Mastering French, Level 1 (with Audio CDs)

Rating:
Summary: Towards conversational fluency
Review: My goal was to re-learn French after a 15 year lapse in order to prepare for a trip to Brussels and Paris. I quickly realized that I had to tune my ear and pronounciation. I could not do this with grammar books so I turned to this set as an aural aid and have been quite pleased.

The concepts are taught through dialogue, grammar lessons, and drills. The speakers speak at conversational speed and thus you are geared to understanding how the French language is actually spoken. This was a difficult initial hurdle for me, but after a while, my ear began to hear the words (e.g. "Je ne sais" pas is prounounced more like "zhoon say pa") and I began to understand and be understood. Also, the accompanying book is very useful.

The drills can be monotonous, but I found them very helpful. After participating in the sections, one undoubtedly has learned the concepts.

The specific grammar lessons are very rudimentary. They focus on only the present tense of a few irregular verbs (être, avoir, aller, faire) and the -er verbs, definite articles, indefinite articles, partive, and maybe a few other concepts; HOWEVER, the drills and dialogues cover much more and provide the most value.

In my opinion, this set is really only useful for someone like me who has previously studied French and needs to re-tool. I do not see how this could serve as ones first introduction to the language.

Some things that I did not like:
1. The primary male speaker is sometimes hard to comprehend
2. In an effort to change all occurences of "franc" with "euro" a female speaker overdubs the original in a VERY abrupt manner.
3. The CD was obviously cut from a cassette since I can very clearly hear what was playing on the other side of the cassette.
4. There are a few times when they sprinkle in future tense or imparfait without explaining at all. If one did not know these concepts, one would be lost.
5. There is no mention anywhere about the "tu" familiar form of any verb.

Overall though, I have been happy listening to this on my way to and from work.

Rating:
Summary: very poor aid for mastering French
Review: This is one of the useless tool for learing French. It does not do anything that it is said to learners of French. The sound files are very poor and speakers talk the way only fluent people can understand it. Generally very poor and non very effective to master french. I would never ever recommend it to any one. Ultimae French editions are much better with sounds and methodology but little advanced for begginers. So don't waist your money with this book.