Customer Reviews

Learn French the Fast and Fun Way (Barron's Fast and Fun Way Language Series) (French Edition)

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

 

 

I just finished three quarters of French with this pseudo-text in a high school adult education course. The teacher is a Suisse lady and a gem, but the book is wholly inadequate even as a superficial introduction. The book proves that language is NEITHER fast nor fun. Only the present tense is introduced. The sunbjunctive and some idiomatic expressions are dropped into the text and then left unexplained. Worse yet, the vocabulary is designed for serious [i.e., fabulously rich] shoppers. You will learn such expressions in Frech as "a ring without a setting" and "pendent earrings" and how to get your watch fixed, but you will never carry on a simple conversation with a French speaking person. Quel dommage! Get a real textbook or if you can get help on pronunciation, a do-it-yourself book like Adrianne's old "French in 32 Lessons" or Berlitz.

This book/ audio cassette tape is an awesome start to learning french, one of the best ways I've found so far out there. It actually takes the time to explain to you how to make your own sentences, so you'll actually be able to speak the language. YOu also learn the grammar easy, without too much memorization or confusion. Works great with me.

Even though my mother's side of the family is very French I do not know how to speak the language except for bits and pieces yet I found myself sweating as we planned a family trip to Paris. This system really helped me bone up on my language skills. It's easy to follow and the daily lessons really get you moving along on your French!

Not worth the price! The tapes are not always correlated with the text (not updated with the book's revision). The pitiful dictionary omits basic words but includes arcane menu items. The tapes' speakers garble the phrases and do not include enough short phrases reachable by positioning the tape. The illustrations (undecipherable cartoons) don't adequately identify the word. Despite my four years of French in high school and college and time in France, I found the tapes incomprehensible most of the time and can't imagine how a newcomer to the language could benefit at all from this course.

I really enjoyed the layout of this program. I have invested a great deal of money in courses to self-teach myself French and Barron's is by far the best. It came with 4-CDs so you get to HEAR the way the words are spoken and a 250 page book loaded with activities to help you learn...a winning combination! Granted, it could use some updating, ex. it still refers to francs and not euros and every now and then, the CD conversation is not EXACTLY as it is printed in the book, but that only happened like twice. However, the reason Barron's wins out over the other book/CDs courses is their activity workbook. This is what really grabbed my attention and motivated me to keep going until I actually completed the whole book. A first for me! The workbook is like an activity book..8"x10" in size(a BIG plus!)so there is actually ROOM to write your answers, unlike the book in Oxford's "Take off in French" (5 x 7.75" super tiny!) The chapters are about 15 pages each and have a theme (Getting to know people, Arrival, etc.) They each have plenty of audio or a dialog that includes a side-by-side english translation so you're not flipping pages back-and-forth to make sense of it all (like Living Language's "ULTIMATE FRENCH"--another small book that don't even have room to write answers to lessons at all!) AND it has the pronounciation above the words. Chapters also include some grammar and/or verbs are introduced; and finally, there are some fun activities: puzzles, fill-in the blanks, word matching, etc. The answers are at the bottom of the pages...again, no flipping to the BACK of the book to grade your work. There are a couple of test as well to measure your progress. Overall, I found Barron's Fast & Fun activity kits to be the best beginner's tool for learning a foreign language. While visiting Paris, I've referred to some of the dialogs in this book to help me ask for something...who knew I would have to tell the maid to starch my hubby's pants while on vacation?? Thanks for the help, Barron's! Now, how about an Advanced version?

this is a great book to learning french try also berlitz self teacher and french made simple and the complete idiots guide to learning french bonne chance

Very useful for a starter. Filled with pictures to help learning. Contains day-to-day usage phrases, commonly used sentences and special coverage of situations. It has an activity kit that has puzzles, qizzes and maps.