Customer Reviews

Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning French, 3E (The Complete Idiot's Guide)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a good left-brain book. It is well organized. Everything about gender in one section, adjectives in another section, and verb endings in another section, unlike my current text book, which skips around a lot. I studied French on my own for two years with moderate success, then started in a class. I continue to use this book as a grammar reference because the index is very functional. One weakness is that there are no cassettes or CD's directly tied to this book.

This book is not perfect, but it is a good place to start if you're looking for a book which is well structured and don't mind the fact that there are no tapes or CDs. I took French for four years in high school, so I cannot really comment on how effective it is for persons who've never taken French at all. But I did find it very useful as a refresher course and for looking up grammatical rules and general info.

There are six overall sections, broken down into various chapters. They are: The Very Basics; Travel; Fun and Games; Problems; Let's Get Down to Business; and the Answer Key. Each section proceeds in a logical fashion, and there are often sidebars such as "Pitfalls", "As a Rule", and "Cultural Tidbits." These help break things up and keep it interesting while you're slogging along through a series of verbs or lists of items. There are often pronunciation guides for words, which are surprisingly useful, and there are sample sentences for common usage and everyday situations.

All in all this book is a good value for the price and I wouldn't hesitate to buy it again.

I am currently using this wonderful book by Gail Stein, who is "well-known language instructor who has taught in New York City public schools for over 20 years."

The book contains 26 chapters, and is very well organized. It contains tons of useful vocabulary and lots of useful information on grammar, idioms, etc. There is an ample number of exercises with the answers, so that the learning process is an interactive one.

I also like the book because of it's light-hearted approach. The lessons are fun, and her helpful and amusing comments make the book easy to read.

Another great thing about this book is that it teaches you right from the beginning how to pronounce French words correctly, something that many French language books don't do. In addition, most of the french words are followed by their pronounciation in paranthesis, for example: l'ami (lah mee). Because of this, you will be able to learn how to speak and understand verbal French, not only read and write it.

There is enough information in this book so that, with dedication and time, you can achieve an intermediate level of French using this book alone, which is what the book's goal is to do.

The book is very inexpensive, and a great value. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn French at the beginner's level.

I am an American who recently moved to Geneva Switzerland. I have been exploring several methods for learning the local language during the past few months: I have computer software (French Now!), CDs (M. Thomas) and about 8 books. This is by far the best book for a beginner who learns well via the printed word. It is very well organized, and, most importantly (the biggest strength of the book), it starts with pronounciation and then gives phonetic pronounciation for all new words throughout the book. There is a tremenous amount of information here, and very few practice exercises, so you will have to take your time to internalize the information.

For those who wish to learn French on their own, complicated instructions are the last thing you want to see in your guide books to French. This book is written in an easy-going manner that puts you at ease. When the author talks about conjugation, she does not neglect to define 'conjugate' so that readers do not have to look for English dictionaries or English grammar books to find out what 'conjugate' really means. I believe one can learn to speak, read and write reasonably good French through this book. I hope to be able to read the French judgments of the International Court of Justice after I complete my course. A little too ambitious perhaps, but achievable.

To me this book is only useful for quick reference. It should be called the Complete Idiot's Guide to Reviewing French Material. I am not a beginner, but I am not advanced either. I can tell that this book is trying to mesh both levels together so that BOTH the beginner and the more advanced Frenchie can get the benefits. But honestly, this book does too much all at once. Before you even get to know the basic vocabulary it gives you long lists of words that are useful, but not words that should be put onto one or two pages. And I found the whole format and style of the book to be either annoying or just confusing. I am not saying that French learning guides need to be all fun and easy, but it doesn't necessarily have to be really boring either. I think there are better books out there than this one. Try French Without the Fuss, which actually has a CD where you can hear native speakers and have the dialogue in front of you (it's also in a reasonable price as well). I have learned a lot from that book in its first 2 pages alone than I did in this one. Get something that's more worth the money. Try French Without the Fuss, and why not go to the kids section in the book store and check out the French books. As silly as it may seem you actually learn a lot of French vocab---and have more fun with learning the language too.

Being in Canada, I've taken French classes from junior kindergarten up through grade 13. If pressured, I could remember most of what I was taught, but I would forget some niceties.

This book helped me review all of my tenses, the irregular and regular verbs, and improved my fluency a great deal. After throwing out all of my old Francais notes, it's handy to have them all compacted into one convenient, moderate-sized book.

This is a handy tool for people wanting to learn, or those of us who just forgot.

If I were to learn French from scratch through this book, I would have given up in no time. The structure of this book is totally not for real beginners. However, since I have already studied some the ABC's of French, I find this book to be very useful as a reference book. Quite a few things are explained in detail and repeatedly that the reader may feel progress is slow but is actually learning something. The content is 4 stars but the layout is only 2 stars. Borrow it from the library to check it out!

As the other reviewers have said, there are a lot of great things about this book. The author's tone is encouraging and the lessons are helpful. The pronunciation guide and hints are great. However, there are several typos and other typesetting and proofreading errors that take away from the quality of the book. Some even cause confusion. A book that teaches language should have been edited a little more carefully.

This is a good book for reference and it is packed with all kinds of information. It is too bad that it does not come with a CD or tape. It is an interesting book to read but it contains a lot of information about France that not everyone may be intereted in. Overall I would recommend it and it is very reasonably priced.