French for Reading Knowledge

Rating:
Summary: Un livre charmant d'un certain age
Review: All language texts are not created equally. They tend to fall roughly into one of two categories: 1) lightweight quasi-phrasebooks that make liberal use of phonetic spellings and sweep grammar under the rug; 2) bone-dry reviews of the mechanics of a language, peppered with the occasional vocabulary for memorization.

How rare it is to find a book that preserves the flavor of a language while laying it forth in an eminently practical manner; such is the present volume. New words, conjugations and formulae are introduced in the context of short readings and quotations, often humorous, from Voltaire, La Rochefoucauld and many others.

The authors have made ingenious use of cognates, words recognizable by their English counterparts, to tap an instant vocabulary. It's gratifying to discover how much French you already know as an English speaker. This approach gives you the opportunity to put that knowledge to work immediately, and to build upon it -- not without effort, but without the drudgery that you might expect from such rigorous fare. The preference for real French text (as opposed to textbook cookery -- "See Pierre run. Run, Pierre, run!") ensures that material is covered in a natural and useful order.

Although it provides simple guidelines for pronunciation, the book's focus is (as the title suggests) on the language as written. For conversational skills and comprehension of the spoken language, aspiring francophones should supplement this book with tapes and CDs (such as the "Living Language" series) and/or videos (e.g. "French in Action").

Rating:
Summary: so good. love ya baba ganush.
Review: maximum thoughts arise regardless of enforced line limits. book good belong the measure. read french for teh future. allows the mind to develop reading comprehension. nice for those knowing latin or germna. pick up french after a year of study. pass those graduate exams.