Beginner (A1-A2) French resources

French revolts during May 68
French is too hard! Wikipedia Commons

So you want to practice your listening or reading, but you find that a lot of the native content is too difficult. Don't worry, here are some podcasts, newspaper and YouTube channel targeted towards beginners.

News

Mon Quotidien is an online newspaper targeted towards children. It's free, but you can access more content with a paid subscription.

For simpler French, 1jour1actu (une actu is a short for actualité, the news) is a website with 3 news a week in simple French. Their video series, similarly called 1jour1question is a bit harder, but answers an interesting variety of children's questions in detail. For instance, the last one was explaining the Eurovision song contest (a famous European song contest).

There are more French newspapers on the Talk in French website by another teacher.

Exercises

I might have used this resource already with you if you are taking lessons with me. TV5MONDE is the France national broadcasting television station for French speaking nations. They provide a whole website full of exercises for people of all different levels to learn French.

Learning content

  • innerFrench: YouTube channel explaining details about the French spoken language. They also produce a very nice podcast.
  • Piece of French: Vlogs in French with pretty good complementary explanations about the spoken language and idioms

Animation series

Most animation series that aired on TV originally come from comics ("bande-dessinée"). While I believe the comics are often better, the video format allows for good listening practice !

  • Lou!: the realistic love and family stories of a schoolgirl. I remember reading the comic and didn't even knew there was a show. Recommended by a student.
  • Les Minijusticiers is about school girls and boys that use their default to become superheroes. Sounds boring but the storytelling is quite quirky and amusing. Originally made by Zep, one of the most famous authors with his BD "Titeuf".
  • Titeuf has also been made in an animation show.
  • Anatole Latuile is in the same vibe as the above.
  • Les Daltons: the caracters from Lucky Luke have their own show! The animation studio "Xilam Animation" is known for their crazy and fun animations. They also made Ratz and Les Zinzins de l'espace.
  • Corneil & Bernie is also very fun!
  • Children animation: T'choupi, Ariol and Trotro are all pretty suited for complete beginners.
  • Les grandes grandes vacances shows very pretty animation and an interesting and adult scenario. Much different from all the above.
You should also read: