6 Best French Audiobooks Perfect For Beginners With Benefits
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Audiobooks are one of the best tools you can use as a language learner, especially at the beginning of your language learning journey. When you listen to audiobooks, it automatically helps you understand the structure of the language way faster. You’ll also get familiar with the language, its pronunciation, and vocabulary. Basically, you’ll get a general understanding of the language. Audiobooks help you to learn a language faster if you incorporate them into your learning process from the start.
Today, I have the best French audiobooks for beginners for you that will significantly improve your French skills. So let’s dive into it.
List Of The Best French Audiobooks For Beginners
Here is a list of the 6 best French audiobooks for beginners. They are ranked from the easiest to read for complete beginners to the more difficult ones that will take you from the beginner to the intermediate level:
- 30 French Short Stories: For Complete Beginners
- 101 Conversations in Simple French
- Easy French Phrase Book
- Short Stories French
- Conversational French Dialogues
- French Short Stories For Beginners
Benefits of Learning French With Audiobooks
Audiobooks are excellent materials for language learners. Especially for beginner French learners. If you’re wondering why, here are a few reasons why you should learn French as a beginner with these audiobooks.
- listen to them at any time, and anywhere you are
- listen to them even if you’re doing other activities (cleaning a house, commuting to work, doing sports)
- help you to learn how to pronounce words right from the start
- significantly improve your listening skills
- helps you to memorize vocabulary easier and faster
How To Learn French With Audiobooks As A Beginner?
I don’t want to only throw French audiobooks for beginners at you and leave you to somehow learn French with them. I would like to also guide you on how you can actually learn French with audiobooks as a beginner. So before we jump into to actual list of audiobooks, let’s look at how you can approach learning French with them.
Here are the steps you should take to learn French with audiobooks:
- Listen to one section of the audiobook
- Listen to it again and try to catch a few words and meaning of the story
- Get a printed version of the audiobook
- Highlight words you want to learn from the section
- Translate the words you want to learn
- Read the section once again and try to understand the whole context
- Listen to the audiobook over and over until you understand it very well
Quick Guide For Learning French With Audiobooks
First of all, I recommend you only listen to a small section of the audiobook. Let’s say 5 or 10 minutes. After, listen to the same section again and try to catch a few words or their pronunciation.
It is always important for you as a beginner to work with a printed version as well. You need to see how the words are written. So get the printed version of the audiobook. Once you have it, highlight words you want to learn. After, translate these words into your native language. Then read the text and try to understand its context.
Use My Method to Learn French With Audiobooks
Once you have it, listen to the section again while reading the text with your highlighted words. Listen to it over and over again until you feel confident with it and understand the section. After, you can listen further.
What I also do is that I listen to one sentence, stop the audio, and read the sentence on my own. This helps me to learn how to pronounce the words right from the beginning. It is very important.
Learn about the best ways how to learn vocabulary fast and effectively in my separate post. It will help you learn vocabulary in a fun way. You’ll create flashcards, vocabulary walls, play pexeso or scrabble. So check it out.
Important Note & Advice For You
*Note that these audiobooks are great for beginners (A2 level). If you’re an absolute beginner and don’t know a word in French, I highly recommend you first go through the basic topics. This article will give you an overview of what to learn in a new language as a beginner. It will give you the foundation for your French learning. Once you go through these basic topics, you can start listening to audiobooks. It will eliminate possible frustration on your language journey.
Awesome, now you know the tips and tricks for learning French with audiobooks. Let’s choose some of the best French audiobooks:
1. 30 French Short Stories: For Complete Beginners
303 French Short Stories is the best audiobook to start with as it is designed for complete beginners. It uses the easiest vocabulary and also explains to you the basics of French grammar. This audiobook will give you the foundation for understanding the French language if you’re a newbie.
The audiobook works with simple and everyday life vocabulary everybody uses in French-speaking countries.
Each story has 300 words and is specially written for complete beginners who were never in contact with the French language before. Once you read the story, you’ll get a summary of important words with English translations. So you don’t have to waste your time looking up words and their meaning in a dictionary.
2. 101 Conversations in Simple French
Oly Richards, the author of the original book, takes you right to the French-speaking environment with short, everyday-like dialogues. They are set in typical day-to-day situations such as shopping, cafe, restaurant, housing, meeting friends, and making arrangements. It is perfect for you to get into the language and understand the language structure with simple sentences. This is the audiobook I recommend you listen to as the second one.
The book again uses simple vocabulary that every beginner will understand. Each dialogue is packed with useful and basic words you need to learn to communicate in French in real situations. With all 101 conversations, you’ll learn over 15,000 French words. Isn’t it amazing?
Each dialogue only contains about 150 words to make it easier for you. In addition, each chapter comes with English definitions and translations of the more difficult French words. In the end, each conversation is summarized so you can double-check if you understood it correctly.
