Bastille Day in France

"Le 14 juillet en France"
French B2 writing exercise

Mathilde remembers how she used to celebrate Bastille Day with her family.

Pay attention to the hints!

Some vocabulary you may want to look up before or during this exercise: "Bastille Day", "a lie-in [US: sleeping in]", "to gather (together)", "to devour", "a military parade", "to be dressed up (costume)", "(I) like the most", "blue, white and red", "especially", "a blouse (shirt)", "to display (clothes)", "the revolutionary rosette (France)", "to take [something] from [someone]", "a soldier", "a clearing (woods)", "fireworks", "at nightfall".

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
How the test works

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

Bastille Day always started with a lie-in [US: sleeping in] in my family. We would gather at the breakfast table around 10am and we'd devour Grandma's raspberry jam while watching the Champs-Elysées military parade on TV. Grandma always wanted us to be dressed up for the occasion, and it was what I liked the most about Bastille Day. I used to wear the long blue, white and red skirt that Grandma had made especially for me, and a white blouse which displayed the revolutionary rosette. All day, we would play at taking the Bastille from the King's soldiers until the evening when we walked to the park's clearing where the fireworks took place at nightfall.

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