Customer Reviews

The Ultimate French Review and Practice: Mastering French Grammar for Confident Communication

5 star:		(51)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this book to relearn all the grammar I used to know. Having had six years of French (last class was ten years ago), I needed something that would take me through grammar lessons fairly quickly. This book does that.

This is a handbook on grammar and conjugations. It follows a simple pattern for presenting material--it provides short lessons with examples, and then gives 8-12 practice exercises (with answers in the back of book), and so on.

This book emphasizes grammar over vocabulary, but translations are provided for the words that are used in examples and exercises. Translations also appear for idiomatic phrases.

I learned of this book by researching the materials used in upper level French composition classes at various universities. This one came up several times as a companion to the literature that students were required to obtain.

Here are the contents of Ultimate French Review and Practice:

Part I, Verbs--Basic Forms and Uses: 1. Present tense, 2. Present tense of irregular verbs, 3. Negative sentences, 4. Interrogative sentences, 5. Imperative, 6. Passe compose, 7. Imperfect; imperfect versus passe compose, 8. Reflexive verbs, 9. Future and conditional; conditional sentences, 10. Pluperperfect, future perfect, and past conditional; conditional sentences, 11. Passe simple, 12. Present participles; uses of the infinitive.

Part II, Nouns and Their Modifiers Pronouns: 13. Nouns: gender, number, and articles; uses of articles, 14. Stress pronouns; subject-verb agreement, 15. Possessive and demonstrative adjectives and pronouns, 16. Interrogative adjectives and pronouns, 17. Adjectives; comparative and superlative, 18. Object pronouns.

Part III, Other Elements of the Sentence: 19. Numbers; time; dates, 20. Adverbs, 21. Negative and indefinites, 22. Prepositions; prepositions with geographical names.

Part IV, Verbs in Two-Clause Sentences: 23. Relative clauses, 24. The present subjunctive, 25. The past subjunctive; literary subjunctives, 26. The subjunctive (continued).

Part V, Idiomatic Usage: 27. The passive voice and substitutes for the passive, 28. Important idioms and proverbs.

Don't be fooled by the price. This is a great resource.

This book is the best self-contained source for French grammar to come around in a long time. It is particularly good if you learned French through self-study from a variety of sources and want a single volume that encompasses all the essential grammar you need to know. There are lots of exercises (all with answers provided), culture notes, examples from newspaper advertisements, and a section on idiomatic usage. The only caveat is that you should already know French at least to the two-year level. The book is also a bit weak on composition, i.e. letters, essays, and the like. In a formal correspondence, for example, you may want to write using the conditional instead of the present indicative (e.g. je pourrais rather than je peux) and more of this sort of information would have been helpful in a review such as this one.

This is not introductory material so if you are just starting out and want a similar volume try Cassell's Contemporary French by Valerie Worth-Stylianou. Its out of print but frequently available through Amazon's Marketplace sellers. The Cassell's book is geared for beginner and intermediate French learners and is every bit as comprehensive as the Ultimate French Review. The Cassell's book is better at building a vocabulary, idioms, and writing in French, but if you've been there before and just want an in-depth review without the burden of too much "French 101" stuff the Ultimate French Review and Practice is definitely the way to go.

Having taken over 10 years of French lessons through elementary and secondary school, I learned the grammar and had a decent vocabulary. However, after 5 years off of French lessons while attending university, I found myself struggling to form even simple sentences.

I bought this book because of its many (many!) exercises and complete "answer key" for instant feedback. It is organized almost exactly the way I learned it in school which I find very helpful. This book would be very difficult, however, for people with absolutely no background in French. It truly is for the intermediate level.

The book does not have much help for people with poor vocabulary skills in French, but it will drill the grammar into you, if you're diligent about regularly doing the exercises. That being said, if you own a dictionary and a verb conjugation book, the combination of those plus "The Ultimate French Review and Practice" would be a ***** combination.

This is an excellant review book for the former student of french. Instead of the usual slow progress of the "learn french" genre, this book is for the person who once knew french, but forgot it from lack of use. I've purchased two tape series in the past that bored me to tears from the repetition of je suis, tu es, il est. This book rocks and helps you to restore what you used to know! I only wish it had tapes so that I could work on pronunciation. I guess that's what my tutor's for.

And easy to follow--I've been away from the formal study of French for several years, and this book really has helped me to dust off my grammar. Great for someone who already knows some French, and refreshing not to have to start with level one, as in most books. The exercises have lots of repetition but don't get dull.

I don't know if I can begin to describe how great this book really is. I bought this on one of my many days spent at the language section of Borders. I had considered buying it after seeing it on Amazon for quite some time but I didn't really feel I would be ready for it as it stated that it's recommended for intermediate and advanced learners. Well that was about a year before that day at Borders. I skimmed through it, and WOW! It covered just about everything in French grammar and answered all of my questions. It even helped me find new questions that I hadn't realized and answered those ones too! But then there came the little problem of money - I wasn't about to shell out forty dollars for a grammar book on the French language, no matter how many of my questions it answered. So I looked at the price tag... TWELVE DOLLARS! The publishers did not skimp on quality at all, because the book is very durable. It's not made up of cheap pages that disintegrate at the slightest sign of moisture, like the pages in my beloved-but-very-fragile Larousse pocket dictionary.

The book starts out by explaining the conjugations for the verbs, something I thought was rather elementary but it really does help. French is full of irregular verbs that are used in everday speech and the conjugation of these verbs can be a real task if you don't know the right rules. Most of the irregular verbs in French actually have rules on how to conjugate them and their relatives, making it seem as if French is the most gramatically regular language in the world. This book teaches you those rules and provides the necessary exercises for remembering them.