The stories are set in France. But you’ll get the chance to learn the ‘neutral’ French to use your French skills in every other French-speaking country.
3. Easy French Phrase Book
Since we’re here to learn a language for travel, in this case, French, I’ve had to also include a book with great phrases for travel. With this book, you’ll learn 1500 common phrases for travel and everyday life in French-speaking countries.
This book is especially great if you commute to work by car. It will teach you how to pronounce consonants and vowels (and their combinations) in French. After, it’ll give you common phrases you can use with exact English translations. I told you it is great for you to commute by car somewhere because you can learn the basics, exact phrases, and how to pronounce the words speaking out loud in a car. But of course, you can do it anywhere else. Just make sure to learn the pronunciation of the words according to the audiobook.
4. Short Stories French
Once you learn the basics with 101 conversations set in daily life and an easy French Phrase Book, move forward and have fun with some French stories. The audiobook Short Stories French will make your French learning a lot of fun. The book contains 8 exciting stories in different genres. Some are about history, science fiction, romance, thrillers, and some comedy. You’ll again learn a lot of new vocabulary in a way you can understand. Believe me, you won’t feel any frustration when listening to this audiobook and tell yourself: ‘This is hard, I don’t get it. The book works with interesting stories that will automatically make you want to understand them. The learning will come naturally to you.
Each story also includes a summary of bold words, a bilingual word list, and a plot summary. In the end, you’ll have a few comprehension questions to double-check whether you’ve understood the story in the right way.
5. Conversational French Dialogues
Another great audiobook I highly recommend is Conversational French Dialogues. This book also contains simple dialogues and short stories. However, they have more of a problem-solving nature, which is what I love about the book. Once you listen to the other books with simple conversations in typical situations, go for this audiobook. Apart from the other books, Conversational French Dialogues try to solve some kind of problem in each story. May it be a car rental or going to a doctor and explaining you’re not feeling well. This audiobook will guide you through common trouble-making situations and help you solve them speaking French.
The first story is always in French. After, it also comes with an English translation of the entire story to double-check if you understood.
Let’s solve some everyday life issues with the main characters from this book. It feels realistic and will significantly improve your French skills and understanding.
6. French Short Stories For Beginners
Last but not least, you can expand your French vocabulary after reading all of those previous books. Go for the French Short Stories. This audiobook contains 20 easy-to-read capturing stories to broaden your understanding and add new vocabulary to your list. Each story will work with an important topic of the French language, such as adjectives, verbs, past tense, or giving directions. It is written in the form of dialogues set in the everyday life of French-speaking people.
After each story, you’ll again get a list of the most important vocabulary. Also, you’ll be able to go through some questions in French and double-check if you understood each story. Don’t worry. They also come with answers if you’re not sure or didn’t understand well.
I recommend choosing this book as the last one. It is better to first choose those at the beginning of this list. This book will slowly take you to the intermediate level.
These are the best French audiobooks for beginners you should start listening to as soon as possible. Don’t wait until you learn some vocabulary. Start listening to them even as a complete beginner. Audiobooks are the best way to get familiar with the language, its pronunciation, and learn your first French words. Follow my strategy for working with audiobooks. You’ll see how much you can learn with audiobooks in a fun and natural way.
Get Audible For French Audiobooks
I’ve been using Audible for listening to audiobooks for over a year now. It’s one of the best audiobook platforms with thousands of choices.
If you want to try my method of learning the French language using one of these audiobooks, sign up today for free. You’ll get 1 month of a free trial, including 1 free French audiobook.
So check it out; it’s completely free.
Get 1 Trial Month + 1 Free French Audiobook
More Tips On French Learning
Once you listen to these audiobooks, start working on other skills. Read books in Italian. Choose some of the best foreign language books in Italian. Or pick some language magazines in Italian that will help you learn vocabulary further (I recommend Read & Think Italian). Magazines are especially fun to work with. You can cut images and create flashcards or vocabulary walls. Learning Italian comes more naturally, and you can also play pexeso with these magazine images.
Check out the best way to learn French for travel, if you want to learn French for your next trip.
Incorporate the best French language apps for travel to keep listening to engaging and everyday life situations in French. Or choose some language podcasts in French to keep up with the language even if you’re too busy to sit down and learn.
Go to my language blog for more inspiration on Italian learning. Once you learn the basics of the Italian language, don’t forget to practice speaking as soon as possible. It will significantly boost your Italian skills.
I wish you a happy learning. Remember to have fun learning Italian. It is crucial for your success. So choose audiobooks and resources that will be interesting for you.
Get My Free Language Travel Notebook
Get my free language travel notebook. It’ll help you keep track of the vocabulary you want to learn. You can write down new vocabulary and translate it. This notebook helps you to organize your new words to learn them efficiently. Check it now for free:
