What is Reddit's opinion of French for Reading?

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French for Reading is the exact book you're looking for. It's written for grad students in exactly your position and will teach you in 80-120 hours how to read academic french writing. I've found it to be quite effective.

There's a review for the French one on Amazon that's fantastic. I've grabbed a quick excerpt of it that I've found particularly amusing.

"I should mention some caveats. First, this book is not a booty call. It is a fairly intense study of written French. You can't just say to yourself, "Well, I haven't looked at this book for two weeks but now I'm horny for a little French so I'll crack it open." No, you must romance this book, pay attention to it each and every day, make it feel like it's the only book you're reading. If you leave it alone for a week or two, you will forget what you have learned and the book will find someone else who is serious about learning a language. It's that French."

https://www.amazon.com/French-Reading-Karl-C-Sandberg/dp/0133316033

http://www.amazon.com/French-Reading-Karl-C-Sandberg/dp/0133316033

This is exactly what you're looking for. It's what I used when I had to learn to read French for grad school (the purpose for which it was designed) and I can say that it will teach you enough to work through texts, albeit very slowly. Much like anything relating to grad school, it's a hellish grind. Literally everything in the book is crucial to reading (especially older) French texts, so you can't breeze through it. If you don't review and reinforce, you'll end up returning to the book often. It took me about a month of pretty intense study, but French is my 4th language so my brain is used to cramming grammar/vocab, which probably made it easier. You don't have to cram too much, though, since being able to recognize something is much easier than being able to come up with it yourself. Being familiar with Spanish (especially Castilian) will help a lot, as it has some of those same patterns (future/conditional/pluperfect/etc).

It's kind of a fashion to be against DuoLingo. Whether or not it's right for you depends on what you want to work on. DuoLingo is effective for writing and reading; if you need to speak and listen, it's probably not the right way to go. Also, DuoLingo is not meant for fluency: it will only get you up to about A2. Meanwhile, Pimsleur's good as a phrasebook for travel abroad, but not so much for composition and reading a variety of texts with different vocabulary. I don't know what level Pimsleur will get you to, but it's certainly short of conversational/fluent. Having now given you my advice online, I should also say: take online advice with a grain of salt. Language-learning conversations on forums are often heavily skewed towards people who want to travel to and visit a country as a tourist or a student, and that doesn't seem to be your goal.

The good part of DuoLingo is you get lots of practice at (simple) writing and production -- that's something I never got by completing reading courses in graduate school. It's repetitive but I think that's an asset. Once you've finished the course and find yourself roughly at A2 level, you'll have to graduate to using something else –– I used LingQ a few years ago and it seems to have improved since then. At A2, however, you are also ready to start reading simple texts and you may find you do not need an app at all –– just a book of simple stories and a good grammar can guide you.

If you want to acquire a language as quickly as possible, and you only need to be able to read (not speak, listen, or write -- as, for example, for a reading test in your graduate course), then I recommend a reading book. Here's a good one for French. Here's a good one for German. These books can get you all the major grammar points (every tense, mood, declension, etc.) and a respectable vocabulary in around 3 months with intensive study –– it's amazing how quickly they can get you up to speed!

There are two amazing books for reading.

Le Francais Par La Methode Nature is bay the most comprehensive French reader out there(1300 pages total). The first parts may be boring to you however it gets harder and much more fun. The good part is since it is designed to be self-interpretive thoroughly, you don't need a dictionary or anything else.

French for Reading by Sandberg is a book made for college students to teach them reading scientific, philosophical, historical, etc. papers. You don't need a dictionary with this one as well since almost every single sentence in French is also given to you in English right beside it. It is, so to speak, a parallel bilingual text.

Perrin's Fables with interlinear English translation is also quite fun to read.

Here is a comment I posted earlier today, but let me share it again! :)

Before all i would finish these three books Le Français par la methode nature which will by itself, provided that you finish the sequel too, bring your reading at B2 in a matter of few months. (If you use the audio as well, it would boost your comprehension in general, not only your listening.) A physical copy of it can be obtained here 1300 pages of comprehensible input in one place for you. You need no prior knowledge at all, pick it up and enjoy reading French.

French for reading by Sandberg. It worked quite well for me and no doubt it would for you provided that you stick to eat almost everyday. (It has 21 chapter and you can finish the entire book in a month if you study about two and a half hour a day) It uses paralel translations and cognates to teach French. It has quite a lot of input.

Etude progressive de la langue français by Stern is pretty similar to the first book though it is shorter in size. It is a great addition. A physical copy can be obtained from here

(If you would like even more input before you attempting to read something more original you can have Assimil with ease and Linguaphone French course beside you.)

Once I am done with these books I would read Perrin's fables with Englsh interlinear translation to get a better taste of language by actually reading something in French.

Having studied all these aforementioned resources, now you are ready to actually pick a book like Le Petit Prince and read. The rest is all about enjoying the French language because now you can pretty much understand anything. Here it is entirely up to your interests. You like watching movies, go watch French movies. You like French literature. Grab Count of Monte Cristo and try reading it. If it still feels advanced read it along its English translation.

The fact about learning French for a native English speaker is that, it is really quite easy if you learn to spare daily time for it.

Before I forget, if you want to aid your studies with a grammar book, though there are lots of older generation books that could be added like that of Ollendorff, the first to go one is Grammarie Progressive du Français.

