Berlitz Essentials: French

With no prior background in the language, I took this book and a Langenscheidt dictionary with me to work on organic farms in France for three months, and walked out able to ask and give directions, deal with everyday commercial transactions, and even make small talk with the barber. I also listened to and memorized spoken phrases from an audio CD awhile before I left, to get the hang of pronunciation. This is a formula for self-taught language that I have to remember, because it worked so well! PROs: Each chapter is based on a dialogue, which makes what you're learning instantly useable, because you learn context alongside grammar. Homework is all in French, and not too hard at all... I felt consistently encouraged simply because I could, at the end of a chapter, answer questions completely in French. CONs: There is no audio with this book. Until you have been around French-speakers, you will not know jack about how to pronounce French, no matter how much you can read/write. Berlitz does their best to spell out phonemes, but I couldn't get over the fact that French is NOTHING like it's spelled until I was immersed, despite my best efforts at reading/writing. If Berlitz came out with a CD to accompany this book, it would in my opinion be a perfect package. Sadly, this is not the case. Also beware of a few typos here and there... including some MISSING ACCENTS and mis-spelled verb conjugations, which you can probably catch if you keep alert. Bon chance!

I teach a beginning French course and this is the best low-priced study guide that I have found. It would be better if there were an accompanying pronunciation DVD for those who want to use the book without a teacher.

This is a good book to brush up on French. I did however notice that if I did not have a background in French, it would be difficult. I did like how it started off with French and not all vocabulary review. After buying this book, I will be staying with Berlitz for my French studies.

I have found this book extremely useful for teaching my son French. Wonderful explanations, good texts and exercises. I would recommend this book for parents and private teachers. This book is much better than a regular schoolbook.

I'm a college student who is working on a major in teaching French, and is working on a theme paper for my senior thesis. I picked up this book as reference guide for grammar, since Berlitz has a good series, but I found that this one was hard to follow, and in some places was weak in its examples. I wouldn't recommend this for the beginner, but someone who is looking to relearn or brush up.