French [With CDROM]

I bought this workbook as a guide for tutoring a 12 y/o girl. I love that it is full of color photos (very important for stimulating memory) and has conversations to supplement the vocab, but the vocab is presented in a confusing order (teach amie but not ami in Chapter 2?). The DVD doesn't correspond at all to the text, but gives many useful examples from native speakers as well as in German, Spanish, Japanese, etc. If you are a cunning Linguist you'll enjoy this set. The size of this book is not intimidating which is another reason I like it. The introduction is short and sweet, hinting at the keys to mastering French rhythm and open syllabic structure. This won't overwhelm the young beginner.

This set of 10 audio tapes did exactly what I wanted it to do - it helped me get the sound of the language and with my pronunciation, two of the main problems I have with self-learning a language. The two vocabulary tapes have hundreds of the most common words in the French language, which became familiar and useful when watching French movies or listening to French shows on public television. I also got to be able to remember which nouns were masculine and which were feminine. I found that reading the Pocket Langenscheidt French Dictionary as I listened to the tapes helped me visualize the spellings of the words and helped me starting to read.

I have rated these tapes "5 Star", but because the producers have neglected to include a conversation manual along with a word list, it should actually be downgraded a couple of stars. Utilizing a couple of cliches, you can over come these ommissions. "You only get out of it what you put into it!" and "Nothing worthwhile is ever accomplished without effort!" The extra effort you have to take to get around this problem only adds to your knowledge. As in using a dictionary, you learn 3 new words before you ever get to the one you were looking up. While this is no excuse for the producers cheapy route, especially if, as a previous reviewer remarked, this material already existed, it should only slow you down a tad. I wrote to "Topics Entertainment" concerning this matter, and while I received a most concerned, pleasant and immediate reply, they did defended their "Immersion" technique, "The Euro Method"; however, inferring that they were considering such items for the future and coming out with some "Work Books" around the middle of 2003. It is truly difficult to pick up on some of the words on these tapes without the aid of a conversation manual, but by utilizing other sources you can work around the short comings of this audio program. You are never actually going to be able to learn a language using only one source, so, get over it! I enthusiastically feel that this set of audio tapes is just a "great place to start" and you can actually make the short comings work to your advantage. Another personal cliche - "You must always make an advantage out of a disadvantage!" They are as they claim, eminently portable and usable under a great variety of places and conditions; in your "Walkman", in your automobile, desk tape player, stereo console - and you don't have to sit in front of a computer monitor playing silly kids games to make them work for you. Just do it! They work. Too bad they haven't provided an advanced course in this audio tape format!

These tapes are really great for learning to speak French. Granted, they won't teach you everything but not a lot of products can. The tapes simulate situations mainly for traveling to French-speak destinations for business or vacationing. So these tapes are great for if you are planning a trip. It doesn't touch grammar but even if they did have a book or something it porably wouldn't be as effective as some other methods for learning the actual grammar. I thought I would learn more caual just speaking and comunicationg French but over all this is a great buy.