Customer Reviews

Fluenz Version F2: French 1 with supplemental Audio CD and Podcasts

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are many programs, methods, websites and tools to learn French. Before getting Fluenz I looked at quite a few of them. The reality, after watching demos and downloading sample sessions at their website, is that Fluenz addresses the key deficiencies that plague other offerings. To go through an entire French program without a single explanation in English doesn't make any sense. French grammar is not easy, the contractions are not very evident, and many constructions can seem strange. Any smart learner would appreciate, and most require, a good explanation in a language they understand. Because Fluenz relies on a tutor who actually goes through everything in English, this important shortcoming has been more than addressed. The program also includes a full-fledge glossary, something sorely missing in most other programs. To my mind the other great issue with the alternatives to Fluenz is the child-like content. Rosetta Stone is particularly problematic in this sense, which is obvious because their programs are made for anyone 6 and over. I for one appreciate the adult, smart French Fluenz one learns with Fluenz.

One of the refreshing things about Fluenz is that they work from the point of view of the learner. This is probably the first company to actually admit that French is a tough language to learn for English-speakers.They work from that premise to offer solutions that make sense to the rest of us. All this is accomplished by inserting a real live tutor in the application, an American who actually learned French well and walks you through the process in a way that mirrors her own journey. The tutor uses English to explain the logic of French, providing an entire path through French that actually makes sense to normal people wanting to learn the language. While most traditional learning talks down to learners as if they where children, the Fluenz emphasis on smart learning is wonderful news for grown ups. All the vocabulary is actually relevant to people who are thinking of going to France, doing business there, or thinking of going on to advanced learning. Beyond the common sense explanations, the application offers a range of beautifully designed workouts that go over the same material in very different ways: writing, reading, speaking and listening. Design-wise these workouts are extremely cool, and is as good as any digital design on the web today. This kind of emphasis on blending a solid learning philosophy with well-made design is unique, and I believe very helpful to users. The additional materials that come with the DVD-ROM, an audio CD that reinforces the material and can be easily heard in the car or Ipod, and the Fluenz Navigator, a handy little booklet for those traveling, also speak to the care with which everything has been made. Obviously, I'm very impressed with Fluenz French and Fluenz in general, but above all I have to say the product really works. You will get your French going in very little time.

I am on session 25 of the 30 in Fluenz 1. I bought French 1 + 2, but thought that I would review French 1 while the memory is fresh.
My background is as a false beginner - three years studying French in junior high / high school and a class at Le Alliance Française de Washington, DC. Nothing quite stuck though, so I started from scratch (again) to get my foundation solid.

Fluenz is the first method that has actually stuck in my head. I've started to half-think in French and to formulate sentences and understand the grammar better than I have before. I would highly recommend it to everyone, but especially to people who are looking to travel in France because at the end of Fluenz 1, I feel reasonably confident that I could handle the airport, the train station, and a restaurant with a degree of grace.

That being said, if you are looking to actually learn the language and not just get by for a few weeks, you cannot rely on Fluenz alone! If you do, you'll never get anywhere with vocabulary and verb conjugations! There were some sessions where I swear they only added one or two more words to the already limited vocabulary and some words/phrases that they pronounce differently in different sessions (e.g., Est-ce que pronounced with the -ce emphasized and without the ce emphasized). At the end of this program, your knowledge of friendly conversation beyond rudimentary conversations with shop people/waiters/custom officers will be next to non existent. Also, while I understand why they have not covered "tu" ("you" in the informal) yet - to keep the information overload and confusion to a minimum - I think that not doing so is a mistake and my French tutor looked at me like I was crazy when I said that my program hadn't covered it yet.
This is an excellent start, however, and a great compliment to private tutoring, coursework, or diligent self study.

The software itself works fine on my MacBook and conveniently reminds me where I've left off last time I used the software. It doesn't have any key issues like Rosetta stone does, so I bring it with me when I'm at my parents/boyfriends/etc. house and use it on their computer pretty regularly. Sometimes the voice of the tutor and her lips fall out of sync - that's easily fixed by pausing the program and hitting play again. Once or twice I answered a question correctly, hit enter, and was told that it was incorrect. I'd double check against their answer, make sure I did not have any extra spaces in it, and still be wrong. Only to back up to the last question and start over again, type the same thing in - and have it go through. A little obnoxious, but not frequent enough to be a huge issue.

