Auto French Advanced

Rating:
Summary: Three Excellent Tapes for Advanced Learners
Review: After you have listened to the beginning and intermediate tapes, and once you have mastered the rules of French grammar and pronunciation, try this one. It is composed of 18 authentic conversations with French men and women, speaking on a variety of interesting subjects, such as the city of Paris, the different regions of France, and cuisine. Talking with a variety of accents, sometimes very fast, you may understand only bits and pieces when you first listen. But try again, and read the French text (without translation) in the little booklet that accompanies the tapes. Then you will catch what is being said, and your French will be improved immensely.

These are different that most language tapes, and more should be produced of this type.

Rating:
Summary: Three Excellent Tapes for Advanced Learners
Review: After you have listened to the beginning and intermediate tapes, and once you have mastered the rules of French grammar and pronunciation, try this one. It is composed of 18 authentic conversations with French men and women, speaking on a variety of interesting subjects, such as the city of Paris, the different regions of France, and cuisine. Talking with a variety of accents, sometimes very fast, you may understand only bits and pieces when you first listen. But try again, and read the French text (without translation) in the little booklet that accompanies the tapes. Then you will catch what is being said, and your French will be improved immensely.

These are different that most language tapes, and more should be produced of this type.

Rating:
Summary: A challenging and interesting course for advanced learners!
Review: Auto French Advanced is just what I have been looking for: a challenging and interesting course for the truly advanced learner. The content of the authentic interviews is interesting, and the native speakers respresent a variety of accents from many different regions of France. I like the fact that the tape can be used on its own. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A great work-out for SERIOUS students. Advanced only!!!
Review: I loved this product!!! Good ADVANCED study materials are hard to come by, and this is just about the best I've seen yet.

The tapes are more-or-less as hard as the average French movie. The speakers do indeed sound very different from one another, so you get a good exposure to different "accents". THIS IS IMPORTANT: knowing that you can understand some Frenchmen at least some of the time gives you enough confidence to "challenge" the others: "Please talk slower. Please speak more distinctly". These tapes will help you develop a feel for the appropriateness of such a "challenge".

The tapes feature delightful sound effects. As to production quality, they sound best on a stereo tape player. (I tried an old mono cassette recorder, but the sound degraded quite a bit.)

I rate this product as an excellent value for the money!

Rating:
Summary: Great idea, poor audio quality
Review: These full-speed monologues by native speakers are designed to give advanced speakers practice listening to unscripted French and its various dialects. But the poor quality of Barron's audio recordings is very distracting. The natives seem to have been recorded in a large, echoing room. After I turned up the volume to hear them, the "instructor's" voice blasted me out of my chair. I wish the same concept would be re-recorded professionally, using a real recording studio, and re-released.

Rating:
Summary: Challenging, well organized
Review: This course was an excellent preparation for my recent trip to Paris. It was somewhat beyond my level, but organized such that, with persistence, I was able to grasp it. A very realistic French experience.

Rating:
Summary: It's a good source for advanced students of French
Review: Those who would like to purchase this audio pack should be prepared for some bumpy ride at first. Many interviews of native speakers are quite hard to understand because of their different regional accents, phonetic difficulties (speakers are ordinary French people with no or very little training in pronunciation). The speed of talking is very very fast and the speakers make no attempt to pronouce everything clear for you to follow. This is not the radio-broadcasting style. Yes, it's great to some extent because it's authentic, but it's not very helpful for intermediate students, with no real exposure to everyday spoken French, trying to learn the correct pronunciation of the language. Nevertheless, the audio quality is excellent, program structure is good, and the price is reasonable