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Summary: Plenty of games, but where's the French?
Review: C'est Dommage! Je n'amie pas La Francais pour Dummies. I bought this when I decided to teach myself French. (Basically because I like to read about the sport of cycling, I love their bread and I have nothing better to do.) It's been a few months now and I can at least get the jist of the articles in Le Monde, but my listening and speaking ability have a long way to go.Unfortunatley, French for Dummies has been no help what-so-ever. The games just aren't useful for learning. Most of the vocabulary games are similar to a game of concentration - so you spend your time trying to remember where la voiture is rather than what une voiture is. It may entertain younger children, but I I found if very frustrating. It's a shame because it has a nice appearance and looks professionally done. It just wasn't useful. I bought A+ French at the same time and found it much more useful at 1/3 the cost. What I like most about A+ is that it will read aloud (slow or fast) as you read the text. After reading along a few times I close my eyes and listen. In this way I begin to seperate the words and improve my listening skills. Its vocabulary games are cross-words (with help when needed). Typing in the words from memory is a better way to learn than point and click. The Dummies program was also slow to load chapters, and would only accept the CD in my d: drive, not the e: (which happens to be faster and quieter) But here is some useful advice for anyone learning French on a computer. If your CD drive is too loud (that spin-up to 40x sounds like an indy-car) download the free utility "CD-rom tool". You can then (temporarily) set your drive's max speed to 4x or 8x. That's plenty fast for this level of data transfer, and it will be quiet as a whisper - allowing you to hear and speak la francais.
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Summary: French for Dummies is Great!
Review: French for Dummies is very easy to use, is entertaining, and is appropriate for beginners as well as for people with a little knowledge of the French language.
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Summary: What a Surprise!
Review: I started taking VERY expensive private French lessons 12 weeks ago, and was really frustrated in what I thought was my inability to learn French. My accent (or lack of) had become so embarrassing, I was reluctant to even TRY to speak. I was about to give up altogether when while on line,looking for a French/English dictionary I saw the "French for Dummies" CD. The exceptional price and good reviews persuaded me to give it a try. WOW! What a great surprise! I can honestly tell you that one [intensive] week with this highly INTERACTIVE program has improved my comprehension and pronunciation as much if not more than 12 weeks of private tutoring! You'll be surprised at how many differant types of presentations there are! (video, games, language lab)I LOVE THE LANGUAGE LAB! It's a huge help to be able to practice making the SOUNDS of French (in PRIVATE!:-)) and get INSTANT feedback. I also really like the video clips of the native French speakers, It's been very helpful to me to be able to SEE the language spoken. While this program is certainly intended for someone with a little or no prior French, it isn't remedial'it's A LOT of FUN! Just as I was beginning to get really frustrated, and think I just couldn't learn French' "French For Dummies' has reinvigorated my desire to master French!! You'll love the logical and functional way the lessons are laid out, the ease of knwing where you are in the lesson progression, as well as the quality of the software. Most importantly you'll learn FRENCH! Give it a try' you'll parler Francais in no time! PS
While you can order a headset / mic thru a special offer from Syracuse, I think it's worth it to go get one BEFORE your CD arrives so you can get started RIGHT AWAY! HAVE FUN!
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Summary: French Made Simple
Review: I've been using this program for 3 months and I really think it's effective. It breaks down the process of learning the French language into easy, bite-size sections. Each section covers a specific area of learning that is fairly comprehensive and the coverage is just right so users should not feel overwhelmed. One of the best features of "French for Dummies" are the interactive word games. They might not sound serious at first, but they sure are fun, and sometimes make me forget that I'm studying French. They sure work. The words really stick. Another cool feature is the interactive voice recognition where you are made to pronounce words. The program will emit a ring sound if you get the pronunciation right and an irritating "question mark sound" if you don't. It's a good way to force you to say the words properly. Overall, this is a really well-designed program for learning basic French. And for its low price, you really get a lot of bang-for-the-buck. I liked this program so much that I've also bought the "Spanish for Dummies" tutorial CD-ROM. My only complaint is that it's difficult to find information about the whole line of Dummies language tutorial CD-ROMs. I only found out that "Spanish for Dummies" existed is when I passed by a PC software store. It's not listed in [Amazon.com]. Information about this great line of language tutorials should be made easily available. Even the Syracuse Language Systems website is not provided. I even had to search for it on the Net but unfortunately, the website doesn't seem to be working. I'd sure like to know what other languages are available. Still, "French for Dummies" is a great buy. Oh, and by the way, it works on my Windows XP system.
