La semaine des Martin

"La semaine des Martin" has been shared to the blog from the French reading practice section of the learning library where you can find a large selection of interactive texts to help you with your reading skills. This article also has audio for you to practice your French listening skills; you can find many more listening activities in the French listening exercises section.


French listening and
reading practice: A2*

Article about a busy week of activities for the Martin family. After listening to the audio, scroll down for the bilingual reader, where you can click any French phrase for the English translation and related grammar lessons.

Click any word in the text to see its translation and related grammar lessons.

*Not sure of your level? Take our French level test!

Author info

Aurélie Drouard

Aurélie is our resident French Expert. She has created most of the wonderful content you see on the site and is usually the person answering your tricky help questions. She comes from a small village near Chartres in Central France, country of cereal fields and not much else. She left (in a hurry) to study English at the world-famous Sorbonne in Paris, before leaving France in 2007 to experience the “London lifestyle” - and never looked back! She's worked as a professional French teacher, translator and linguist in the UK since.  She loves to share her love of languages and is a self-professed cinema and literature geek!

Laura K Lawless

Laura is a French expert and Kwiziq's Head of Quality Control. Online educator since '99, Laura is passionate about language, travel, and cooking. She's American by birth and a permanent ex-pat by choice - freelancing made it possible for her to travel extensively and live in several countries before settling permanently in Guadeloupe. Laura is the author of Lawless French, Lawless Spanish, and other websites and books on French, Spanish, Italian, English, and vegetarianism. She spends most of her spare time reading, playing with food, and enjoying water sports.

Comments: 6

Dans l'histoire Les semaine de Martin, est-ce qu'on peut dire «Vendredi soir Lucie Martin est allée voir un film en plein air.»?

Bonjour Connie !

Oui bien sûr !
Just like in English, you can either say "She's been to see / She went to see" meaning the same :)

Bonne journée !

M

Would you please explain the phrase Lucie Martin a été voir ... Why is the passé composé of Être used with voir to translate went to see?
Thank you.

Bonjour M !

In French, just like in English, you can sometimes use "être" and "aller" interchangeably to talk about somewhere you've been/gone :

I've been to the shops. / I went to the shops. -> J'ai été aux magasins / Je suis allé aux magasins.

The literal translation here would indeed be "Lucie has been to see a concert" :)

Bonne journée !

this was very informative to me. it helped me understand some of the words better.

Bonjour Henry !

Je suis ravie que vous trouviez ce texte utile :)

Bonne journée !