Conversational French in Twenty Lessons: Illustrated, Intended for Self-Study and for Use in Schools : With a Simplified System of Phonetic Pronunciation (Cortina Series)

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Summary: Rick was right - this book is great
Review: I bought this book solely based the previous recommendation on this page. The vocabulary is a little bit outdated in some cases, but the explanatory notes in the 20 lessons are incredibly helpful, and the grammar section alone justifies the price of the book. I don't recommend trying to learn any language without tapes or CDs, and as such cannot recommend that anyone tries to learn French with this book alone, but beginners who want to give this book a try will find that it will become the handiest reference work anyone can own. Knowing what I know now about this book, I'd have happily paid twice its price.

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Summary: The grammar section alone is worth twice the price
Review: If you were to rip this book in half and just keep the reference grammar section, you'd still have a bargain. The twenty lessons are excellent and are also a bargain on their own. Compare this book to everything else on the shelves at your favorite bookstore, compare its price to the prices of the others, and you'll soon learn that by that scale any Cortina "20 lessons in Conversational (whatever language)..." is worth four times what it costs. The free tape they offer is merely a promo and not overly helpful, but the book is top notch. In short: the best bang for the buck out there, period.

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Summary: Cortina taught me French
Review: The Cortina series are awesome. I have the French nad the German books in this series. I have always thought French was beyond my abilities. I love languages but French always seemed heard. But with the Cortina it was easy to sound the words out and once I got the free tape that they include a postage paid card for, I had French down pat. Eventually I want to learn 10 languages plus my native English! I highly recommend this book.

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Summary: Tres Bon!
Review: This is an excellent book for beginners! My son was able to pick it up and immediately use it. The lessons are easy to understand. It is a well written book and was well worth the money. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn French.

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Summary: All the French I Forgot
Review: With a French Student visiting, I needed a quick simple approach to communication. I found enough phasing to be immediately useful. I am now using this book to enable my beginners attempt at writing my French acquaitance in French. Having learned just enough French in school to have some basic understanding, I needed the linguistic support this book offers. The phaseology is simple, but not pedantic with minor effort. I would imagine this will come in handy when we travel to France. Au revoir.