Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert · 1857
The sentence-level masterclass. Flaubert wrote this for himself first and the world second; the prose is exact in a way that almost no novel since has matched.
French · Français
Read French books with in-context translation.
Open Flaubert, Camus or your own EPUB. Tap any word and get the meaning it has in that sentence - idioms and the passé simple included - with a short note on why.
Madame Bovary · I
Nous étions à l’Étude, quand le Proviseur entra, suivi d’un nouveau habillé en bourgeois et d’un garçon de classe qui portait un grand pupitre. Ceux qui dormaient se réveillèrent, et chacun se leva comme surpris dans son travail.
l’ÉtudeSave
study hall
The supervised prep room · not “a study”
SentenceWhy?Grammar
Why the original
Why read French books in the original
French has prose that rewards close reading. Long sentences with subordinate clauses, the passé simple that mostly only appears in writing, idioms that don't translate. The grammar feels overwhelming on paper. In a story, it makes sense.
French is also unusually rich at sentence-level. Read Flaubert and you start to feel why writers spend a week on a single paragraph. The order of words, the choice of tense, the rhythm: it's all doing work. None of that comes through in translation.
The good news for learners: French has a lot of cognates with English. Once you've got past the spelling and pronunciation gap, the vocabulary builds quickly.
Start here
Six French books worth your time
Import any DRM-free EPUB of these, or start with a free classic from the app’s library.
L'Étranger
Albert Camus · 1942
Short, plain, hard to put down. Camus writes in the simplest French of any major novelist. A great first novel to try in the original.
Le Petit Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry · 1943
Famous for being a children's book that's not really for children. Vocabulary is approachable, themes aren't. Most learners read this first.
Les Misérables
Victor Hugo · 1862
Long. 1500 pages of revolution, redemption, and digressions about Paris sewers. But Hugo's French is surprisingly accessible, and the story carries you a long way.
Bonjour tristesse
Françoise Sagan · 1954
A novella written when Sagan was eighteen. Modern French, short, and the exact kind of book you can finish in two evenings.
Du côté de chez Swann
Marcel Proust · 1913
First volume of À la recherche du temps perdu. The famous madeleine. Long sentences, but each one is a place to live in for a while.
What a dictionary misses
French you’ll meet in books - explained in place.
habillé en bourgeoisin ordinary clothes
At a boarding school it means not in uniform - the new boy stands out before he says a word.
avoir le cafardto feel low
Literally “to have the cockroach”. Baudelaire made it literary; novels still use it for a gloomy mood.
poser un lapinto stand someone up
Literally “to put down a rabbit”. A dictionary gives you a rabbit; the sentence means a missed date.
By level
How to read French at your level.
A2
Short and familiar
Start with Le Petit Prince - short chapters, simple sentences. Tap freely and save only the words you meet twice.
B1
Read for the story
Camus’ L’Étranger and Sagan’s Bonjour tristesse are short and clear. Use “Why?” on idioms, skip what you can guess.
B2+
Go for the classics
Flaubert, Hugo, then Proust. Ask for grammar on the passé simple and long clauses, and export your deck to Anki.
In the app
How LinguaRead works with French
Drop in any French EPUB. Tap a word, see the meaning - tense, conjugation, gender, idiomatic sense in this sentence. Tap again for the why.
French has tenses that English doesn't, like the passé simple (literary past) and the subjonctif. Reading is the only way to develop a real feel for when each one is used. The dictionary entry tells you nothing useful; the chapter does.
French FAQ
Before you start.
What is the passé simple, and do I need it?
It’s the literary past tense - almost every novel is narrated in it, though nobody speaks it. You only need to recognise it: tap a verb like “entra” and the grammar note tells you it’s “entrer” in the passé simple.
Is Proust too hard for a learner?
His sentences are famously long, but the words are not rare. Tapping through a page at a time works well from a solid B2. Before that, Camus or Sagan give you the same pleasure with shorter lines.
Can I import French EPUBs from other stores?
Any DRM-free EPUB works - from Project Gutenberg, your own files or stores that sell without DRM. Books locked to another app’s DRM can’t be opened.
Does it help with French idioms?
Yes. Tap a phrase like “poser un lapin” and you get the meaning it has in the sentence, with a short “why” - not the literal rabbit.
Your first French book, tonight.
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