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French & Reading: A Student's Guide to Francophone Literature & Language Learning

French Magazines & Newspapers

Louis Rhead, artist.The Century magazine for June. 1896. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Magazines and newspapers are excellent tools for language study because they offer a variety of subject matter and level of coverage in one publication—this exercises different language skills as a reader. There may be a crossword puzzle, a short essay, a longer article and some advertisements in one single publication. The language in magazines is meant to be accessible to a wider age-range of audiences, so the sentence construction and vocabulary will often be especially understandable to non-native speakers. Magazines and newspapers also have lots of images and photographs that can give a reader clues to what the story is about, or where it is heading. They also present an opportunity to see how France might interpret news from one's own country differently, which is always interesting. One last benefit is that the subject matter often involves current events that may be known to the reader, thus helping them "fill in the blanks" and make sense of the story.

The Library of Congress has an extensive collection of French newspapers, journals and magazines, which are either on microfilm or bound in the general collections. Subscription databases also allow access to French language publications, and can be accessed onsite in any of the Library's three buildings. Unlike many of the online platforms or databases, the Library has open access to the complete archives of these titles—often from the first years of publication. Popular literary magazines such as Lire (formerly Magazine Littéraire) and Livres Hebdo can be ordered at the Library, as well as numerous Fashion magazines such as French editions of Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Elle. Current events and news magazines such as Le Point, Le Figaro Magazine, Paris Match, L'Express, L'Obs, and La Revue are also available. Many French magazines require a subscription for access, but newspapers often allow public access to current articles. Major newspapers such as Le Monde and Libération are therefore listed under Digital Resources for French Language Learning. The titles listed below can be viewed in the Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room at the Library of Congress. The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.

Popular French Newspapers at the Library of Congress

Popular French Magazines at the Library of Congress