|
 |
Bande dessinée + FNAC | ||
Tags: Comic Strip/Cartoon | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Anomi Newbie Austria Joined 4683 days ago 20 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 18 25 February 2013 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
Hi everyone, I hope this is the in the right forum!
My target language is French and currently I've been out of classes for almost a year, and won't start classes again until this upcoming September and I've been looking for reading material that would suit my reading level and interests. So, my question is about other 'bande dessinée' other then Astérix and Tintin. I've read a few volumes of Tintin and one of Astérix (which I found much harder) but neither really interests me *that* much in terms of storyline. There are volumes of Tintin I found intriguing, but so far I've only picked up ones that I've seen really great reviews for (ie. Tintin au Tibet) I did enjoy what I've read only because there's a sense of accomplishment you get when you understand something new, but it can be a real study session for me to look up a lot of unknown vocabulary and I'd like something a little less dense just to flip through when I have downtime. I've been looking at other BDs aimed more at teenage girls (I'm 18, but these books seem to aimed at 13-15 year olds) such as Lou!, Les Nombrils and Tamara and I was wondering if people had reviews of any of these titles, or similar titles. Even though they might sometimes exceed my reading level, I can usually get the gist and I like the art style so I'm hoping that will also compel me to keep reading. The main reason for reading is just to stimulate my mind and get myself thinking in French, which I'm sure it will accomplish. Also, the BDs listed vary in origin from Belgium, France and also Quebéc. Do you think this will mess me up? I figure they're all written in more colloquial text, which I'm looking forward to, but maybe the cross-cultural influence will leave me a little garbled up ? I mean in learning new vocabulary and then using that in conversation. Not in my own understanding of the text. I'm also wondering if I'll pick up outdated expressions by reading Tintin, Gaston or other older BDs, or maybe the good vocabulary will greatly outweigh the bad ? Lastly, do you guys ever order from FNAC? They have so many great French-language options as it's a French store and I've been able to order really cheap books there recently (Old folktales for 1-2 euros each, which are familiar to me so they're fun to flip through as well) The downside is, of course, the shipping (for me at least, as I'm in Canada). Do any of you know of Quebec bookstores with websites that I could maybe order from instead? The french selection at the chain stores around here are slim to none, but when I visited Montréal and Quebéc City I loved to browse through local bookstores. That's how I got most of the BDs I have at the moment. I think I've seen other topics touching on this but I couldn't find them again when I searched so I thought I should just ask again. So I apologize if this is any sort of repeat, and also for the long post. I kept thinking of stuff! ;) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5524 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 18 25 February 2013 at 11:48pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I don't know any BDs aimed at teenage girls. But you can find a lot of BD reviews in my log, and I try to note which are easy reads and which are more challenging. Do check out the review Persepolis, which is about a young girl growing up during the Iranian revolution. It's packed full of modern conversational French. Also, although it's not a BD, the French dubs of Buffy and Angel are extremely good, and they've always appealed to a primarily female audience. You might not be ready for these yet, but they were my first real TV show in French. You can find transcripts of nearly all the episodes online, too. You can often find box sets on Amazon.fr.
This shouldn't be a problem. Written French is pretty much standard throughout the world. I've occasionally encountered one or two characters in BD who used some local slang, but it's usually really obvious. You can generally trust your common sense.
You should be fine. Tintin is often a little formal, and uses nous where most French speakers would use on. But as long as you read a lot, you'll be perfectly fine. Just don't try to swear like Captain Haddock unless you're joking. :-)
Your best bets are probably Renauld-Bray (either online or in the store) and Amazon.ca. You can also read lots of BDs online at Izneo for very reasonable prices. And sometimes it's actually cheapest to buy BDs on Amazon.fr and have them shipped. Just log in with your regular Amazon name and password and everything will work normally. I think that BDs are one of the coolest things about learning French. They contain lots of dialog, and their illustrations give you a handy comprehension boost allowing you to learn lots of vocabulary from context. And some of the BDs out there are really, really good. If you discover some cool BDs, please feel free to post a log and tell us about them! :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Anomi Newbie Austria Joined 4683 days ago 20 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 3 of 18 26 February 2013 at 12:26am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Thank you so much for the extensive reply!