Their "podcasts" are misnamed - more like "Supplementary Audio Material." Podcasts are updated frequently and are streamed onto your iTunes (for example) - these you have to manually download and really aren't much different from the Audio CD, only with slightly different vocabulary focus.
It has taken me about three months to go through Fluenz 1 (working on it 30 minutes a day almost every day).

I would give this four stars instead of five because I think that it doesn't quite go far enough in the way of vocabulary and verb knowledge and because there's a few kinks in their system that need to be worked out. Don't let that missing star deter you though - this is totally worth the money.

Other sources I am using to help me learn French:
Private tutor (once every other week to work on pronunciation)
French Grammar: The Key to Reading - If you can get your hands on it, this is awesome. Every native speaker I've shown it to has been impressed by it's clear, comprehensive approach.
French for the Humanities (French and English Edition) - the companion to French Grammar.
Easy French Reader

After looking at the many different software packages out in the market, I've found Fluenz to be the smart choice for adults wanting to learn the language. Other programs inevitably begin teaching the words for "apple" and "tree", and then build on to "red apple" and "green tree." While this is a wonderful for children entering the world of a second or third language, it makes little sense for people like me. I want to go to France and be able to communicate in a smart, urbane way, while setting down foundations for possible advanced learning. Sonia, the tutor who learned French and leads the tutorials, comes to the material from the perspective of someone who needs to communicate. As Fluenz explains, the method uses your knowledge of English to leverage your understanding of French, and this works wonders for those who wish to understand a language that is nothing short of complex. Instead of memorizing random phrases, this program makes sure you actually know how to put phrases together, and slowly but surely builds your ability to construct ever more phrases. The many different types of workouts are closely linked to the tutorials, and have been designed to make sure you really learn the stuff well by combining speaking, listening, writing and reading. On top of it all, the tutor is a great, charismatic teacher--something sorely lacking in most other software systems. Perhaps because this is clearly a product made by people who love learning languages, the program has been beautifully designed--someone made sure the actual experience would be great. If you want smart linguistics, a common sense approach to learning, and a beautiful experience, you would do well to take a hard look at Fluenz.

I discovered this product during my Rosetta Stone trial period, obviously unhappy with their product. What I really disliked about Rosetta was its essential paradigm toward teaching a foreign language - they assume we learn as adults in the same manner as we learned as children. Their goal is to replicate the total immersion experience of being a language-less child, and thereby teach us a new language similarly. After struggling to find the value in Rosetta, I came to realize that this approach does not work for me at all. When Rosetta says total immersion, they mean it; you won't find english explanations for anyting anywhere. Granted, it attempts to teach you particular things (e.g., vocab, grammar, etc.) by linking concepts to images and words (e.g., it'll say the word for orange, and you have to select which of 4 presented images is an orange). While this approach is great for vocabulary, it utterly fails for most of the nuanced grammar explanations. For example, the question phrase est-ce que is used generally for yes/no types of questions, while qu'est-ce que is used for "what" types of questions (what do you want to eat); learning this distinction by observing static images of people/things is nearly impossible. Fluenz, on the hand, recognizes that we do already know a language (English), and attempts to teach French by relating it to English, infinitely better. Level one includes 30 or so lessons, each of which is structred as follows: (1) a brief (1-3) minute intro given by a very pleasant woman who details what we'll learn in that lesson; (2) a dialogue situation of two people conversing in french (watchable line by line, and then in 3 formats (straight audio (no subtitles), audio + french subtitles, and audio + french and english subtitles)), (3) a ~10 min lecture following where the same female explains in great detail everything that occurred in the dialogue, (4) phrase matching (match french phrase to its english), then multiple translation exercises (translate audio only, translate written, etc.). Simply phenomenal. I cannot recommend this product enough, and am anxiously awaiting level 2.

I bought Fluenz French 1&2 about 10 months ago. What I like most about Fluenz is the bite-size chunks of learning; the structured progression - each lesson building upon the previous lessons; the relevancy of the vocabulary for travel purposes, the clarity of the grammar explanations. When I completed both Fluenz levels, I went looking for a way to speak French with others and broaden my vocabulary beyond the travel context. So I signed up for a French class at my local community college for $500+ for the class and more than $200 for the texts (Note that this is more than 3x what I paid for my Fluenz program).

