- Printable short stories for seniors with dementia how to#
- Printable short stories for seniors with dementia series#
- Printable short stories for seniors with dementia tv#
There are even be health benefits to reading in a foreign language: studies show that learning and working with a foreign language is excellent exercise for your mind, and may stave off dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. This might seem discouraging, but it’s actually the opposite think of it as a continual source of learning. No matter how fluent you become, your brain will have to work just a little harder, and you’ll probably still have a word you’ll need to look up now and then, or a tricky sentence that you have to stop and untangle, no matter how advanced your language level is.
After all, you want to find out what happens at the end, right? Accept that reading in French (or any foreign language) isn’t like reading in your native language When you’re interested in a story, you’re more willing to look up vocabulary…and just to continue with it, even through tricky parts. Hopefully, the list in this article will help with that. But on your own, you’ll probably be able to find French stories that genuinely interest you. Obviously, this isn’t always possible – for example, if you have to read a certain story for a class. Here are five rules I’ve learned about reading in French: Choose a story that interests you Remember what I wrote about my “lessons” with Monsieur Lupin: It wasn’t all jumping over rooftops and stealing diamonds (or the Mona Lisa) I spent a lot of time looking up words and figuring out turns of phrase. Reading in a foreign language can be daunting, even downright frustrating. More contemporary stories will show you the way people really talk today – even how their words sound, if an author chooses to write things phonetically. Even if you prefer older stories or fairy tales, you’ll learn about conventions – for example, French fairy tales often start with the phrase Il était une fois… (Once upon a time) and are often told in the passé simple (literary) tense. Reading in French will show you how French-speakers use their language to express themselves.
Printable short stories for seniors with dementia how to#
You might know how to conjugate the verb réfléchir, but do you know how to use it in a sentence? It’s important to know its rules and workings, but vital to understand how it’s used in context. And even if they don’t, language is a living thing. No matter how good a language student you are, sometimes grammar and memorization will wear you down. Let’s look at some French fairy tales and short stories that can help you boost your vocabulary, grammar, and cultural knowledge – and let your imagination take you to new places, too.
Printable short stories for seniors with dementia tv#
Like movies, TV shows, and any other form of the arts or media, not only will they teach you things like vocabulary and grammar they’ll also give you an insight into French culture (or whatever francophone culture you’re interested in). It wasn’t easy to read all of Arsène Lupin’s adventures, but as I went along, I got better, and my vocabulary got richer, too.Įven if top-hatted jewel thieves who are masters of disguise and seduction don’t appeal to you (hard for me to believe, but okay), there are so many other French short stories out there that are worth discovering – and learning from.
Printable short stories for seniors with dementia series#
The criminal I mentioned wasn’t a real-life one, but a certain Arsène Lupin, gentleman cambrioleur (gentleman burglar), the hero of a series of early 20 th century crime/adventure novels, and still a pop culture figure in France today, not to mention the inspiration for a French TV series, as well as a manga and anime series, Lupin the Third, among other things. Vocabulary sticks with you more if you had to struggle to find its meaning, and grammatical structures that an author knowingly or unknowingly relies on tend to stay in your mind like an echo. But those experiences also ended up teaching me things. Some were fairly easy, while others required me to look up nearly every word (and in the days before dictionary apps, this meant taking a significant pause in my reading). One of the best French teachers I ever had was a charming criminal.Īfter several years of learning French, I started reading French stories and books on my own.