French verb book with a huge listing of verbs. Indicates whether the verb is conjugated with avoir or etre and tells you what prepositions needed to be used with the verb in order to use it correctly. Also differentiates different uses of the verbs. Great book
I have been studying French from textbooks so far. My greatest weakness is understanding how French people speak in real life amongst themselves. While I can read reasonably well, I have difficulty understanding native French spoken at normal speeds. I also struggle to understand French movies.
SmartFrench addresses my needs quite well. It offers a CD product that emphasizes listening to native French people speaking at normal everyday speed and then meticulously explaining how the spoken words, phrases, sentences are actually pronounced and linked together.
For non-natives like us, a major reason that French pronunciation and aural comprehension are so difficult is due to liaisons and unpronounced syllables/words during speech. Smartfrench addresses this very well by highlighting the places where words are glided together i.e. liaisons and also where the syllables/words are silent. The CD and the booklet that comes with the CD marks out in red all the alphabets/words that are silent during speech and underscores all the liaison links. This is radically different from my other French courses where I hear natives speaking but not told where, how and why certain alphabets or words are silent or abbreviated during speech or where the liaisons occur.
The CD goes through 15 interesting dialogs with a beautiful model, a chef, a gallery owner, a singer, a diplomat and so on. Their speech accent, style and level of formality varies, which give good practice in listening to how show more different natives speak.
The product's website at http://smartfrench.com/ offers a DEMO that gives a flavor of how the program works. I had compared SmartFrench with 3 other audio-based programs, namely
1. Discours & Méthode's Perfect Your French (http://www.frenchclasses.com/learn/promotion/index.htm)
2. Foreign Language Service's French Basic Course (http://www.fsi-language-courses.com/French.aspx)
3. Camille's French Audio Books (http://www.learnfrenchinboston.com/book/book_intro.cfm)
I found SmartFrench to be the most focussed on teaching the student how to listen by giving valuable tips and an effective listening road-map along the way. Unlike the other audio books which also try to teach grammar, vocabulary, spelling, etc, SmartFrench single-mindedly zeroed in on helping the student to develop the critical listening techniques for understanding real life French.
For beginners, the Smartfrench approach may appear daunting, but I would still recommend to practice listening right away, at the beginning of learning French. This will familiarize the ear to the sound, rhythm and intonation of real-life native speech and trains the ear from day one how to listen. The SmartFrench technique is very effective in that regard.
For very beginners, SmartFrench offers a separate "Introduction to French" product that also teaches basic grammar, conjugation, vocabulary and sentence building, to complement its unique Listening method mentioned earlier. Check it out at their website (http://smartfrench.com/Welcome/Buy_Now/buy_now.html)
If you want to train your listening skills to eventually understand what the natives are saying, or watch an undubbed movie, news or documentary, SmartFrench is the best training product to add to your French language tool-kit. show less
SmartFrench addresses my needs quite well. It offers a CD product that emphasizes listening to native French people speaking at normal everyday speed and then meticulously explaining how the spoken words, phrases, sentences are actually pronounced and linked together.
For non-natives like us, a major reason that French pronunciation and aural comprehension are so difficult is due to liaisons and unpronounced syllables/words during speech. Smartfrench addresses this very well by highlighting the places where words are glided together i.e. liaisons and also where the syllables/words are silent. The CD and the booklet that comes with the CD marks out in red all the alphabets/words that are silent during speech and underscores all the liaison links. This is radically different from my other French courses where I hear natives speaking but not told where, how and why certain alphabets or words are silent or abbreviated during speech or where the liaisons occur.
The CD goes through 15 interesting dialogs with a beautiful model, a chef, a gallery owner, a singer, a diplomat and so on. Their speech accent, style and level of formality varies, which give good practice in listening to how show more different natives speak.
The product's website at http://smartfrench.com/ offers a DEMO that gives a flavor of how the program works. I had compared SmartFrench with 3 other audio-based programs, namely
1. Discours & Méthode's Perfect Your French (http://www.frenchclasses.com/learn/promotion/index.htm)
2. Foreign Language Service's French Basic Course (http://www.fsi-language-courses.com/French.aspx)
3. Camille's French Audio Books (http://www.learnfrenchinboston.com/book/book_intro.cfm)
I found SmartFrench to be the most focussed on teaching the student how to listen by giving valuable tips and an effective listening road-map along the way. Unlike the other audio books which also try to teach grammar, vocabulary, spelling, etc, SmartFrench single-mindedly zeroed in on helping the student to develop the critical listening techniques for understanding real life French.
For beginners, the Smartfrench approach may appear daunting, but I would still recommend to practice listening right away, at the beginning of learning French. This will familiarize the ear to the sound, rhythm and intonation of real-life native speech and trains the ear from day one how to listen. The SmartFrench technique is very effective in that regard.
For very beginners, SmartFrench offers a separate "Introduction to French" product that also teaches basic grammar, conjugation, vocabulary and sentence building, to complement its unique Listening method mentioned earlier. Check it out at their website (http://smartfrench.com/Welcome/Buy_Now/buy_now.html)
If you want to train your listening skills to eventually understand what the natives are saying, or watch an undubbed movie, news or documentary, SmartFrench is the best training product to add to your French language tool-kit. show less
I borrowed this book from the local library and read about half of it, before ordering it from Amazon. It arrived yesterday. Like all the other reviewers, I love the book.
I had read Louise Selbert's excellent "Skills & Techniques for Reading French" earlier, and found Sandberg's book a good complement.
Sandberg's approach is very different from Selbert's.
Sandberg's book addresses graduate students who need to quickly acquire a reading knowledge of French to pass a language exam. I'm not a student, nor do I have to take exams. But I found the book helpful in enhancing my French reading skills. It uses a programmed approach. Instead of detailed exposition of a topic, it first gives tiny snippets of grammar & vocabulary, followed by short sentences in small exercises to illustrate the topics. These sentences are taken from long passages that appear later at the end of the chapter. By the time you get to these entire passages towards the chapter end, you would have virtually covered all the component sentences earlier via the small exercises earlier. This is the format of Sandberg's programmed methodology. And it works! My French proficiency is intermediate. I found my French reading ability moving a notch up, even having completed so far only slightly more than half of the book.
As other reviewers have noted, the book's price may deter some. For me, however, it is value for money. While some of the passages are pre-war, they are well chosen in terms of subject matter, depth show more and style.
I recommend it highly. show less
I had read Louise Selbert's excellent "Skills & Techniques for Reading French" earlier, and found Sandberg's book a good complement.
Sandberg's approach is very different from Selbert's.
Sandberg's book addresses graduate students who need to quickly acquire a reading knowledge of French to pass a language exam. I'm not a student, nor do I have to take exams. But I found the book helpful in enhancing my French reading skills. It uses a programmed approach. Instead of detailed exposition of a topic, it first gives tiny snippets of grammar & vocabulary, followed by short sentences in small exercises to illustrate the topics. These sentences are taken from long passages that appear later at the end of the chapter. By the time you get to these entire passages towards the chapter end, you would have virtually covered all the component sentences earlier via the small exercises earlier. This is the format of Sandberg's programmed methodology. And it works! My French proficiency is intermediate. I found my French reading ability moving a notch up, even having completed so far only slightly more than half of the book.
As other reviewers have noted, the book's price may deter some. For me, however, it is value for money. While some of the passages are pre-war, they are well chosen in terms of subject matter, depth show more and style.
I recommend it highly. show less
A basic first year college/university textbook on the French language. Well organized and clearly presented , with explanations in English and French.
