French Without the Fuss [Large Print] [Paperback]

Living Language (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 16, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0609810618 | ISBN-13: 978-0609810613

Want to brush up on your French, but you’re traumatized by the memory of your grammar-obsessed high school teacher? Planning a trip to France or Québec but don’t have the time, patience, or money for a 16-week course? Well, you're in luck. French Without the Fuss will teach you the everyday French spoken on the streets of Paris and Montréal–and you won't have to cram down long lists of verb conjugations.

20 simple lessons do all the right things to help you learn fast:

• Nontraditional teaching methods help you understand, speak, and soon think in French without obsessing over details.
• Funny, convincing dialogues let you speak naturally and stay motivated.
• Practical, up-to-date vocabulary and slang keep you from sounding like a textbook.
• Lifestyle, popular-culture, and history notes make you feel like an insider from the start.
• Smart activities give you plenty of opportunity to practice.
• A simple, straightforward approach to grammar teaches what’s really useful without nit-picking and technical jargon.

French Without the Fuss will fill your free moments with fun and do wonders for your French in a matter of weeks!

You’ll also find references for French Internet sites, movies, and music; an extensive glossary; a grammar summary; and maps of France and Montréal. Alors, bonne chance et bon voyage!

Practice for a flawless accent with the one-hour audio CD–contains dialogues, spoken by native speakers!

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Living Language (July 16, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609810618
• ISBN-13: 978-0609810613
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,024,202 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good introduction to the language, September 15, 2004

By 

r - See all my reviews

This review is from: French Without the Fuss (Paperback)

I had very little knowledge of French when I started reading this book. Then I signed up for a class and had to buy an inferior textbook, which really made me appreciate how good -French Without the Fuss- is.

It explains most of the fundamentals carefully and clearly in English, so that you can always understand what's going on. Informal sentence structures and words are taught alongside more formal ones. The pace of each lesson is slow enough that you can keep up as long as you pay attention, but at the same time you keep getting introduced to new words and expressions. The book also mentions a lot of small, tricky points that confuse beginners, like using the masculine possessive pronoun "mon" for feminine objects that begin with vowel sounds ("mon amie"). French cultural highlights are included.

The audio CD included with the book is lamentably short, with recordings of cheesy dialogues. But each dialogue introduces vocabulary and grammar gracefully, and although the actors manage to sound fairly natural, their pronunciation is adequately clear and slow. Track 1 has an irritating 30-second introduction.

I've gotten up to the third or fourth chapter, and although I found a few typos and was bored by some of the cultural notes, I feel like I've really mastered the basics of French grammar and have a decent grasp of pronunciation. I'm glad I learned my first French from this book, because if I'd read a different book I might have gotten discouraged at the very start.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars C'est Bonne et Magnifique!, July 6, 2005

By 

LightofBeauty - See all my reviews

This review is from: French Without the Fuss (Paperback)

My knowledge of French was limitied before buying this book, all i knew beforehand was a few phrases and numbers. But now i feel that just from going through 2 chapters of the book so far that i am truly grasping the language in a way that is fun, and very simple. The book doesn't make you feel intimidated, confused, or the least bit lost. And i think that's due to the fact that the author, or the narrator, of this book seems to know that the best way to learn another language is to do it at your own pace, no rushing or overwhelming you suddenly with something new. Great for beginners or people who already have had at least 2 or 3 years of French. And they also explain the grammar very well. Everything is just beautifully layed out, and there really is no fuss in learning the language from this book. Another great bonus about this book is how it's very modern, they have phrases that are actually used often by the French(so that way you won't sound like a textbook when you're actually speaking French), they have a dictionary in the back with the pronunciation (highly useful!), have an excellent appendix on verbs and phrases that "make you sound French" quickly, as well as neat and modern facts about the culture. It really does live up to its title, highly recommended.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars REfRESHINGLY GREAT!, August 21, 2006

By 

Galandrial (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: French Without the Fuss (Paperback)

Buy this bok if you want to actually enjoy your the task of learning the language (not just the accomplishment of having done so). My daughter (an affirmed non-language learning lover) and I (a language teacher for over 20 years) have been doing 5 pages of this book every day for the past month. The creativity of the exercises, humor of the dialogues and variety of the activities has kept us going. We are amazed at how much Fench we have learned in one month. The CD dialogues are very helpful with , we assume, authentic accents at a natural pace. My advice- Stop reading this review and GET THE BOOK! I've used hundreds of language texts for several languages over the years. This is the best I've ever encountered. I only wish they had one for teaching English as a second language.