Hope you find the comment helpful!

Edit: French in action is strongly recommended too.

Before all i would finish these three books Le Français par la methode nature which will by itself, provided that you finish the sequel too, bring your reading at B2 in a matter of few months. (If you use the audio as well, it would boost your comprehension in general, not only your listening.) A physical copy of it can be obtained here 1300 pages of comprehensible input in one place for you. You need no prior knowledge at all, pick it up and enjoy reading French.

French for reading by Sandberg. It worked quite well with me and no doubt it would for you provided that you stick to eat almost everyday. (It has 21 chapter and you can finish the entire book in a month if you study about two and a half hour a day) It uses paralel translations and cognates to teach French. It has quite a lot of input.

Etude progressive de la langue français by Stern is pretty similar to the first book though it is shorter in size. It is a great addition. A physical copy can be obtained from here

(If you would like even more input before you attempting to read something more original you can have Assimil with ease and Linguaphone French course beside you.)

Once I am done with these books I would read Perrin's fables with Englsh interlinear translation to get a better taste of language by actually reading something in French.

Having studied all these aforementioned resources, now you are ready to actually pick a book like Le Petit Prince and read. The rest is all about enjoying the French language because now you can pretty much understand anything. Here it is entirely up to your interests. You like watching movies, go watch French movies. You like French literature. Grab Count of Monte Cristo and try reading it. If it still feels advanced read it along its English translation.

The fact about learning French for a native English speaker is that, it is really quite easy if you learn to spare daily time for it.

Before I forget, if you want to aid your studies with a grammar book, though there are lots of older generation books that could be added like that of Ollendorff, the first to go one is Grammarie Progressive du Français.

Hope you find the comment helpful!

I study philosophy myself and there are 2 books that will do it for you in French.

Both books can be finished in 3-4 weeks.

Le Français Par la Methode Nature

Try to treat this book as an audiobook since you'll need listening skills, however, whenever needed read along the text.

French for Reading

Mainly focused only teaching the student how to read French using parallel translations and vocabulary that is already also in English. (you already know a lot of French, why not build on it?)

If you need more input go ahead and have a look at this Linguaphone course:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9walhxF72wQv9JIdiO10A9HFp9JReTZt

This is often used in such classes: https://www.amazon.com/French-Reading-Karl-C-Sandberg/dp/0133316033. It’ll get you capable of reading a decent amount of French halfway through.

It depends a lot on your learning style, but I enjoy learning languages in a different order from the traditional way. Most language learning is done with vocabulary and grammar both introduced in a slow drip over a long period of time, usually geared towards living in the country whose language you are learning. So, for example, your first few lessons will teach you how to introduce yourself, describe your family, or order a meal at a restaurant. You will be introduced to grammatical concepts very slowly also -- sometimes over the course of a few years if you're taking formal classes. This is because learning to speak and produce is SO difficult and takes a very, very long time.

For "easy" languages (i.e. those close to your native language) I prefer to begin by using textbooks for reading instead. These books are geared towards people who need to learn to read (not speak or write) a language very quickly, like in three months or so. These textbooks completely ignore the speaking/writing component in favor of getting you the grammar and relevant vocabulary as quickly as possible. One learns all the major grammatical forms of the language right away, along with vocabulary more useful for reading than speaking –– I got a "reading knowledge" of French in three months in school this way; just BAM! I can now read texts in French! Whole swathes of literary greatness suddenly intelligible to me and just waiting for me to explore. It's really kind of magical.

Getting all the grammar down right away really serves to demystify a language for me and makes it far less intimidating to learn -- you'll never get a feeling of looking at something "too advanced" that is just absolute gibberish to you; no "ohhh, is that the subjunctive? We're not getting to that for two more semesters." Instead, you get a bird's eye view of everything the language has to offer and, depending on your level of interest, after you finish with the reading book you can embroider along the edges of your knowledge and get more and more detailed as you go along -- including, eventually, learning to speak and write (in my opinion, absolutely the hardest part of any language).

Since I mostly am interested in reading, this kind of top-down approach works really, really well for me. It's quick, more fun (there is much less rote learning), and extremely satisfying.

BUT there are a lot of caveats! You will be able to read great works by great writers, but if someone invites you out for a coffee in your new language you will find yourself completely mute! This is NOT a means of becoming fluent, and definitely not what you want if you're hoping to hang out with native speakers, get by while traveling, or impress people at parties. You will also lose it all far more quickly if you don't maintain it –– you learn it quickly, so you lose it quickly.

If you're interested in checking them out, here are two books I have personally used, one for French and one for German.

I've got a copy of French for Readng which I've found helpful. Its focused entirely on increasing reading comprehension and French-to-English translation skills, plus it briefly reviews grammatical rules covered by other materials.

Also, English Grammar for Students of French is an excellent resource for improving your grammatical foundations in both English and French.

I took a class in college that was geared for French non-majors who would need to do research in French. It used this book, and I found it to be excellent: http://www.amazon.com/French-Reading-Karl-C-Sandberg/dp/0133316033

Could always go for the reading only route:

http://www.amazon.com/French-Reading-Karl-C-Sandberg/dp/0133316033#

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0820467596/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_1?refRID=0F5GDZMSR01XXTC99V9Q