Customer Reviews

Bilingual Songs: English-French Vol. 1

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I absolutely agree with "Frenchie"; I think she's hit the nail right on the head! These songs cover the territory of basic French vocabulary, but they do so in a very pedestrian, uninspired way. They are not the sort of songs that one would want to listen to just for the pleasure of it. (The tunes on vol. 2 of this CD series are a bit more catchy, at least.)

"Frenchie" is also quite right, I think, in pointing out that one can't reasonably expect to learn to speak French from listening to CDs such as this, no matter how many times one listened and even if one learned all the words of the song. There's a lot more work involved! (I speak as a teacher of French.)

However, the pedagogical usefulness of CDs such as this would be greatly improved, I think, if the songs each had a second version that was in French only. Then one could listen to the French-&-English version as many times as necessary to understand what the French means, and then one could move on from that to just listening (and singing along) in French only. That would be wonderful practice and the real test of how much French one had learned to comprehend (and speak).

Sigh. Learning elementary French through music is basically a good idea, but this CD misses the mark.