Customer Reviews

French, Plus: Learn to Speak and Understand French with Pimsleur Language Programs

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

 

 

If the Pimsleur Levels 1,2, and 3 worked for you, this will, too. It's strictly aural learning, and it's well-paced.

The usual complaints apply as well. There are no break bands in the lessons, so if you're using CDs, it's very inconvenient to review one specific section unless it is right at the beginning of the lesson.

My big complaint is about the content: it's surprisingly focused on the publishing industry. Is that really generalizable to the rest of the language? Do most people learn French so they can work in publishing? Or is it just a way for the publisher of the series to turn a profit on their employee training?

Pimsleur Spanish ended with a scenario of a trip. There was a series of introductions, some general business interaction, some entertaining, and a goodbye party. It seemed much more likely to be useful than a bookseller's convention in Paris.

I know I could foresee more use for the Spanish terms for "meeting agenda", or "dancing" than I could for the French terms for "author's rights" (which they drilled with extraordinary frequency) or "book cover" or "bookstore owner."

As one who had completed 100 French lessons with the Pimsleur method, I must agree that it did indeed work to some extent. The method is powerful, efficient and pleasing, you finish each lesson with new words you are able to use immediately. It's developed in such a way, leaving you with an impression as you would had always been a French speaker.

This is, however, professionally deceiving. I will hence summarize my personal con-experience with the Pimsleur method in general, and with the French Pimsleur language program specifically.

CONTENT ISSUES
1. I've completed 100 30-minute lessons, and, among others, I was not taught any of the following very essential every-day used words: Body parts; months (except for January and February); almost no colors are taught and drilled (except for red and white as the basic colors of wine, blue and green in the last 2 minutes of lesson number 100 as colors of books); many daily found objects (no animals are taught, the vehicle list is very limited, except for the ordinary car and airplane nothing else is revealed to you, no trees or plants apart from the general word "flowers"); it's as well limited in daily human activities (here are some words I've learned with Rosetta Stone at some point at the beginning: second-third etc., empty/full, light/dark, etc.; it gives no clue on clothing, building types (the word "house" is told only as part of the "publishing house", see more on this publishing theme later), and so on.
However, the publisher was successful in creating scenes, chats and street talks using limited and poor vocabulary. In real life, they have almost no value.

EXPLANATORY MATTERS
2. According to my understanding, one must have some prior knowledge or exposure to no less then one foreign language in order to find these lessons useful. English is for myself a second (in fact the third) language, and I've noticed how different modern (and of course, American more then the European) English grammar is from other European languages. Many conjugative words used in English, are not used in other languages, others are used differently, giving room for failure and non-proper use by the native English speaker. Without my knowledge of other languages, this method would definitely take me a much longer time, as the program (or added media, see next paragraph) does not reveal to you the fundamentals of French grammar. You cannot expect the novice to self-understand basics.
As an alternative, you might grab any dictionary with a few introduction pages of French regular and irregular verbs. I've found use of the Larousse Mini Dictionary, it contains a dozen of informative pages on the "art" of the language, and hence reduces the "risk" of errors.

READING MATERIAL
3. The reading contents were not wisely chosen. There must be a philosophy why S&S decided not to include a list of words taught apart from the core lesson, but the beginner would get a lot more out of the lessons had they done so. The excuse "your French will have an English accent" - given it the new Users Guide, is absurd, as it should be accompanied by an audio file, as with the current reading booklets, and as in all other language learning programs.
The command écouter et répéter (listen and repeat) was in my opinion created for parrots but for humans with comprehension. How could you expect an intellectual person to just repeat after the pre-recorded speaker without having an idea of how the word looks like, how it is spelled, and what makes the earlier-taught word masculine or feminine, past or present? Some terms do have a brief explanation added, but all this should have been included in a proper reading booklet. In fact, you are told to read aloud many words you are not familiar with, when such a word is approached, you lose your confidence, as you are unable to recall it's meaning until you remember that it was never taught to you.

SUMMARY
To summarize: The content largely emphasizes on: Greetings, food and dining, travel/directions, entertainment, somewhat on shopping, banking and business, and shockingly (as mentioned by the previous reviewer) on the publishing industry, and the reading material is not adequate.
I cannot give it the fifth star, as it lacks very important and critical terms and words. However, if you are able to get it at a good price (the list price is very high), you will get an idea of how to start reading French, as it is very different from the English, as most words contain silent letters, in the middle as at the end.
One great point, however, about the Pimsleur language program is, it earns a star on pronunciation, for the manner the foreign language is presented is, when truthfully followed, allows you to correctly and precisely perceive the words, very close to a native tongue.

