Customer Reviews

All The French You'll Need/8 One Hour Audiocassette Tapes/Complete Learning Guide and Tapescript (Cassettes) (Language Dynamics : Takes the Foreign Out of Language) (French Edition)

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I am a beginning French student. This product comes with audio tapes and a short pamphlet. The audio tape is of a non-native male speaker (I'll refer to him as the "teacher") and a native French female. The teacher begins the course by discussing pronunciation and having the native French lady pronounce the alphabet and different sounds. This lasts about five minutes. After that, the teacher then begins to introduce narratives and vocabulary, again using the French lady to pronounce words.

There is nothing particularly novel about the way vocabulary or conversations are introduced. You start with self-introduction, move to days of the week, months, time, etc. You can get this with almost any course--Berlitz's French on the go is one, and it is a lot cheaper. The reason NOT to buy these tapes are:
1) The non-native speaker includes HIMSELF in the conversations with the native speaker. (Couldn't they have hired another French person to do this?)
2) Vocabulary is repeated twice, as with most other audio courses. However, amazingly, the English translation is also read twice, and even more uselessly, sometimes the second part of the English is read slowly to match its slowly read French counterpart! A quote from the teacher's narration: "OK, so how would you say 'the days of the week'(pause)How(pause)would(pause)you(pause)say(pause)'the(pause)days(pause)of(pause)the week? (French)" This is a waste of time! If you want to learn French you must hear French!! not English!
3) The teacher is clearly recording the entire tape in one recording and for some reason did not go back and fix errors. So sometimes there are pauses while he finds his spot in the script, or says, "Ok, uh, lets move on."

Why spend your money ... on a product that is poorly edited and does not give you the most French for your time? If you want to spend your money to learn French, I suggest the Pimsleur programs, which are very well thought out, planned, and edited, although much more expensive ... If you want more bang-for-your-buck, try Berlitz or Barron's programs, both of which offer only native speakers, are edited well, and progress along similar lines as "All the French you Need." The Barrons is of similar price, the Berlitz much cheaper.

I don't understand why so many "diplomats" recommend this product. I am a beginning French student that has reached near native fluency in Japanese and professional fluency in Chinese. I know how to learn languages. I wasted my money on this product and strongly recommend you not do the same.

I am a former US diplomat and current international business consultant. I can say that Language Dynamics courses are the only courses I know of that are truly dedicated to effective and immediate communication in the target language. Academic courses often reflect the literary interests of professors, many of whom never had the experience of learning the target language as a second language. With these courses, you can hit the streets after every lesson knowing you can say more than you could yesterday.

These tapes are advertised as helpful for the beginner to the high intermediate. I took 7 years of French in High School and University and am embarking on a career as a Flight Attendant, so I bought these tapes to assist me in brushing up my skills. I am very disappointed in them. I did not find them helpful at all. Unless saying things like, "Tomorrow, I'm going to walk on the sidewalk." is going to help you. Or, "Do you like the Post Office?", Oh yes, its a favorite pastime of everybody. I don't think in my entire English speaking life, I have ever had the occasion to say that. ... It would have been great to have more than one native speaker as an example. ... I think these tapes are very expensive, and not worth it. They might only be helpful to the very beginning student that is playing around with learning French, because this most certainly is NOT "All the French You Need".

I have always loved French. I like the sound of the language and I have always wanted to speak it. Unfortunately, I had rather bad luck with language courses in high school and did poorly. Even my college French classes left much to be desired. I'm telling you that 'All the French You'll Need' is all the French I ever needed. It's so ideal and I learned to speak French so quickly and easily that I can't believe how badly my other teachers have screwed up the language learning process. All languages should be taught this way. EASY.

I was on business in New York 2 weeks ago and saw Language Dynamics' founder Mark Frobose on Fox 5's 'Good Day New York' being interviewed as the language expert that morning on their segment 'Language Courses 101'. This interview prompted me to buy All the French You'll Need'. This course begins with a brief pronunciation section which I am grateful for because learning any foreign language (especially French) requires some understanding of how the words are to be pronounced. What was good about this section is that nearest English equivalent sounds were provided which gave me an instant basis of pronunciation from which to work.
This method is totally novel and unique, beginning with how quickly a total novice can begin communicating in French using original sentences. You can't get this with any other foreign language course on the market. It is one of a kind.
Berlitz's French on the Go doesn't give you English equivalents so you have to guess constantly. The reasons to buy this course are:
1) The tapes thankfully include an accentless American instructor who talks you though these tapes in English while the trained native French speaker Celine (great voice and diction) teaches you HER language the way it is really spoken.
2) Vocabulary is high frequency and is repeated twice in French. Great.
3) The recordings sound natural and lively. The spontaneity of the course is frankly refreshing.
4. The sentences building techniques are amazingly effective at getting you to speak basic French quickly. No other course comes close to this method.

Why spend your money on a product like Pimsleur that is so expensive you would have to be an oil baron to afford it when you can get a maximum bang-for-your-buck with any Language Dynamics course, and in particular All the French You'll Need?

The great thing about this course is if you listen to the tapes every day you learn 20 more french sentences than the day before. It takes a simple step-by-step process and even though you haven't learned every dynamic of the language you can easily take what you've learned, learn new French words (I recommend the Oxford French Dictionary) and put them together. It starts at basic and ends with advanced intermediate and if you need a great start at learning French, this course is well beyond 5 years of high school French combined. Even if you only want to learn enough to travel, you learn every phrase necessary for a visit to France or Quebec. Bienvenue!