French Grammar the Easy Way

very useful book,simple explanations using a lot of illustrations,suitable also for beginners and also for intermidiate

I'm completely amazed by how good this book is. As a writer of technical textbooks, I know how hard it is to get across such material concisely, completely and clearly. This book blows me away. Most grammar books simply contain descriptions of correct language. This one goes the extra step and explains WHY things are as they are. For just one example: I had been struggling for ages with "ce que" versus "que". I could never seem to figure out why "ce" was sometimes necessary. One read through the single page in this book that deals with the issue and I was sorted out forever! The book is full of handy tips for remembering things (to be frank, sometimes they do feel a bit contrived, but you're not forced to use all of them, after all) and I just love the nearly 10 pages dealing with negative sentence structures using the concept of a burger with various ingredients! It's so well done that the complexity of dealing with the placements of pronouns and the various negative adverbs becomes totally clear and easy to remember. A book which explains concepts so clearly might be expected to only deal with beginner concepts, but no...it devotes 43 pages to the conditional and subjunctive moods, again, very clearly explained. One more bit of praise: the practice exercises come with answers! How rare is that?

I am a college professor and have been using this book for three quarters now - it's excellent. I have no idea what the gentleman beow is referring to as full of errors... Go ahead and email them to me scolbert56 @ yahoo.com but it sounds like he doesn't have a firm grasp of the language. Possibly he's thinking of French Canadian / Arcadian? Get a clue. Do you really think that Barron's would have allowed three or four proofreaders to miss any major mistakes? Anyway, as I was saying, we've been using the book in class and even the students whose first choice wasn't French are entertained and immersed into learning the language. Steven

French Grammar the easy was is an excellent book for one who wants to begin learning the French language, or like me, who has taken many years of French and is in need of a different way to learn the grammatical concepts. I've never been able to get an adequate explanation in class for many of these concepts, and it wasn't until now that I am able to put everything together. All of the exercises contained within the book are written in a clear manner which makes them easy to understand. Basic concepts which I hadn't thought of in about 15 years since my last spanish class came back very quickly and I was able to expand upon my previous knowledge at a much quicker pace than I would have thought possible. The lesson are introduced in a logical manner, with lots of real-world examples (not the boring, dated ones that are usually associated with textbooks). The sections dealing with the relative pronouns, and definite and indefinite articles is especially helpful for one who hasn't been previously introduced to the concepts. And even for those of us that have, it finally makes sense after reading this book. Thanks!