To improve my French I've begun reading French books, fortunately my colleage owns many French books and knows which are easy to read for the beginning.
My first book has been "35 kilos d'espoir" from Anna Gavalda.
It's about Gregoire, 13 years, who hates school because he's not interested in it. He's very bright and an intelligent craftsmen (e.g. he remodels his mother's ironing board so that she can sit while doing it) but can't do school because it's not interesting enough. Additionally his parents don't get along very well and his grandfather - the only one who understands his feelings - falls very ill.
It is written in a cute way and a nice, simple French (suited for children and me).
And although it’s so easy and relatively short, it contains a lot of depth, for example concerning the relationships within the family.
Nevertheless, I wouldn’t read it in German because a) they changed the boy’s name to David (Why? In my opinion the translation should stick as closely as possible to the original.) b) I think the simple style of writing would bore me in German.
But I very much enjoyed it as my first piece of French literature!
i love relcam books!
ReplyDeleteunfortunately, i think i forgot so much of my french that i would take ages to read a book like this. too bad.
Well, it took me some time as well, but it doesn't take very long to get used to it again and it's easier and faster again. And I looked up soooo many words! Main thing is to still be able to recognize the root of the verbs to be able to look those up...
ReplyDelete