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Summary: Fun , Fun, Fun - A Great Program for Learning French
Review: I've had so much fun with "French for Dummies". What I like about this program is the way that it's set up. It's just like having a language lab in your own home. "French for Dummies" consist of several games that teaches the learner extended vocabulary and verb terms. I really like the video clips of the speakers, which show you how to pronounce the words and phrases. One of my favorite sections of the program is the pronounciation lab, where you learn different sounds of the french language. This program would especially be great for novices and students. You learn a great deal considering the program's low price, so it's worth the money spent. Also you must have a microphone for this program. "French for Dummies" has an offer, in which you can purchase a headset microphone ...
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Summary: Don't believe everything you read.
Review: In all fairness, this product may be wonderfully useful for some people out there. However, unlike Amazon's sell copy presently states, as does the product's packaging, it does NOT work on Windows NT. This is not my judgment, although I concur. This is what Syracuse, the manufacturer, told me after waiting forever on hold with their tech department. I'm sure Amazon will refund my money, but I wish to warn other NT users: don't bother.
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Summary: The Canadians
Review: my name is alison & i love canadians!!!! i started 2 teach myself french & its easy! i even sing & play oh canada on my bass, for david desrosiers! ha he's my bf & u cant take him away!!!!
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Summary: Excellent product for what you pay
Review: This course is certainly one of the best interactive courses I have seen. It is very simple to install, and have not crashed my system as many courses use to do. Its interface is simple, so even a child can use it. It is certainly not so "funny" but learning a new language never is. It has an adequate price, and worth for it. Certainly works better than Microsoft Encarta Learn to Speak French De Luxe. It also uses the IBM Via Voice recognition system, a quite expensive program if you buy it appart. The lessons are fast, simple, understandable and effective. I would certainly buy it again
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Summary: PC Tied Made Me Tongue Tied
Review: This is well written software... but, I would have benefited more from either having a tape or a CD with a player to play the words and phrases I needed while I commuted on train and bus in France this last year. What I found helpful with this product:
(1) Categories to select kinds of words to listen repeatedly to.
(2) Listening to both male and female speaking the words. What I did not find helpful:
(1) The speak-back feature where I spoke and the software "graded" my performance. It helped in that it showed I often put the wrong emphasis on certain syllables. It did not help beyond that because speech recognition software is too primitive.
(2) Games -- these greatly annoyed me.
(3) Being tied to my laptop. I needed to listen and practice more than when it was convenient to have my laptop and fire it up in crowded situations. I worked in an office setting where English was the second language. What I needed most was learning French for everyday use in the grocery market, such as hearing and speaking decimal numbers to conduct Euro transactions, conversing with the banker, and handling phone conversations with appliance repair people. French For Dummies didn't help in these areas as I had hoped, but then no product may have helped. The best thing for an American in Paris for 6 - 12 months is to find one of the free French classes that are offered in Paris, with a live teacher.
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Summary: easy and fun
Review: This was my first experience trying a language CD course and I must say I was impressed by this one. I've been using it about 2 months and already feel I have a good basis for using French grammar, a limited vocabulary, a pretty good knowledge of basic sentences, and slightly-better-than-horrible pronunciation (but this is my weak spot). The practice in pronunciation and the feedback you get is very helpful for a language like French in which so many sounds are unfamiliar to English speakers. I am looking forward to finishing the CD course and trying out what I've learned in France.
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