Customer Reviews

Basic Structures: French, Level 1 (The Learnables)

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Many language learning programs are now available, most for a relatively high price. Most have nowhere near as much science and practice as this relatively inexpensive series does.
The prinicple of graduated interval recall introduced by Pimsleur (and used heavily in the Pimsleur programs) is also used here, but with a major difference. Because the Pimsleur programs are all audio, you are forced to learn words through English and that forces you to think in English while you are learning. You learn more how to translate than to speak spontaneously and think in the language. The Learnables series uses images (cartoons) to go along with the audio. This creates an association between your mental concept of something and the word in the foreign language without needing English.
The series starts with no written language (sometimes frustrating for adults, but worth the frustration) and after a certain level, introduces you to the written form of what you already know how to pronounce. This avoids speaking the language with an English/American accent. Grammar is absorbed by actual usage, not by rules. There is repetition, but no drills. It can be used with no teacher, with children of all ages (includes adults!).
An academic study showed that high school students who followed the program (German version) were at least as good as third-year college students in using correct grammatical forms.
The whole program is designed to mimic the way we learn our mother tongue.
Most of the available languages will get you to at least the intermediate level, where your vocabulary is good enough to converse well in the language and find out what new words mean. You will know all the "glue words" that make up the majority of speech.Highly recommended.