Thank you so much. This is great dictee! Looking forward to B1 level. Also, wish a new screen didn't pop up with each segment, so that the exercise could move along a bit more quickly.
“Where are those Dictées everyone is talking about? I would love to give them a try!”
Ne cherchez plus, you’re in the right place!
New Dictées and Writing Challenges are available to Premium subscribers every week.
To see how awesome these exercises are, here are 6 Dictées, covering levels from A1 to B2 (see pyramid below), all free to take and retake as many times as you want!
FREE Dictées:
- A1: Marie en France
- A1: Une Journée Chargée – partie 1
- A2: Au cirque
- A2: Le soir d’Halloween
- B1: Départ en vacances
- B2: Au Restaurant de la Plage
Want to try the Writing Challenges?
Aucun souci ! Here’s the link to our FREE Writing Challenges.
How does it work?
Dictées are self-scoring exercises, meaning that for each phrase you’ll be offered corrections to help you pinpoint your mistakes, but the marking is up to you!
Once you’re done, you can read and listen to the full text in French, and also see a list of grammar topics covered in the exercise.
Remember if you want to kwiz any of the lessons again, you can add them to your notebook(s).
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Author info
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 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: 24
I am trying to do this hearing test, but after it plays the question I have To go all the way back to the beginning of the test to start all over again and answer each question again in order to be able to answer the next question. What am I doing wrong? Thanks
Bonjour Mary,
It sounds like the sound player is opening in the same window as the test. You'll need to find out how to open the sound links in a new window/tab. This may be right click or ctrl+click depending on the computer/device you're using,
Wow, that was a lot of fun! I understood everything completely, withone exception. I had never heard one word. I was still able to figure it out based upon the following sentence and the fact that you did include a hint. I did make a couple of conjugation mistakes, but I enjoyed the "story" immensely. Next time, though, instead of going out with your brother, make it a romantic story!
Thank you for this exercise.
Hello I just read this today, very relevant!
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/world/europe/in-paris-suburbs-adopting-a-dreaded-school-test-as-a-tool-of-integration.html
These are great. Can't wait for the next installement. But now that I've finished, if I could see the entire part that I wrote it would be possilble to review my errors. Some things, like accents, are not covered by vocabulary lessons. It might be a good idea to instruct people to prepare a list of errors on a sheet of paper or in a separate application as they proceed.
This was a great exercise. However, the reason I only made 57 out of 65 was for the most part a lack availability to accents. There needs to be a way to click on accented letters. I can use accents in WORD using the CTRL-key in WORD, but it did not work here.
I could not work the audio properly. There's no option or 'space' to write what's dictated, and I could not repeat the audio fragments. Perhaps it's because I'm using an outdated browser (which I have to use for an old spreadsheet no longer compatible with the newer browsers). Sorry to disappoint.
Love this type of exercise. Wish I didn't have to go back and forth so much to listen to a segment and then write it. Also perhaps some alternative correct answers could be given. For example, des amies ou des amis. Icing on the cake would be to have accented letters given to click on and use.
I have added a French keyboard to my computer but in order to do your dictations I have to keep switching from my English keyboard to the French keyboard. Is it possible for you to put a box containing accents eg. é è alongside your dictations ?
Bonjour tout le monde - Sorry about these technical difficulties - we're working on them as a priority. This was a really useful exercise for us that provided lots of great feedback (as well as things to fix) - we are going to put all that into the next iteration. We can't promise when this will be released at this point but will let you know in the newsletter when it is.
Just now catching up. This is, for me, the best possible exercise. I go one step further - I write the dictees on notebook paper the first time around and then go back and type in the repsonse. I can then highlight my errors. I would definitely like to see more of these as my listening skills are the weakest at present. Again, thank you for this most outstanding exercise.
Merci pour ces dictées. c'etait parfait pour pratiquer mon français. Plus de celles-ci s'il vous plaît.
These dictee tests are very useful indeed ,which , combined with a strict self-marking procedure can immediately highlight the weaknesses in grammar & verb conjugations. Thank you !
I love the dictations ! They have helped me understand native speakers much better. Question: In the story Au Cirque, you use the verb exciter! Does it make a difference in meaning when you're talking about a person, yourself, or a place. My teacher said to try to use another verb instead. In your story, it's referring to a place; the circus?
Hello, I'm enjoying the dictée and writing exercises but sometimes find it is very difficult, and time consuming, to look up the suggested selected vocab and phrases in advance as they are often colloquialisms or I am unable to identify the correct translation/use of the word from the dictionary. Am I missing something, is there an option to click on the word or phrase to see the translation? Thanks
Bonjour Mary,
You are doing all the right things. At the moment, there is no such option in our system. I'll make sure to pass on your comment to our language team. Keep at it and colloquialisms will become more easily for you to understand and translate. Also,
c'est en forgeant que l'on devient forgeron!
Here are Kwiziq studylists and links about idioms that you might find helpful: French Vocabulary and Grammar Lists - French Idioms
Bonne journée !
Re accents, if you hold your finger on the letter a choice of accents, etc , pop up. Just drag onto it.
Merci, how I have gained confidence in speaking and writing in French. J'ai la confiance en parlant et ecrivant français.