If so, I'm kind of gratified that apparently my impression of French isn't entirely wrong. ;-)
It actually makes French very difficult to read, for me. I was able to read fairly complex English novels after only a few years of learning the language - unknown words were easily identified because they were just that, unknown. I then tried to replicate the experience with French, wishing to give my French the same kind of boost that reading English had given my English skills, but I found reading French novels very tough going indeed. You could go for pages and pages without actually encountering a word that *looked* unknown and yet not really understand *anything*, because so many of the words would be used in an unfamiliar meaning or context. Very frustrating.
Plus, somehow, French literature seemed far more heavy on introspection and description, both of which is fairly difficult for a new reader. I've finally found a way around the problem, though: I'm reading comics in French now. Granted, this will mostly only give me the type of vocabulary needed to have conversations, but with the state my French is in (i.e.: nearly dead), even that will be a huge improvement.
Plus, it opens vast new expanses of graphic storytelling for discovery... ;-) And not even just 'genuinely' French and Belgian stuff - some of the more interesting manga are only available in French (out of all the languages I know well enough to read, that is), too.
You a native French speaker?
It actually makes French very difficult to read, for me. I was able to read fairly complex English novels after only a few years of learning the language - unknown words were easily identified because they were just that, unknown. I then tried to replicate the experience with French, wishing to give my French the same kind of boost that reading English had given my English skills, but I found reading French novels very tough going indeed. You could go for pages and pages without actually encountering a word that *looked* unknown and yet not really understand *anything*, because so many of the words would be used in an unfamiliar meaning or context. Very frustrating.
Plus, somehow, French literature seemed far more heavy on introspection and description, both of which is fairly difficult for a new reader. I've finally found a way around the problem, though: I'm reading comics in French now. Granted, this will mostly only give me the type of vocabulary needed to have conversations, but with the state my French is in (i.e.: nearly dead), even that will be a huge improvement.
Plus, it opens vast new expanses of graphic storytelling for discovery... ;-) And not even just 'genuinely' French and Belgian stuff - some of the more interesting manga are only available in French (out of all the languages I know well enough to read, that is), too.