Gluten-free living

"La vie sans gluten"
French C1 writing exercise

Alexandre tells us how he dealt with his newly discovered gluten allergy.

Pay attention to the hints!

Some vocabulary you may want to look up before or during this exercise: "to diagnose", "a gluten allergy", "to feel [something]", "finally (relief)", "to ruin [one's] life", "and what's more", "the only fly in the ointment", "in everyday life", "to suspect something of [doing]", "to be off-limits to [someone]", "takeaways [US: takeouts]", "mealtime(s)".

I’ll give you some sentences to translate into French

  • I’ll show you where you make mistakes
  • I’ll keep track of what you need to practise
  • Change my choices if you want
Start the exercise

Here's a preview of the text for the writing challenge, when you're ready click the start button above:

After the doctors diagnosed my gluten allergy, I first felt a mix of relief and depression. Finally, I knew what caused all of those horrible symptoms that had been ruining my life for years, and what's more, I had a solution to make them disappear! The only fly in the ointment: I was going to have to give up all the food that I loved most in the world... In everyday life, grocery shopping became a real nightmare: I had to read all the labels! Even products that I never would have suspected of containing gluten were now off-limits [to me] forever. I had to learn to cook, I who used to eat only takeaways [US: takeouts]. Fortunately, one day, my mother gave me a gluten-free cookbook which changed my life! Now, I wait impatiently for mealtimes!

Let me take a look at that...