French the Easy Way

Repetition is key, and there's a good bit in here. I've been using Duolingo so I've gotten down the basics of sentences. This is mor of a introduction to new words and conversations. Excited to work through it!

French the Easy Way is, in my opinion, a definate buy if you know nothing about French and are just starting out, or if you took it in school, totally forgot it (like me) and want to re-learn it. Basically, it's a work book and grammar book all in one. I am so glad I bought it. In addition to providing a pretty solid foundation for further study, this book is a breath of fresh air. Many language books are confusing, illogical, ill-organized and just give you a bunch of seemingly meaningless phrases to memorize! The well-written lessons get to the point quickly without confusing you with a bunch of mumbo-jumbo convoluted phrasing. The lesson chapters themselves are organized one after the other in a logical sequence. The excercises, although kind of too simple at times, are overall quite effective and fun to do. Also for a beginning language book, the (often mind-numbingly dumb) reading material is actually pretty funny. This book does not cover prononciation or French culture; it's just a bare bones BASIC grammar book with basic vocabulary. However, as simple as it is, it still packs a punch. If you wind up buying this book, I suggest studying the lessons first, vocabulary list next, then onto the story at the beginning of each chapter. Rinse, lather, repeat.

This book is great for beginners. It has a lot of interesting dialogue with pictures and exercises. However, if you want more comprensive grammar explanations, you might want to purchase another more grammar-orientated book to go along with this one!

This book is perfect for someone already familiar with beginning French who wants to learn to conjugate verbs and increase their vocabulary. I had already taken a Conversational French course which taught me basic things like food, days of the week, colors, weather, basic phrases, etc. After that I tried a few different French grammar books that confused me more than they helped. But as soon as I started using "French: The Easy Way," my French vocabulary took off. You will still need to use tapes to master the pronunciation, but this book will definitely take your reading and writing of French to the next level.

This book is a good book for learning French and if I had the patience to complete it I could probably be fluent. But, the problem is that if you don't have a formal tutor you are pretty much going to be slowed down a considerable amount. I had looked through the Italian book and finished that with flying colours. The Italian book had a detailed pronunciation guide that spanned several chapters. The French book has a page. That's right, a page for all the fun pronunciation of French and around two or three chapters for nearly phonetic Italian. I have been using a dicitonary to get through this book so far but I'm getting bored.

This is a great book for filling in the grammar details while you do one of the tape-based oral courses that teach grammar only by example. The lessons are well formatted, each beginning with a dialog, then moving on to grammar points and lots of exercises, all with answers. The dialogs show enough sense of humor to keep boredom at bay, and the grammar explanations are simple and clear.