I am sure that there are many excellent professors out there who deliver a quality classroom experience for their students. That's not who was teaching my class. And, while I did learn a bunch of new vocabulary, the grammar lessons provided by the Fluenz program were head and shoulders above what was presented in class. I can say with confidence that if you are thinking about learning a new language for work or personal enrichment, Fluenz is may be a better and lower cost option than classes at the local college/university.

In my opinion, there are two big advantages tothe Fluenz program over a classroom. One is a consistently high level of program content and delivery. The other is that with my Fluenz DVDs, I can go back to any lesson, at any time, and review content as needed. I can't do that with a classroom program.

While I was still taking the French class, I started Fluenz French 3. It is a giant step above Fluenz French 1&2 with more of an emphasis on listening comprehension and grammar than the earlier DVDs. With Fluenz 1&2, the emphasis was mostly on vocabulary and being able to express basic needs. Fluenz 3 begins to take on the comprehension challenge as well as continuing to expand upon vocabulary and grammar skills.

Bottom line, for the self-motivated learner, Fluenz is terrific language learning tool and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to learn a new language.

This program is great! Fluenz doesn't just get you to memorize
phrases, but really shows you how the different parts work together.
For example, you'll start out with "Ils vont" (They're going), and
then you'll build upon it, step by step: "Demain ils vont" (Tomorrow
they're going), "Demain ils vont voyager" (Tomorrow they're going to
travel), "Demain ils vont voyager au Canada" (Tomorrow they're going
to travel to Canada), "Demain ils vont voyager pour travailler au
Canada" (Tomorrow they're going to travel for work to Canada). This
approach really shows you how each part of the sentence works, which
gives you the ability to use those parts in many different ways beyond
that one sentence. Although I haven't tried the Spanish or Mandarin
software that Fluenz makes, I'm pretty sure this French program isn't
just some cookie-cutter adaptation of what they've done before. So
much attention is paid to the broader world of the French language,
whether its French literature, history, or pop culture, and the
enthusiasm that the tutor in the program has for teaching the language
just shines through. Also, the way in which French is related to
English could not have been done so well if it was little more than a
modification on their previous programs. The people at Fluenz clearly
love French and wanted to help people learn it. The result is an
application that does not lazily apply some generic language-learning
approach to teaching the French language, but rather teaches French in
the way that French specifically needs to be taught.

I'm really happy with the Fluenz method and the quality of the program, and I can see why people write such positive reviews. Before buying I actually checked the seller feedback rating, which can only be submitted by those that actually bought the product from Amazon. Unlike those that complain without checking the goods, there are almost 100 five star ratings from these certifiable buyers.

I bought Fluenz French 1 for my 9th grader, who was taking second-year French in high school but hardly remembered anything from first-year French. We find it quite good as a supplement to his normal work. The explanations are clear, the dialogues are moderately interesting, and there is a lot of repetition to make sure you remember. You can set the software in "challenge mode", which we do, and it requires every accent and diacritical mark to be exactly right. He does it on his own, without too much prompting, and I think he is doing a lot better. Also, I have had a few questions about the software, before and after purchase, and the Fluenz support is superb. It's a great company. I do think the software is not adequate by itself for learning French. For one thing, it doesn't teach enough vocabulary, maybe just a few new words each session, when you really need a lot more. You need a book so you can look things up easily, and so you can go through the grammar more systematically. Another limitation is that the tutor is not a native French speaker, and her accent, though good for an American, is hardly perfect. She is the tutor for French 1 and 2, but for French 3 they use a native speaker. However, even for 1 and 2 the exercises and dialogues are not spoken by the tutor, but by native speakers; the tutor just gives the explanation before the exercises. The other products you might be considering are Rosetta Stone and French in Action. If Rosetta Stone is like their demo CD, it shows a lot of words and phrases without translation or explanation, in my opinion not at all appropriate for learning another language. French in Action is fabulous (and cheap), but my son found it too advanced; it's really for someone who knows more, and knows how to study without a lot of direction. Another consideration is the software licensing. Fluenz lets you download the software to as many computers as you like, though every 5 or so sessions you have to insert the physical DVD. This is very convenient at our house, where we don't always use it on the same machine.

My husband and i absolutely love it. So far we went through 6 sessions and already the progress is obvious. We can converse on basic level even though niether of us had french before. My only wish is that fluenz offered more levels and more languages.