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French Language Spotlights

8 French-language comics that helped me learn French

8 min read

By Matthew Jackson, AF staff Much like Barbie once said of math class, French is tough! I took class after class in a long trajectory from middle school to college and wasn’t confident enough to read a full novel until somewhere around my second college-level course. But during that period where I was still trying to sort out my passé composés from my imparfaits, and when the subjonctif was still the dreaded word du jour, I found myself reading a lot of French comics. Why comics? Well, they’re reliably understandable, for starters. The visual aspect helped me follow the narrative even when I didn’t pick up on every piece of dialogue or description. Picking up an issue of Tintin was also far less intimidating than diving into a Camus or a Collette - which is not to imply that comics are trivial, just that there’s a lower barrier to entry. When Stendahl felt out of reach, Hergé did not. I still maintain that delving into the world of comics is one of the best ways for easing yourself into a new language, and given that France has a huge market for the medium, there’s all manner of things to choose from without limiting yourself to superheroes and spectacle. A whole slew of genres, styles, and stories live under the label of bande dessiné and it’s a world worth venturing into if you’re curious about putting your French skills to the test. Here are some of the comics and graphic novels that helped me practice my French - without feeling like homework!

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