I have these books in French, German, Italian, and Russian. I am a huge fan of these books and prefer them to many other methods out there (and I have used a lot of them).
Granted, this book was more helpful back when there was no Internet which can provide myriad French language courses but it begins with an extensive discussion of French pronunciation. For an English speaker, French can be like jabbering with a mouth filled with gumballs. The accent is tonal or nasal or basically anything which does not exist in the English (or Saxon) tongue. There is a helpful phonetic alphabet to assist the reader.
And, admittedly, if you cannot practice aloud, you are going to have a tough time learning a language. You should literally do your best Inspector Clouseau and speak in a slow, exaggerated manner until you learn how to properly form the phonemes. French vowels and consonants are clipped, precise, and short. American English is the opposite as it is far more plosive and our vowels go on forever. Once you have developed a proper accent, you will feel the muscles in your face hurt as you are now using them differently.
I do not believe the book has been updated since about the 1950s. My edition is the 1977 edition, or at least that was the last printing or update. I did go to the Internet Archive site and download a public domain edition from 1918 to my Kindle. The methodology is the same though the formatting and lesson plans are different. I bring this up because you will not be learning many updated technological terms. And given that French uses "Franglais" for a lot of up-to-date locutions, it might be for the best. France has strict laws about word usage in the public sphere. Thus you might say "Wi-Fi" (wee-fee) in French conversation, but if you see it in an ad or on a product box it is «accès sans fil à l'internet»; "e-mail" is «courrier électronique», "have a nice weekend" is «bon weekend» but you'll see it printed as «bonne fin de la semaine».
There are twenty lessons, as the title informs you. They are broken down by category though the last three chapters are just lengthy conversations. Again, each word has its phonetic equivalent beside it. The chapters are extensively footnoted to alert the student to idiomatic phrases, literal translations, and helpful grammatical information. After the vocabulary drills, there is a conversation section, also footnoted. The conversations are inane. Don't worry about it. They exist to provide the student with various methods of phrasing and also to use all the words in the lesson. So in the chapter on family and languages, the conversation focuses on a rather peculiar family which speaks about 12 different languages. An uncle who speaks Portuguese; an aunt who speaks German. The dog speaks Italian. Just roll with it. It is all thought out.
French is a difficult language for an English speaker to learn simply because French is derived from the Vulgate Latin and therefore cannot be easily translated literally. Its syntax and grammatical structure is odd to English speakers (as opposed to German, from which English derives). Simply put, French is not English in cipher. And I think this is where the Cortina books excel even against modern teaching methods: there is an extensive grammar section. The second half of the book is all grammar. Not only does this help improve one's knowledge of English grammar for things like sentence diagramming is not taught anymore, but it cracks the the structure of the French language. Eventually you will be able to form sentences in the French manner if you practice rigorously.
There is a lesson plan for each chapter. It is a bit of a pain to flip back to this section and that but if one is truly desirous of learning French, you'll probably take notes and devote your own method to studying it that is rote learning, writing, and speaking. Myself, I typed the entire book out and reformatted it for Kindle so I can just tap to the various grammar sections indicated for the lesson. That alone taught me a lot more and I have been teaching myself French on and off for years.
Needless to say learning a language requires great assiduity. As I mentioned, a 1917 version of this is available in the public domain through archive.org for Kindle and other devices. You can get used copies from Amazon or eBay. Or you can order new copies in most of the languages offered from the company itself at http://cortina-languages.com/
Listen, I have used Berlitz, Pimsleur, studied French in high school and college, I have books and dictionaries and study guide and all kinds of tape courses, etc. I easily have about twenty books on French instruction and despite not being fluent, I could easily teach a course instructing French. If you were to only buy one book to learn French, I'd suggest this one just for its comprehensive grammar section. French is very, very specific about what verb forms are used in a locution. The subjunctive is used far more than in English. There are fourteen tenses and moods in French and all have a practical and distinct use. Plus, as I said, your English grammar will improve from just knowing what a transitive versus an intransitive verb is. You will become acquainted with the pluperfect subjunctive. Again, things we know instinctively from birth but could not articulate.
If you want to have a solid grasp of French in a year, here is what I suggest. Buy this book and study one lesson for at least an hour each day for a week. The whole thing. It'll take a year to go through the book twice. Then hit the Internet The Annenberg Foundation has their great course which aired on PBS in the 1980s called French in Action. You can stream the videos easily on tablets or phones and even have your television show it if you have screen mirroring on your device. There are 52 lessons in that series, each about a half-hour long. So that is one per week also. Between those two things, you'll have a great basic grasp of the French language and can certainly handle yourself in conversations of any variety. Check meetup for French language clubs in your area. If you have Netflix or Hulu, there are myriad French language broadcasts streaming on there. You can watch them without subtitles (though I often watch modern English-language shows with French subtitles just to learn new slang).
Also on the Open Culture site, you'll find the State Department courses which were given to diplomats. My father bought me one in German back when I was a kid and it cost $387.00 ($865.00 today). Needless to say, he strapped me to the dining room table and made me learn German. They are great courses also and are public domain. But I still use my Cortina in German and French to review.
It is a great book and I recommend it despite it being a mite antediluvian. It'll provide a strong spine upon which you can further your studies. Especially nowadays with so many options available for free online. I download lots of great French novels for Kindle for free because they are public domain now.
So if you want to learn French, this is the way to go. Especially if you are the "reading type" like myself. Cortina has a great method to pick up a new language for someone who wants to say more than « Où sont les toilettes? » Best $10 you can spend on yourself. You'll be speaking and expressing yourself without resorting to rote phrases within six months to a year.
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