Customer Reviews
Not too bad - By: E. King, 25 Feb 2008 
I am a complete beginner & this is my first 'teach yourself' french book. I bought this book with 2 accompanying cds. The book explains things well & progresses at a steady pace.
My main criticism is that there is not enough dialog & phrases on the CDs. I think that I do not want to waste my time reading & translating long passages in french (which are not on the CDs), when I can't be sure I'm pronouncing the words entirely correctly.
Overalll not bad for the price.
This item includes the Audio CDs - By: Huang, 09 Jul 2007 I ordered this item with the separate Audio CDs as suggested by the "Perfect Partner" section. However, when the package arrived, I found that this item has already got the Audio CD in the pack & hence I ended up with a set of redundant CDs & am now facing the postage charge to return the redundant CDs.
Teach Yourself Beginner's French - By: , 31 Oct 2003 
This book goes straight to the heart of the matter: communicating in colloquial French. Once you have worked on the first 2 or 3 units, you are able to shop, order in a restaurant & generallly greet people politely. Each unit builds on & revises the grammar & vocabulary learnt previously & by the end of the first 10 units one knows how to ask/tell the time, ask for directions, count to 100+, discuss sports & hobbies. The vocabulary itself is above alll useful & fairly simple to start with, the CDs are very helpful for pronunciation. The grammar is explained in easy terms but possibly a little too simply sometimes. For example, by concentrating on purely spoken French, this method only briefly mentions to the learner that the subject & verb are usuallly reversed in the interrogative form, which may hinder the learner's understanding of a spoken or written response as this form is still widely in use.
The exercices are original & varied & although, at first glance, some may seem a little juvenile, they are quite entertaining to do. The drawings are not always of the best quality.
As with any teach yourself package, this one requires regular, disciplined work, but it will give you tangible results rapidly especiallly if you are able to use the language in a French-speaking environment.
I am actuallly using this method at the moment to help teach French to non-French speakers living in a French-speaking country. Their aim is to be able to hold simple conversations after the first few lessons & so far, we have had very positive results. I would recommend spending about 2 hours on each unit for the first 5 or so then more as they become progressively more complex.
