French in 10 Minutes a Day

Rating:
Summary: Excellent introduction to conversational French.
Review: French in 10 Minutes a Day is a great introduction to conversational French. The enclosed flash cards and the little vocabulary enhancing stickers are both great ideas. You will spend more than 10 minutes a day with this book but surely this comes as no surprise. And you will be able to speak French-for-the-tourist when finished.

Rating:
Summary: A great way to prepare for a trip to France
Review: I couldn't put this book down!! I drove my husband nuts by putting all the stickers on everything standing still. I carried the flashcards everywhere. I equate it to a first semester college language class. Don't expect miracles, just enjoy learning the language. My only gripe about this book is that you don't hear the language being spoken. I watched our DVDs in French to get used to the speed of the native speakers.

Rating:
Summary: A great way to prepare for a trip to France
Review: I couldn't put this book down!! I drove my husband nuts by putting all the stickers on everything standing still. I carried the flashcards everywhere. I equate it to a first semester college language class. Don't expect miracles, just enjoy learning the language. My only gripe about this book is that you don't hear the language being spoken. I watched our DVDs in French to get used to the speed of the native speakers.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent introduction to conversational French.
Review: I have traveled to St. Martin the past three years and decided to learn beginning French to increase my enjoyment of visits to the French side of the island.

For a beginner, this book is very effective. It is set up in small manageable segments to cover roughly 25 different topics (key questions, numbers, days and time, key verbs, family members, menu items, etc.).

I like the concept of spending 10 - 15 minutes everyday (although there are numerous segments that take much more than 10 minutes to learn). I especially like the English pronunciation that is shown above the French words during each lesson to assist proper pronunciation.

I supplement this book with audio-cassette series from Pimsleur Language Series and a Random House French-English and English-French dictionary. I find "French in 10 Minutes a Day" is a very helpful complement to the cassettes.

I would recommend "French in 10 Minutes a Day" as a helpful workbook to a motivated beginner.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent resource for the beginner
Review: It would be hard to go past the "...in 10 minutes a day" series for the absolute beginner - the French title is no exception.

It clearly sets out everything the beginner needs to know, and omits superfluous information like verb conjugations, which could confuse a beginner and put them off studying the language later on in more depth.

A particularly useful and practical thing about this book is the use of labels which you can stick on household items, so as to familiarise yourself with their equivalent in French, and flash cards that you can cut out and take with you on your journey - very handy and thoughtful additions.

For the absolute beginner, or someone who learnt French at school and wants to brush up, French in 10 minutes a day is an excellent introduction/refresher to the language.