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Our next beginner’s course in French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4911 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 1 of 15 01 October 2011 at 10:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am learning French along with my son, to help him in school. We are using a variety of things, including Assimil French with Ease, Pimsleur and Fast French. Fast French is the quick course in the Teach Yourself series. We will be continuing to chip away at Assimil and Pimsleur, but I'm looking at another textbook to start with when we finish Fast French.
The three top candidates I am looking at are:
Could anyone comment on any or all three of these course series? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7017 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 15 02 October 2011 at 1:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I like the older version of Hugo's French but if you're using the TY Fast course, why not continue with its bigger brother. However, two other scenarios spring to mind:
1. Have you thought of an older Linguaphone complete course (the basic and/or advanced course)? They pop up every now and again on eBay. 2. Is it too soon for easy native materials? Edited by patuco on 02 October 2011 at 1:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4911 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 3 of 15 02 October 2011 at 1:43am | IP Logged | ||
It's never too soon for easy native materials, and we have a few simple books with audio, as well as several comic books. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7123 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 4 of 15 02 October 2011 at 5:55am | IP Logged | ||
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Jeffers, they are all good courses.
FYI Teach Yourself also has a follow-up to 'Complete French'. And Living Language has an 'Ultimate' series of two books. I am a big fan of LL, in spite of the sometimes sloppy editing. Have you looked at the BBC courses? They have a newer one in two parts called 'The French Experience' but I really like the old ones that come in a series of three: 'A Vous La France', 'France Extra' and 'Franc Parler'. Unfortunately, you can't buy the TV series anywhere for the first course - something to do with copyrights. Edited by Chris on 02 October 2011 at 5:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5011 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 15 02 October 2011 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Are you sure you want another beginner textbook?
Apart from easy native materials, you could continue with a grammar book and perhaps vocabulary book as well to reinforce your knowledge and cover the weak points. Such combination would give you both native input and structured learning material. Or if you want to continue with a course, than what about an intermediate one? There is plenty of such by French publishers, even though most are meant primarily for classes (but as you two are learning together and already know some French, even that should not be such a trouble). Just few ideas. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6013 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 15 02 October 2011 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | ||
The TY Beginners' stuff is pretty basic, and the "Complete" course is intended for beginners anyway, so I don't see any point in getting the Beginners' course. That said, I'm not a fan of TY anyway.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4911 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 7 of 15 02 October 2011 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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@Cavesa: reason 1, he's a kid. Reason 2, the beginner's books mentioned above go much further than Fast French. Plus, all three series mentioned start with a beginner's book, then have an adv beginner/intermediate book.
@Cainntear: "pretty basic" is exactly what I'm looking for. He's not even in GCSE yet. But it would also have to be effective. These three sets of courses seem to fit the bill for us, along with a variety of other materials. So I'm looking for people's opinions on the relative merits of these series. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| palfrey Senior Member Canada Joined 5275 days ago 81 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 8 of 15 02 October 2011 at 6:33pm | IP Logged | ||
I hope you don't mind a suggestion of yet another book: have you considered Living French by T.W. Knight? (Note that this is not a "Living Language" course, despite what Amazon may seem to say in the title. It is a separate series, and includes books for French, German, Italian, and Spanish.) The french book was first published in 1952, and has been reprinted in several editions since then. (Though comparing the current printing with one from the 1960's, it looks like scarcely anything has changed. The main differences are that it now includes an answer key to the exercises, and some of the reading passges have been recorded onto an audio cd. But the lesson presentations and readings are practically the same.) It is a grammar-based course, so it may be better suited to someone a bit older than your son - though you would have to be the judge of that, of course. But if an adult or older teenager starting out in French asked me for advice on a book to buy, I think would suggest this one. (Though if they had more money to spend, Michel Thomas and Assimil would also be contenders.) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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