Voila!: An Introduction to French (with Audio CD) [Hardcover]

L. Kathy Heilenman (Author), Isabelle Kaplan (Author), Claude Toussaint Tournier (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1428231315 | ISBN-13: 978-1428231313 | Publication Date: February 5, 2009 | Edition: 6

This text is intended for the introductory French course at two and four-year colleges and universities.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Voila] is a very solid, comprehensive, and user-friendly elementary textbook that almost all students and instructors are enthusiastic about. It is easy for a novice instructor to do a very good job teaching with this book--it is my task to train new instructors at Columbia, and I can assure you that using a good, clear, reliable textbook that comes with good resources for instructors is a huge help!"

"There are numerous things…that I find positive about [Voila]. I like the characters and the images that are provided in the first part of the chapters. I like the clear explanations of grammatical structures and I like it when there are numerous activities and exercises for students to practice what they have just learned."

Language Notes

Text: English, French --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 559 pages
• Publisher: Heinle; 6 edition (February 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1428231315
• ISBN-13: 978-1428231313
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #67,820 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'd give this 10 stars if I could!, February 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Voila!: An Introduction to French (with Audio CD) (Hardcover)

As an old time French major, I'd have killed for a book like this when I was in college! I bought it just as a refresher and it is everything I could have hoped for. The information is pretty current; the authors take pains to teach you several "registers" of French - i.e. colloquial, slang, etc., because the student at least needs to understand these. I'd love to get my hands on anything else these authors have written.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars a Difficult Semester, November 30, 2010

By 

Rebekah Ryan "aphetica" (Shawnee on Delaware, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Voila!: An Introduction to French (with Audio CD) (Hardcover)

I agree with what another reviewer said about this book being incoherent. The layout is absolutely horrible- they introduce terms and ideas out of nowhere with no explanation as to what they mean, and you end up struggling through the chapter, digging through Google, french dictionaries, and Youtube in an attempt to make sense of any of it, only to realize that most of the magical mystery words were explained totally illogically AFTER the end of the chapter- and explained poorly, I might add. It would be like an English book that asks questions about Ernest Hemingway 30 pages BEFORE explaining who he was and why he was significant.

The package I received (NOT from Amazon, bought it from the college) came with the text, a workbook with two major sections that both "sort of" follow the text chapters, a set of 3 audio CDs, and different set of 13 audio CDs. However, the podcasts mentioned in the book cannot be found anywhere at the indicated URL. Irritatingly, there is no explanation as to how any of these resources are supposed to function as a full learning system. It's just "here you go, have fun sifting through this random swiss-cheese collection of french stuff".

Voila! Might be okay if you're not a first year student and already have some kind of grasp on these concepts, but for a beginner, it's an absolute nightmare. The book is definitely not for anyone attempting to teach themselves French- I can barely make sense of it even with the guidance of a teacher.

I'd like to point out that I do quite well in all of my subjects and have never had this much of a problem with a book before. I have honestly learned more French from Youtube and LiveMocha than I have from this book. The only reason I would buy this, knowing what I know now, would be if it were absolutely required for a course.

I gave this textbook two stars only because of the inclusion of the audio companion CDs, which aid in pronunciation.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars francais, October 18, 2000

By 

michelle laureano (richmond, va United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Voila: An Introduction to French (Hardcover)

This book is very helpful,as a student who had not studied french for 2 years it not only broke down things that you need to know( verbs, indefinaye articles,etc.) It alsohelped with articles in french and a tremendous vocab section.