501 French Verbs: with CD-ROM (Barron's Foreign Language Guides) [Paperback]

Christopher Kendris (Author), Theodore Kendris (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0764179837 | ISBN-13: 978-0764179839 | Publication Date: January 1, 2007 | Edition: 6

Barron's is today and always has been the Number-One reference source for verb usage in virtually every major language. Leading all competition, the best selling 501 French Verbs beats all less well-established rivals with its brand-new 6th edition. It's printed in two colors, it features tinted page edges for ease of reference, and it comes with extra help for French language students in the form of a CD-ROM. The book presents the most important and most commonly used French verbs arranged alphabetically with English translations in chart form, one verb per page, and conjugated in all persons and tenses, both active and passive. The accompanying CD-ROM gives students practice exercises in verb conjugation plus a concise grammar review. This combined book and software package is a comprehensive guide to French verb usage with a wealth of reference material and language tips, including a bilingual list of more than 1,250 additional French verbs, helpful expressions and idioms for travelers, and verb drills and short tests with all questions answered and explained.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

(back cover)
Learning French is Twice as Easy with This Helpful 2-in-1 Combination!

The easy-to-use reference book gives you:

The most common French verbs, one verb per page, conjugated in all tenses

Common idioms and example sentences demonstrating verb usage

Verbs conjugated with avoir or etre to form a compound tense

Over 2,600 additional regular verbs conjugated like model verbs among the 501

Index of common irregular French verb forms identified by their infinitive

A summary of sequence of verb tenses . . . and much more

The bonus CD-ROM gives you: :

Sentence completion exercises--fill in the correct word

Dialogue exercises--fill in the appropriate response

Word completion exercises--find the correct verb form

Word seek exercises--find the right word to fit the phrase

Matching with English--find correct translations in the right-hand column

Correct answers given for all exercises

Product Details

• Paperback: 768 pages
• Publisher: Barron's Educational Series; 6 edition (January 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764179837
• ISBN-13: 978-0764179839
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,725 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Language Nonfiction > French
  • #8 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > French > Instruction
  • #51 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > Instruction

More About the Author

Dr. Christopher Kendris, an accomplished linguist, has worked as an interpreter and translator for the U.S. State Department at the American Embassy in Paris. He holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and diplomas with Mention très Honorable at the Université de Paris (en Sorbonne), Faculté des Lettres École Supérieure de Préparation et de Perfectionnement des Professeurs de Français à l'Étranger, and at the Institut de Phonétique, Paris. He is former Chairman of the Department of Foreign Languages and Supervisor of 16 foreign language teachers at Farmingdale High School, Farmingdale, NY, and has taught foreign language courses at various colleges and universities.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Investment, March 8, 2007

By 

J. Bunker - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 501 French Verbs: with CD-ROM (Barron's Foreign Language Guides) (Paperback)

Other than a good French/English dictionary (I strongly recommend Langenscheidt's Pocket French Dictionary), this is far and away the best investment I have made in my French education. Verbes are one of the most common stumbling blocks for English speaking students of French. This book is user friendly and incredily informative, just make sure you take the time to read over the introduction and familiarize yourself with the various resources it contains.

51 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Great book, Terrible Kindle conversion, April 22, 2009

By 

Glen Cunningham "saxman" (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 501 French Verbs (Kindle Edition)

This is one of the most important books to own if you are learning French. I give the print version 5 stars. The Kindle version, however, is awful and just about useless. Here's why:

The bulk of this book are the listings of the verbs with all of their conjugations. Most of the verbs get a full page with a table of the conjugations and several example usages. Some important verbs get more pages. It is the valuable conjugation tables that cause the problems with the Kindle version.

All of the verb conjugation tables (and many other full pages) are stored in graphic table form, not text. This means that:

1) the print is so small on the Kindle (far smaller than the smallest Kindle font) that the bold print is barely readable if you can read really fine print

2) the blue text on those pages (headings and other important highlights) are rendered such a light gray that they are almost invisible on the Kindle

3) you must zoom in to have any chance of reading the tables. It just zooms in a little bit, so the text is still almost unreadable, especially the blue (as light gray) print. And having to zoom in all the time is a pain.

4) THIS IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM - You can't search on text in graphic table form. So the bulk of this book is unsearchable. With the print book I can find the verb I want in seconds. I tried everything I could think of for 15 minutes and couldn't find a specific verb page on the Kindle. Search doesn't work, flipping pages is too slow on the Kindle, and there is no way to jump 10 or 100 pages at a time to try to find it.

5) There seem to be gaps or bugs in the file. When flipping pages it sometimes hangs or jumps to the wrong place. This is an especially big problem since there doesn't seem to be any other way to find the verb page you want.

The table of contents doesn't include a listing of the verbs with page links, so I am still left with complete bewilderment about how they though we could ever use this book as a reference when you can't find anything. And if you are lucky enough to jump around for many minutes and find the verb page you want, you still can't read much of the page!

I was hoping to leave the large book home on an upcoming trip to France and just bring my Kindle. No such luck.

Buy the print version of the book. It is great.

Don't waste your money on the Kindle version. It is just about useless!

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Resource, March 24, 2008

By 

Catherine Fitzgerald "Financially Savvy" (Henderson, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 501 French Verbs: with CD-ROM (Barron's Foreign Language Guides) (Paperback)

I bought this version of 501 French Verbs to replace a 25-year-old copy I had used in high school. This new version goes far beyond simply being a dictionary of conjugated French verbs. The authors identify/highlight the 55 essential verbs you need in your vocabulary and inserted additional examples of idioms that use these key words. Exercises in the front section of the book and on the CD help you apply what you learn. I have found this book to be a valuable resource in relearning the French language.