“Dictation is the transcription of spoken text: one person who is “dictating” speaks and another who is “taking dictation” writes down the words as they are spoken. Among speakers of several languages, dictation is used as a test of language skill, similar to spelling bees in the English-speaking world.”
You can watch the first of twenty French beginner level dictation exercises in the video at the bottom of this post. Click on the button below for a free transcript, translation, and audio version of “Dans la rue”.
➯ Video presentation of the dictée. Watch me and listen as I read each sentence two times slowly enough to understand and write at the same time. Many non-natives find it makes the listening comprehension part of dictation exercises more manageable to see the speaker’s mouth. Once I’ve finished reading the dictation, I will present each written sentence in French along with the English translation. Once we’ve gone through all of the sentences and you have checked your work, I will present the complete text in paragraph form on the screen. At that time, we can slowly read through the complete text together so they can see how the separate sentences actually form a short story.
➯ Audio presentation of the dictée.. Listen as I read each sentence two times slowly enough to understand and write at the same time. This version of the exercise will be more challenging as you will not see the speaker’s mouth.
➯ PDF of the numbered sentences in the dictée and the English translation.
➯ Numbered response sheet. This is located on page 2 of the PDF.
The following dictées are included in my money saving FRENCH PROGRAM FOR SELF-LEARNERS.
All of the included themes are also available for individual purchase:
- Présenter quelqu’un
- Pays, langue, nationalité
- Situer un objet
- Décrire une personne
- Décrire un lieu d’habitation
- Dans la rue
- À l’hôtel
- Les heures
- La semaine
- La routine
- La nourriture
- Le passé composé avec avoir
- Le passé composé avec être
- Interdictions et devoirs
- Savoir, pouvoir, devoir
- Pronoms directs et indirects
- L’entretien
- Avantages et inconvénients
- Le passé composé des verbes réfléchis
- Parler de son enfance
