Customer Reviews

Practice Makes Perfect: French Pronouns and Prepositions (Practice Makes Perfect Series)

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

 

 

Working through this book brings back memories of junior high school when I first struggled with many of the concepts covered here. I wish that resources like this had been available back then -- my life would have been easier.

I only have a couple of qualms about this volume, which is why I assigned only four stars.

First, it has errors that should have been caught before publication, such as this example sentence on page 11:

"Je ne n'ai pas ceux dont tu as besoin."

A native French proofreader would instantly have spotted the superfluous "ne" above.

Second, some of the examples, while technically correct, sound awkward and not at all like any actual French person would speak or write. Thus, from page 76:

"Les lui avons-nous communiqués?"

But the pronoun information is generally helpful, and I understand that it's necessary to contrive examples to illustrate various rules.

The second part of the book, addressing prepositions, is competent, and acknowledges with refreshing candor that much of the material simply must be memorized -- there is no particular logic, for instance, to why certain verbs normally are followed by "à" whereas others are followed by "de" and still others by no preposition at all.

There are a number of exercises throughout with answer keys in the back.

All in all, a fairly inexpensive tool that offers useful help with two of the more significant bętes noires of students of French.

I've found this book very useful. I'm fluent in both English and Spanish so I understand verb conjugation and have a fairly broad vocab. Yet I felt like a three year old grasping to make sentences. This book helps fill in the spaces, making you sound more fluent and boosting confidence. The workbook style is effective in helping you to remember. I would definitely recommend to anyone willing to put in the effort needed to learn french. It's well worth it.

When pronouns and prepositions were introduced in my second semester of Intro French I didn't feel like they were explained thoroughly enough in class or in the textbook and most importantly there weren't enough exercises - we didn't do a whole lot of practice. This is the reason I decided to start going through Practice Makes Perfect: French Pronouns and Prepositions - to get myself more comfortable and confident with this aspect of French grammar. I had already gone through the Spanish version of this book and it was VERY helpful. (I was at about the same high-beginner level in Spanish as I was with French when I picked up the French version) So I expected this to be just as good. (I've actually gone through maybe 4 or 5 other Practice Makes Perfect Books, all Spanish- and I rated them all 5 stars- this is the first time I'm a bit disappointed with a book in the series).

One of the biggest issues I had was the fact that although there's a French to English glossary (which isn't that great) there isn't an English to French glossary. Although the Spanish version of the book didn't have glossaries at the back, there were many words translated throughout the book in brackets - words that aren't the most common. This was done on almost every page of exercises. This is much more helpful than the glossary that was in this book. You'll find many basic words in the glossary, but often less common words are not included (for example, I'd rather see words like "périmé" (out-of-date), "partager" (to share) and "persil" (parsley) [these were in the exercises but not the glossary] under "P" in the glossary than the more common words like "porte" (door) and "plus" (more). There are many many examples though, I wrote down several words that I had to look up. I'll make a list of them under "comments" of my review if I can for anyone who buys this book and wants to copy paste it and print it out. It will make going through the book easier for a lot of high-beginner, low-intermediate students. Sometimes it's not so important to know some vocabulary in order to do the exercises, but if you're like me, you'll want to understand everything you're reading. It is important to know words when translating from English to French though - like I said, there's no English to French glossary.

Another thing I didn't like about the book was that, often, when you have to translate (from English to French) using a future tense, you don't know which tense you're supposed to use (and of course you want it to match up with the answers in the answer key).

As another reviewer stated, the answer key gives a single answer for each exercise when there are in many cases 2 or more answers that are correct.

Sometimes, when you're asked to translate questions from English to French, you're not told which way to pose the question (inversion/est-ce que).

