Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Instant French

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

 

 

I studied this book in the beg of JAN 2000. I have finished this book and all i can say is,,,ITS very good to excellent! ...after the end of the first week , you would be able to speak french..i wouldnt say in six weeks ,,more or so, I would say about 8 weeks...i devoted at least 1 hour a day to this course..sometimes 2...i have no previous knowledge in french and this book taught me to speak french after only 6 weeks..i would devote at least another week to review some words that i tend to forget...This book is excellent for a beginners course book...I am now currently studying the TEACH YOURSELF FRENCH book and audio..i would recommend this instant french book for anyone willing to learn a new language w/o the boredom of grammars nouns and tenses..

I come from an Anglophone African country and had very little exposure to French until I started working for a bilingual international organization. The two official languages in my organization are French and English. All meetings, conferences and documentation have to be in both languages.

When I started working for this organization, I needed a book that would enable me to speak and understand basic French. I often visit Francophone countries where some people hardly speak English including at the airport and in restaurants. This is where the book "Instant French" by Elisabeth Smith came handy. For instance, I had to visit Senegal during the first few weeks of my employment and so I needed something urgent to enable me to have an elementary knowledge of the language in the shortest possible time to be studied whilst also being busy preparing for my trip. I acquired a copy of the book together with the accompanying audio cassette. After spending about an hour a day studying the book and listening to the audio cassette, I acquired sufficient knowledge to order food, ask for directions, negotiate prices in the market and read road signs.

I recommend the book for those who need to learn basic French in a hurry. One, however, needs to understand that this is very basic French. Mastering the contents of the book will not make one to be anywhere near being considering an expert in the language but it makes a very good beginning for those who need to have a go at studying this beautiful language.

French is the 3rd foreign language that I've learned (still learning). I have to say this book plus the accompanying CDs are the best materials out there for learning French. (I've tried a dozen to say at least.) The format of the book is well organized. The conversations and new words are those that you'll recognize on a daily basis.

What I like most of this book is the "dis-emphasize" of the formal endings of the verbs and etc, and instead emphasize on the speaking of the language itself. It's a great relief for someone who's learning a new language, so that he/she would not be overwhelmed by the information overload.

In this day and age, iPod is so ubiquitous. Learning a new language with iPod made it so much easier for me. I imported the whole CDs into my iPod and created playlists like "conversations" and "new words". So, I can either follow the order of the book, or just concentrate on one aspect of the learning at a time instead.

Strongly recommend it to anyone who's aspired to learn this beautiful language. In the meantime, I would also suggest to take a look at "Hide this French CD" and "Play and Learn French", two totally different approaches.

I was greatly disappointed to get the cd (it's not a cd-rom, by the way) without the book. I guess that was my mistake for not reading the fine print. The book and the cd complement each other. Without the book, the cd is not that useful. It's rather annoying to listen to the cd telling you to read along when you don't have the book. I love the Teach Yourself language books, but, for the life of me, I can't figure out why Amazon is selling the cd by itself. It makes little sense because the cd for Teach Yourself Instant French is hardly appropriate to be used alone. If you want to just listen and learn French, I would highly recommend the Pimsleur audio courses, but not Teach Yourself Instant French. You should make sure you get the book and the cd together. If you can't get them together, order them separately but don't use the cd without the book. I made the mistake of buying the cd without realizing that it came without the book. I've been listening to the cd for the last two hours and have come to the realization that the book is necessary. I'm sure Teach Yourself Instant French is a wonderful course, as most Teach Yoursel courses are, as long as you're using the cd with the book. Tomorrow I'm going to go to several used bookstores in my neighborhood to see if I can find the used book. As I can gather from other reviews, people are pleased with the book. The good thing about having the book (even if you don't have the audio that should accompany it) is that at least you can READ at your own pace without having to be constantly replaying the same clip, which is what I've been doing because I don't have the book to help me see how a word is written or pronounced. The speakers on the cd often speak too fast or unclearly, and that's when the book would come in handy because it would help me clarify how those hard-to-pronounce words should be pronounced. Now I'm just rambling but I hope I can somehow save another customer the inconvenience of ordering the cd without the book. Buyer beware.

it's great,funny, & very helpful. i like the words of encouragement that it gives! such as "give yourself a gold star! don't worry!"

I wanted a system that would teach me the basics and would allow me to quickly begin conversing in French which is what this program does.

I love that I can study at my own pace (though I do study for more than 35 minutes a day, it's more like an hour or two depending on how much time I have) and I never get lost in the subject matter. I think the book's sections are split very well, though I definitely recommend the CDs as it helps a lot with pronunciation. I put the audio files on my home and office computer as well as my iPod so I can practice saying the words as well as do the practice exercises where ever I am.

Overall, I'm thoroughly happy with the program and plan to get the "Teach Yourself French Complete Course" once I feel more comfortable with everything I've learned from the Instant French package.

I have been learning french for around three years now and to be honest, i've hated every minute. I've been using this book for around four days now and learnt more than ever before. The truth was that I didn't want to learn how to talk about multi-coloured hamsters, I wanted to be able to go into a french conversation and be able to know what they were saying and be able to share my ideas. I'm going in for my french GCSE next year and although the book claims not to include grammar it provides the reader with varying speech perspectives allowing you to speak for yourself and for others eg. We are going now etc.

I would definately approve this book and as it comes with a tape to improve pronunciation along with on-tape tests also covered in the book, you could learn french while in the car, jogging etc. I have to say, since I read this book I am tempted to buy, Instant Japanese...

What was the smiling author, Elisabeth Smith, thinking, when she wrote this book? It makes absolutely no sense at all, to publish a foreign language book that does not clearly show the correct pronunciations associated with the words.
A beginner will have no clue as to how to correctly pronounce these words in french. And pronunciation is extremely important.....in ANY foreign language. This book (along with many others) are poorly written, rush-to-market paperbacks.

The real "Teach Yourself" series are very well written and will always have a "ty" in the upper left corner of the cover. All the rest are a waste of time.

I studied French in high school and college, so I'll use this book. But for the true beginner, buyer beware.