Language through Literature

La chèvre de monsieur Seguin — Monsieur Seguin’s Goat


Alphonse Daudet · «Lettres de mon moulin», 1869 · 2059 words in French · the French shelf

How long «La chèvre de monsieur Seguin» is, and how hard

Length in French 2059 running words · 149 sentences · about 8 printed pages
Time to read about 19 minutes at a learner's pace, with the glosses to hand
Different words 572 dictionary words, averaging 13.8 words a sentence
Words glossed 572 of 572 — every one that appears in the tale
Words that appear once 356 — 62%. A word met once is a word you will not learn from this text alone
Where it stands 7 of 8 by length in the French room

470 of this tale's own 572 words, most frequent first, carry 95% of it; 189 carry 80%. Hold those and the reading is close work rather than decoding. French glues its small words to the next one, and these counts take them apart the way a dictionary does: «l’» and «d’» are words of their own here, filed under «le» and «de».

Its chapters

The room reads «La chèvre de monsieur Seguin» in 6 scenes. The headings are the house's own; the sentence counts are the tale's.

SceneIn FrenchSentences
A Letter to Gringoire Lettre à Gringoire 15
The Seventh Goat La septième chèvre 28
Let Me Go Laissez-moi aller 31
The Mountain Rejoices La montagne en fête 31
Nightfall and the Wolf Le soir et le loup 38
Farewell, Gringoire Adieu, Gringoire 5

How it begins

À M. Pierre Gringoire, poète lyrique à Paris.

To Monsieur Pierre Gringoire, lyric poet, in Paris.

That first sentence is the free sample, and the only one on this page. «La chèvre de monsieur Seguin» is part of the library — the eight French tales and the Spanish, German and Russian shelves, every word glossed, sentence-by-sentence English — for €5 a month or €39 a year, cancel whenever you like, one subscription for all four rooms. What the library costs. «Le petit Chaperon rouge» is free, entire, if you would rather read the room before you buy it, and the opening scene of «Les Fées» after it.

Shorter and longer in the same room

La Dernière Classe — 1755 wordsLa Barbe-Bleue — 1804 words Cendrillon — 2208 words

All eight French tales · Alphonse Daudet · the shelf, counted

Free editorial texts and word lists are reference resources. Interactive learning starts with one beginner lesson, one opening story scene and one grammar discovery; a free account adds a second lesson. See what the subscription opens.