Discovering French

Although undeniably written for a younger adolescent audience, this textbook introduces very clearly the principles of the French language that one would find even in a much higher level book such as "Parallèles, Communication et Culture," and is intended for an audience with no background in French. Nearly all French words and phrases are introduced with the English translation upon being first introduced. One aspect of this book that places it among my favourite textbooks is that new vocabulary and grammatical concepts are clearly separated from the main text in individual boxes, allowing one to quickly locate a forgotten word or point of grammar. One should not be discouraged from using this book simply because of the age of its intended audience, because one will not learn "kiddie French" or some such grotesque thing.

I have experience using this book with my French I class, and it really is a good way to start. It provides a large selection of basic vocabulary (much of which I see when attempting to read French news articles, etc, and my own literacy surprises me). It is well-designed, beginning with basic items (meetings and greetings, how to say Hello, How are you?, and so forth), and ending with more obscure items (among the last lessons are indication of position: on, behind, in front of, etc; and adjectives describing people and items). The book is friendly to the eyes, color and illustrations abound. Exercises to reinforce the lesson are plentiful, though for even more extra practice I would suggest purchasing the workbook which accompanies the text. The biggest problem I can see with this book is something that occurs when studying nearly every foreign language (so it shouldn't be taken too hard here): lack of an instructor. Few languages are intuitive, and French sounds can be exceedingly confusing for an Englishperson attempting to learn the language (there are more silent letters than one can count, and things that look one way are pronounced another). This makes a practiced instructor a necessity, and no, tapes don't really work: you must have an interactive person to help correct the tiny accent problems, etc, which occur, and tapes simply cannot respond that way. But, I digress. This is certainly a worthy book, but it's best to wait until you have a class that uses it...in which case you will more than likely be provided with a copy anyway (unless you'd like an extra to keep at home, make markings in, etc). ~

I think this book was great! It had many great resources. It was very organized and I'm looking forward to the next book. It made life a step simpler!