There should be more practice with using plaire, manquer, and other verbs like that, because the way they're used confuses a lot of students. This was brought up in the book and explained but there is only one exercise for this with 10 questions (exercise 6-7)

The prepositions portion of the book could have been better. It was a bit disappointing. There is so much information - when there is so much stuff that's brought up - there should be many exercises, perhaps spaced out (it would be better if you were given a small amount of information on certain verbs and prepositions that follow them and then exercises, then another bit of info followed by exercises, etc, instead of just a huge amount of information and a few exercises right after).

On to what I liked about the book. It's fairly well organized, especially the pronouns portion of the book, which covers 14 of the 18 chapters. Overall there are a good amount of exercises (especially, once again, in the pronouns part). There are often enough examples, although sometimes you're only given examples in order to do an exercise, instead of an explanation followed by examples. There's an answer key at the back. The fact that the book is cheap is a plus. I don't know of any other decent workbook on French pronouns and prepositions, so at least this exists.

If I didn't have to look up so many words it would have saved me some time.

The book is worth getting despite what it's lacking. I don't know of any other good workbooks on French pronouns and prepositions. I'm definitely more confident with French pronouns but not as much with prepositions, after going through this book.

I'd recommend it to students with at least one semester of French up to maybe 2 to 3 years.

I'm an intermediate speaker of French (native English speaker). While I wouldn't normally buy a book written in English to learn French, I thought it might show me where I was erroneously applying English sentence structures to French sentences. I was wrong.

My main issue is that this book does not delve very deep. If you know enough French vocabulary to complete the exercises, you already know the basics of French prepositions, which is what this book will give you in the preposition section. But it's more a set of lists than an explanation of the logic underlying preposition choice. Consider this bizarre excerpt:

=============

To describe how to do something, with is translated by de:

Jé l'ai remercié d'un sourire.
I thanked him with a smile.

Il a quitté la salle d'un air triste.
He left the room with a sad look.

D'un geste, elle lui indiqua la porte.
With a gesture, she showed him the door.

The preposition with is left untranslated when describing a way of doing things or carrying oneself.

Il avance vers eux, les manches retroussées.
He is walking toward them with his sleeves rolled up.

Elle le regarde, les yeux écarquillés.
She is looking at him with wide eyes.

============

So, if you're describing a way of doing things, do you use the preposition "de" or no preposition at all? Are both always grammatically correct? If not, what makes "with wide eyes" a no-preposition expression whereas "with a smile" merits a "de?" Annie Hemmingway and her editors at McGraw Hill obviously didn't think it was very important, because you won't find the answer in this book.

My other issue, along a related vein, is the answer key gives a single answer for each exercise, when there are in many cases two or more answers that are correct. So you might understand how to phrase a sentence correctly in French, only to unlearn that correct sentence structure to replace it with another that is no more correct.

I wanted to give this book one star, but it isn't wholly without merit, since it does provide lists of prepositions, albeit with very sparse explanation, that some students might find useful. Nevertheless, I don't think you should waste your money on this dubious text.

It is a good book. But The preposition section is a bit lacking. Eg. Unit 16 Common Prepositions - I actually expected more explanation of the "one-word" prepositions. All that was there was a list of the "other" prepositions with their translations. Some words have more than one meaning depending on the context. Eg. "Pendant" can mean "during" or "for". There could be more explanation. I RECOMMEND "The Ultimate French Review and Practice". It covers and explains a bit more.

This is an excellent series for practicing French grammar. Each section has brief introduction...Subject Pronouns, Direct Object Pronouns, Order of Pronouns, etc...gives a clear overview of the grammatical function and then offers plenty of exercises to hone one's skills. If a CD with printable exercises had been included, I would have given this book 5 stars.

This is a very handy workbook, simple and fun to use. If you want more advanced, go to
"Le Francais Correct: Guide Pratique: Grevisse", 5th edition, 2007

This is exactly the workbook I needed....why when we pay so much for texts at university are they not complete? However, I can always depend on getting what I need at Amazon.com...French is my major and as a second language I find it challenging at times given what I feel is so limited in the regular text. Thank you for this workbook and all of the books I have received from you. Much needed and very much appreciated.