And while I am on the subject of exercises, this book has a plethora of them. My hand actually gets doing all the exercises, which perhaps is the book's only flaw. Don't feel obligated to do all the exercises though if you feel you're a faster learner. Some of them are actually rather lengthy so if I feel I've mastered the material I may only do half of an exercise. Also, sometimes it can help to create your own exercises or notes for material that you just CANNOT grasp. For example the distinction between the passé composé and the imparfait is virtually non-existent for me, and while the book really does do a thorough and concise job of explaining the two tenses, the concept is just too foreign for me. So I make my own notes and exercises and still keep my faith in the book.

At the end of each chapter there are two challenging activities. In the first you translate English sentances into French, something that is actually more challenging than one may think. The second is an oral exercise where the writer tells you to talk with a friend about a certain subject while using a certain tense/verb/etc. I'm a solitary learner so I didn't find this of very much help to me, but I imagine that if you were using this book with a friend or another student it would prove to be very beneficial.

I really do swear on this book and it has taken place as my Bible. EVERY and I mean EVERY SINGLE French student should have this book. There are no excuses for not having it on your shelf. Even if you are beginning you'll soon find that this book comes in handy, espeacially for the first two chapters on verb conjugation. It's cheap, it's durable, it's concise. It is perfect.

I am trying to relearn my French after many years. I am taking lessons and bought this book to reinforce what we are doing in class. It is excellent. The descriptions are clear and complete. There are zillions of exercises in each chapter with the answers in the back so it is easy to get instant feedback on how you are doing. I spent the morning working through the exercises on the IMPARFAIT and I think I have finally pounded it into my head. I definitely recommend this book.

If you're new to French, this isn't your book. They're not kidding when they call it the ultimate review. But if you're a solid intermediate in the language and want to freshen your chops, you won't do much better than this title. The material is clear, with exercises that boost your communication skills (unlike the stilted palaver I was force fed in my first few years of French--e.g., "J'ai un crayon. Mon crayon est jeune." Very useful in conversation.) And the authors include contemporary advertisements and brief articles to get you used to the language as it is actually used today. On the other hand, if you are a beginner, and have the money, buy the Comprehensive Pimsleur French tapes (cher, mais excellent) and this book. The only other thing you'll need is France.

Using this book as a study aid for my IB French test, this book has helped me significantly in my level of fluency over a period of three months. I have learned more from this book than I have in four years of IB study. It has helped answer many of my questions that my teachers could not answer and has provided correct and idiomatic expressions that have replaced incorrect gibberish that were once programmed into my memory. The problems and regimens are a help. But the true best thing about this book is its straightforward information. Granted this book gives very little vocabulary in the way of nouns, but it is a wonderful SUPPLEMENT to already gained knowledge.

I highly endorse Amazon.com's recommendation that The Ultimate French Review and Practice: Mastering French Grammar for Confident Communication by David M. Stillman
is even more excellent when used with Behind the Wheel French.
Mir. Stillman's work is a classic. French grammar is never easy. Mr. Stillman makes leaning French grammar truly understandable and provides practical examples for using what you have learned. Alhough French was not my major in college. I am a high school Spanish language instructor. I have had the good fortune to see Mr. Frobose as a keynote speaker for the Illinois Foreign Language Association's Winterfest Workshop at the Naperville Hilton Hotel a few years ago. He is a certified French and Spanish instructor in the state of Illinois and was rated as an excellent instructor by his students at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana Illinois.
This workshop was sponsered in part by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages or ACTFL. Dr. Paul Pimsleur did a great deal to create and promote ACTFL. Mr. Frobose gave a wonderful workshop on High Frequency Teaching and received very high marks from foreign language teaching professionals throughout the state who attended the workshop.
As a result of the workshop I purchased Behind the Wheel French. I am a Spanish instructor and wished to improve my very limited French. I am enjoying the course and am getting wonderful results. I have also used and enjoyed Pimsleur courses. Both methods are quite good and both have things to offer. Your individual learning style does have an impact on which learning approach will work better for you.
I personally found that Behind the Wheel French gave me ample time to repeat and used very useful and relevant vocabulary.
One outstanding feature of Behind the Wheel French is the sentence formation techniques which allow you or a novice learner to create a foundation for fluency in a language using only a small fund of vocabulary and modal verbs. This is the genius of the Language Dynamics method. It really is fast and simple. I have used other Language Dynamics products in my classroom and other publications from Mr. Frobose who has written various foreign language works, some of which date back to 1981 when he founded his company.
These short story sets and foreign language tapes and CDs are used all over the nation in foreign language classrooms like mine and have helped many students learn to speak and understand foreign languages. We all owe a debt of gratitude both to Dr. Pimsleur and Mr. Frobose for their contributions to our discipline.
I hope you will experiment and try a variety of methods to assist you in learning to speak a foreign language. It is my opinion that Behind the Wheel French is an excellent means of acquiring conversational ability in French in a non-traditional, friendly and enjoyable way.
Grammar is taught naturally without the terminology we would normally use in the classroom which is a big plus for someone wanting to learn to speak the language without having to learn the academic formalities.
The voices on the CDs were superb and the tracking was excellent and made it easy for me to review. The approach was delightful and creative. Based on my personal and professional experience with this course, I would recommend it to anyone desiring to acquire the ability to speak and understand relevant French in a fast and easy way.
I recommend you by both Mr. Stillman's The Ultimate French Review and Practice
and Mr. Frobose's Behind the Wheel French. They truly do compliment one another.