"Ouragan Irma" has been shared to the blog from the French reading exercises section of the learning library where you can find a large selection of interactive texts to help you with your reading skills.
| French reading practice: A2 (See the grammar breakdown) |
In early September 2017, an enormous hurricane caused untold damage in the Caribbean, devastating several islands. I live on the French-Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, which seemed to be right in the path but was in the end spared the worst of the storm – here’s my story. Click any French phrase in our bilingual reader for the English translation.
Here’s the CEFR level breakdown of grammar included in this article.
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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.
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!
Good morning Laura, Thank you very much for a well-written story about hurricane Irma and Guadeloupe. I'd like to point out a little typo in the translation. "Houle" was translated as "sweel". It should be "swell".
I saw in the news that Hurricane Maria left a trail of destruction as it hit the Caribbean island of Dominica as a Category 5 storm and then battered Guadeloupe with powerful winds early Tuesday morning. Hope all is well with you and your family. Take care.
Khoi.
Bonjour Khoi,
Thanks for letting me know about the typo - it's fixed.
And thank you for your good wishes. We didn't suffer any human or building damage from Maria, but most of our trees were damaged or destroyed. :-(
Bonjour Laura,
I just wish that you are safe from the Hurricane Maria.
With concern,
One of your many online students,
Umi
Thank you for your account of the hurricane. You may not believe it, but I had been thinking about you and hoping that you were okay. Yes, I should have written en français, mais l’heure est tard.