Description:
It is a credit to Fairfield Language Technologies that its French Explorer is one of the best examples of language-learning software--period. If you are used to the old-fashioned but lamentably persistent grammar-translation method of learning languages, French Explorer may surprise you because it involves no overt instruction in grammar or lists of vocabulary with English translations. Instead, it relies on very clever contextualization of French words and structures with photographs so that you never realize you're learning grammar. We literally found ourselves speaking and understanding quite a bit of basic French in about an hour. Each graduated lesson works like this: First, you learn a new word by seeing a picture of, say, a dog. You then read the French word for "the dog" and hear it spoken: le chien. After learning a whole set of words this way, you move into self-quizzing mode, where you see just a picture of a boy and you have to choose the right word, either from spoken or written cues. This emphasis on listening comprehension is fantastic and is one of the components that sets the software apart, but there are also reading and writing exercises. So how do they cover grammar? Eventually, for instance, you'll see le chien under a picture of one dog and les chiens under a picture of two dogs. If you are a grammar guru, you might be able to figure out that plural nouns take les and end in s. However, the beauty is you don't have to be a grammar guru at all because the software doesn't expect you to state rules like that; it expects you only to associate a picture of more than one dog with les chiens instead of le chien. Eventually you get into longer phrases that cover verbs, adjectives, and prepositional phrases. It's amazingly effortless, especially so for children as young as 6. Caveats: The CD-ROM includes both Mac OS and Windows versions. Your installation will include the first-level lessons of a couple dozen other languages for free, too, so you have to know that the French word for "French" is français in order to select it from the list. Also, remember that software is no replacement for French-speaking people, so take what you learn and use it in the world! --Erik Macki
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