Bonne chance!

Having used Pimsleur to learn four languages, I was looking forward to French Plus to enhance my conversational skills. Overall, Pimsleur does a great job of introducing a language and providing sufficient skills to get along fine in a language in day-to-day situations. However, Pimsleur chose to focus on the publishing business in French Plus rather than offer a wider range of subjects that would be useful to a broader customer base. I had read previous comments by other users that they had done this, and should have been forewarned, but even so, I was surprised that so much time was spent on such a narrow subject. As a result, I feel that Pimsleur missed an opportunity to produce another worthwhile tool. French I-III were fine, but French Plus was a disappointment.

My major complaint about Pimsleur is the fact that the lessons stop at too low a level. This course is a bit of a disappointment after the 30-lesson each Levels I, II, and III. The 10-lessons in this program mostly focus on words related to the publishing industry. When I contacted Pimsleur to ask why they don't offer higher lessons, they said that there is not enough demand for those levels. That said, this does feature the Pimsleur method, which works because it has you USE the language. Other programs may claim to introduce more vocabulary, but Pimsleur will have you using and retaining your new words. Most programs tend to run through endless lists of vocabulary that quickly drown the user in a sea of new words. Pimsleur carefully introduces related words a little bit at a time and has you apply those words in short conversations. After working through French I, II, III, and Plus, I remember a great deal of college French, have learned new vocabulary, have vastly improved my accent, and have a much better ear for listening to dialogue in French movies. Pimsleur frustrations: no explanations of grammar rules, no real book, and the fact that it stops after only three full levels. An excellent and cheap companion is the book "French Made Simple," which compensates for some of these Pimsleur shortfalls.

I have been through the entire Pimsleur French program, I, II, III and Plus. I am actually on my third time through, now.

I think that the program, in general, is excellent. I found this program to be the most enjoyable of the programs that I have been using. It is fun.

I am hoping that they will continue to produce more advanced levels.

I'm a second year French student. During a break in my academic program, I tried to learn independently with a variety of products. Pimsleur is by far my favorite. I've been through the entire series (I, II, III, and French Plus) more than once. If learning French is not your primary gig and you have just a little high school or college French, I think you will like it just as much as I do.
When I was working, I did most of my learning in my car on my commute. This didn't work well with products designed to be used in conjunction with a book. This method is completely auditory and is perfect for the car. I still use it now that I am back in college because it is so helpful in building speaking confidence, learning sentence structure, and improving pronunciation.
Those are its strenghs, but like everything I have tried, it has some weaknesses as well. I wouldn't recommend it for someone who has never taken a French class, precisely because it doesn't have that written component and because knowing a few basic rules of grammer makes everything so much more clear. Also, the emphasis is on putting together sentences in clear, comprehensible French and not on extensive vocabulary building. The vocabulary gained will help you get by in the most common situations, and that's about it.
As far as this particular edition goes, it's much shorter than the first 3. I wish it were longer and covered more situations, but on the other hand, this one is much cheaper than the others . The focus on the publishing industry seems to have rubbed most of the reviewers the wrong way. For me, it was fine. The strengh of the method is still building a foundation for speaking good French and for that, it's as good as the first 3. Again, if you want more vocab, you'll have to supplement this with some other product.
I think the Pimsleur series is a great product for someone who is really serious about learning French. If you just want a little French to travel by, you probably don't need to commit this much time and money. Just get a phrasebook and trust in the fact that there is usually someone around who speaks English.

I found the format and approach of these CDs to be quite good. The focus on pronunciation - in particular how the flow between words is practiced as its own sound (i.e. the last syllable of a word and the first syllable of the following word being practiced as a single utterance) , was effective for me. And I found the way that the parts of speech built upon each other from the simple lessons to more complex grammar and vocabulary to also be fairly intuitive and, for me at least, and natural way to grow my competency with French. I even found myself understanding some spoken French while watching one of the French language TV channels at the Sofitel hotel, which pleased me as I had always found understanding native French speakers to be practically impossible, even back in college days of yore when I had taken some years of French for my foreign language requirement.