I guess I shouldn't say I'd like BDs aimed only at teenage girls, but simply that I want to try something different than Tintin and Asterix. I think I'm mostly looking for a slice-of-life type BD, which I think a lot of 'tween' media in general is focused around. Something like Calvin and Hobbes would do just as well :) I just don't really want to be bogged down by too much history and instead want to learn more about current culture, especially since anything too dense is likely to go beyond my level. I'll still be going through Tintin and (maybe) Astérix, but I'd like some other options.
I will definitely be looking through your BD reviews, you seem to have covered a wide range of genres/topics that could be really useful :) I have been looking at Persepolis but I wonder if it's better to try and read it or watch it ? Since it has won many awards and I'm interested in French-language movies as well. I suppose if I like it, I could do both o:
I totally agree with you about BDs being something really awesome about French. They can be so beneficial to learning the language as well as tasting the culture. I'll definitely share if I find any keepers! Additionally, this may be of interest to you (it was to me); http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuXmovtMd1U That's a 'video promo' for the BD Zombillénium, which I think I'll be checking out. But that whole channel is the same type of thing, video promos for BDs published under SPIROU Edited by Anomi on 26 February 2013 at 1:23am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5524 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 18 26 February 2013 at 2:43am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
For comic-style BDs, check out BlogsBD and the review of À boire et à manger in my log (which links to the free online version). For "slice of life", you might be interested in Immigrants, a collection 13 short stories about the lives of people who've moved to France. They include some really remarkable tales about life in Africa and elsewhere, and about integrating into French society. You might or might not like Mondes d'Aldébaran. It's a 5-volume story about a young man and woman growing up on another planet. The science fiction part of the tale is great juvenile SF with lots of "sense of wonder" moments and weird alien lifeforms. The coming-of-age story is rather average Young Adult fiction with a few annoying moments. These books are interesting because they include lots of natural conversation, and they're some of the easier BDs I've read. Again, you can find sample pages and reviews for all of these in my log.
I've got the BD and I plan to pick up the movie the next time I see it for sale. :-) Almost a year ago, my tutor e-mailed me a scan of this page and I had to buy the book immediately: 
That's pretty much what actual French sarcasm sounds like, at least to my non-native ears. Look especially at the contractions and how the questions are formed. This is way closer to spoken French than half the dialog in Tintin.
That looks really amusing. :-) Thank you for the link! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5463 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 5 of 18 26 February 2013 at 4:18am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
There is also the store Librairie Marché du Livre which I believe
specializes in and has a larger BD selection than Renauld-Bray. You can order online or visit the store at the corner of Boul de Maisonneuve and Rue Saint-Hubert in Montreal. Edited by microsnout on 26 February 2013 at 4:19am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Anomi Newbie Austria Joined 4683 days ago 20 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 6 of 18 26 February 2013 at 4:21am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
My only worry with sci-fi is that there will be a lot of niche vocabulary, but I'm sure it's worth the look since I do like that type of thing in English :) EDIT: Actually, I had a look at Mondes d'Aldébaran and if the page you scanned is any indication, it might be worth a glance as well! Thanks for all the hot tips :)
Aha! That's actually great. I wish I could read the next page now too :) I'll put it on my list to pick up. If you do see the movie, will you post a review on your log? If so, I'll have to look out for it. I also read on your log about you wanting to pick up more documentaries in french, which is something I've been looking into as well. I'm very into all things science (and the vocabulary would be useful for my job as well as everyday life). I already own the English-language Planet Earth and it's expensive so I rather not pick up another copy, but I'm always looking out for other BBC stuff. I've been considering picking up Chimpanzees in french, I saw it in theater and I *love* anything about great apes. Did you find anything noteworthy in your search?
