence part by sentence part, then make links between those parts.
An example of sentence deciphering with a basic French sentence
Au travail, j’ai une collègue qui parle beaucoup, même quand personne ne l’écoute. (extrait “Au secours, ma collègue est bavarde !“)
In English, quite literally : at work | I have a colleague | who speaks a lot | also when | no one listens to her
With the different sentence parts, you can try to create a more natural sentence (this can be done in several steps for complicated ones), until you end up with something that makes sense to you: At work, there’s a colleague who speaks a lot even when no one’s listening
Maybe your process would be: “même” translates to “also”, and “quand” translates to “when”, but it didn’t actually make sense as is, and by joining the sentence parts you came to the conclusion that “même quand” was to be translated by something else together, that is “even though”.
Another example with a more complicated, colloquial sentence in French
Déjà qu’en temps normal, je n’aime pas spécialement bavarder, à part avec mes amis proches, mais en plus là, ça ne m’intéresse absolument pas ! (extrait “Au secours, ma collègue est bavarde !“)
In English, literally: already that in normal time(s) | I don’t especially like chatting | except with my loved ones | but in addition there | it didn’t interest me at all
Which betters translates to: In normal times, I don’t particularly like to chat, except with my loved ones, but in addition, what she’s talking about isn’t interesting to me at all!
By doing some additional research between the first literal version and your final understanding, maybe you would discover that some words like “déjà” or “là” don’t translate as-is into English, but they have a subtle meaning that emphasizes on some ideas.
💡There’s no need to fully translate sentences, the most important is to understand them. However, if you’re struggling, decomposing sentences in a notebook can really help working step by step. It also allows you to return to your notes later so you can compare how your level of comprehension improved.
Recommended read: Sentence mining from French comprehensible input
Comparing with a translated version or checking in with a native French speaker
Finally, when possible and especially if you’re not sure about how well you understood the text, you can compare what you got from the text with its translated version in your mother tongue. The goal is not to get a perfect translation, but to make sure that you understood the sentences properly and with their subtleties.
Be careful though, it’s not always possible to translate all concepts, words, expressions, sentence structures and subtleties from French into other languages.
For the highest fidelity to the original content, the best is to ask a native speaker who can truly evaluate your understanding and give you more explanations.
In any case, you must do the word by yourself before comparing the text to another language or asking for a translation. Only by actually doing the effort, instead of looking for the answer directly, can you become independent and more fluent.
Summary: reading in French or any foreign language when you know little vocabulary
As a reminder, understanding sentence structures from French input is the way to express yourself more naturally.
If you wait until you know “enough” vocabulary to be able to read, and in turn practice understanding sentence structures, you might have to wait for a while. The issue is that improving your vocabulary happens by reading, but in order to read, you need to understand sentence structures!
Here are the steps to organize reading sessions centered around “sentence structure” practice:
- Choose your input source wisely. French original texts with the right length and difficulty level, but above all about something you care about. You can also focus your research of texts on books or articles that are available in your mother tongue too.
- Create a vocabulary notebook for this practice. Write all the words you’re not sure about, with you book page numbers. Work paragraph by paragraph, or page by page, depending on the format of your input.
- Split each sentence. Use your vocabulary list for words you don’t recognize. Try to understand each sentence part, then assemble them to make a full sentence taking into account the links between the different actions.
- As an option, compare your version with a translated text, or have a native speaker review your work. This will allow you to double-check that you got everything right, and maybe discover some subtleties that were not easy to catch by yourself.
- Bonus: read the same content several times! After a few months, a year… give it a new try to check your evolution, but also see if there are still some structures that are problematic.
After you test this method, I would love to know if it also worked for you!
Recommended read: How to find free French ebooks legally