Awesome! I'll definitely check it out online, unfortunately I don't think I'll be back to Montréal very soon, which is a shame since I love it so much ): DOUBLE EDIT: I just checked out that link, it's really great! It's nice to just see BDs, even just to get titles to search on other sites. Edited by Anomi on 26 February 2013 at 6:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5201 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 18 27 February 2013 at 6:16am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
|
Anomi, I'd like to second Emk's recommendation of
http://www.izneo.com/ . I've been a fan of the site ever since Geoffw mentioned it on these forums a number of weeks ago. -They have a huuge selection of digital ("numerique" in French) BDs, conveniently organized by genre: Adventure, thriller, fantasy, horror, historical, etc... The 3,600 figure in the drop down menu on their site may not be accurate, as I think titles which fall into more than one genre are "double-counted". But still, they have a significant number of titles. -You can either pay for permanent access (streamed files, not downloads), or temporary access (1.99 Euro/$2.70 Can) rental for 10 days. There's also a subscription offer, whereby you have access to something like 15(?) BDs for a month. (If you download the app to your iPad, you can read the BDs offline- until the expiry date of your rental period, anyway.) - Many of the titles have a "first 5 pages" free preview - a tremendously useful feature. - The titles I've previewed are automatically saved in a tab of their own (under "Premières planches") in my iPad Izneo app., and function as something of a "wishlist", either for future rentals, or for me to check if the library has physical copies of any of the books. (There doesn't seem to be a way of editing things in "premières planches", so it's just as well that I like them there.) - Tremendous savings: $27 per volume for a printed version at somewhere like La Maison Presse Internationale, vs. $2.70 for a ten-day rental? Much as I love physical books, the savings are are just too good to ignore. (I probably will buy some BDs eventually, but they'll be ones I'll have read, and know I want to own.) I do have a few wishlists of my own regarding Izneo: - Bookmarks. There doesn't seem to be a way of bookmarking pages. It would seem easy enough to just remember the page, but I sometimes read both English and French editions in tandem, and bookmarks would help me to keep things straight. -Highlighting/underlining. I can do this with my other e-books, and wish I could with the Izneo books. Granted, the vocabulary-learning needs of French-language learners are probably not high on Izneo's list of priorities, so... - Built in dictionaries. Ditto. Anyway, check out the site. You'll find many of the titles that Emk, Quique and others have mentioned. One more suggestion: Have you tried getting any BDs through your public library? I don't know which city you live in, but - if your library system doesn't have them - you could try seeing if you can get some titles from inter-library loan. (Check first to see if there's a fee; and if so, how much.) For example, a keyword search in the catalogue for my library*, Toronto Public Library, under the terms French graphic books, yields 665 titles which circulate, of which approx one- third are adult, one-third teen, and one-third children's. (Don't use the "bandes dessinées" heading: it's too narrow, and will limit your results drastically down to a couple of dozen books.) *Also my employer, but I'm not posting this on company time or under its auspices. Happy reading! Edited by songlines on 27 February 2013 at 6:17am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5524 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 18 27 February 2013 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Looking back over your questions, it seems like you might be a little worried about accidentally getting too much exposure to the "wrong" kind of French. Is this the case? I totally understand this concern, because it used to bother me a lot. If so, I have some good news, based on a year of reading: Almost anything you pick up will be 99% normal French. Maybe 1% will be words like "airlock" or "magic wand", but hey, who doesn't love a few fun words like that? :-) Here's how I think of it: There's three main kinds of French, and they're all important. 1) "Newspaper" French. This is what usually gets taught in school. 2) Narrative French. This is the same as newspaper French, except it uses the passé simple and it's used in virtually all fiction books for adults and children. 3) Spoken French. This is a subtly different beast than written French. Nous is replaced by on, ne gets dropped a lot, and the grammar has a different rhythm, as in: C'est quoi, ces chaussures de punk ? At least for me, the biggest problem was finding enough good sources of (3), because I needed it to understand French TV and conversations between native speakers. I tried avoiding (2) for a while, because people kept telling me the passé simple was a "literary" tense. But I couldn't escape it if I wanted to read actual books. :-) Anyway, after I had a read a bunch of books, it was pretty obvious which kind of French to use when. The trick wasn't narrowing my reading down to single kind of "good" French, but rather just reading all kinds of interesting stuff. Seriously, even a French rap song like MC Solaar's Clic Clic is loaded with useful vocabulary about current events. Consider this as encouragement to go read or watch anything that amuses you and not worry about what kind of French it contains. :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
