DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6152 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian
| Message 1 of 6 07 January 2011 at 4:03pm | IP Logged |
I purchased this recently, and felt I should post a quick review, in case anyone is thinking of using it. The Teach Yourself Perfect Your French is based on the TY-Improve Your French, and uses the exact same audio. The book has been revised like other TY language products, and contains additional tips and insights. However, the majority of the text is similar to the previous Improve Your French course.
The course material is slightly haphazard with no separate area for dialogues, grammar, cultural information and usage. This makes it slightly difficult to focus on one particular area. The new version has introduced Insight boxes which are reasonable, but a bit basic.
My biggest problem with the course is the audio. I imagine the original audio (Pre-Improve Your French) was contained on just one CD, and they then decided to expand it to two. They did this in the worst way possible by padding the CD's out with English instructions. These instructions are repeated before nearly every dialogue. Considering the course is intended for those who already have enough French, telling people to check the vocabulary or not to worry if they don't catch everything is utterly redundant.
I don't think I would recommend the course, unless the audio was revisited and vastly improved.
Edited by DaraghM on 07 January 2011 at 4:08pm
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purplepixie Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5026 days ago 26 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Greek
| Message 2 of 6 04 March 2011 at 11:20am | IP Logged |
Thanks for this review, that does sound very annoying with English on the audio.
What pre-existing level of French is this aimed at?
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magictom123 Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5594 days ago 272 posts - 365 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French
| Message 3 of 6 04 March 2011 at 12:30pm | IP Logged |
I have the Italian version and it is intended to go from intermediate to C1 level. The
Complete Italian book precedes this one and goes from basic to b2. Unfortunately, I
don't have the audio (just the book from the library) but both books seem decent, with
the perfect edition having quite long texts ala the Using series from Assimil.
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Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7122 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian
| Message 4 of 6 05 March 2011 at 2:36pm | IP Logged |
The entire series was (is still being) relaunched and titles, I believe, were altered to appeal more to the modern learner. The courses were expanded, however, and I believe that, in the case of the courses I have been involved with, they have been improved significantly.
From writing language courses I've had first-hand experience of the old Chinese tale of a father and son taking a donkey to market: no matter what you do, you can't please everyone! LOL
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RogerK Triglot Groupie Austria Joined 5076 days ago 92 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian Studies: Portuguese
| Message 5 of 6 05 March 2011 at 4:38pm | IP Logged |
I recently purchased the new 'Teach Yourself - Perfect Your Italian' and it sounds similar to the French version. There is a lot of English not only in the audio but in the book as well. Perhaps this is normal for 'Teach Yourself', I don't know. I was very surprised by this, seeing it is their level five course, the second highest available and it is supposed to bring you up to C1. Some of the questions even require answers in English. For such an advanced level thought it would have been solely in English. I've packed it away for the time being, I have some Italian books from Alma Edizione which are in Italian and I'll work through them first.
Edited by RogerK on 05 March 2011 at 4:40pm
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Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5566 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 6 of 6 05 March 2011 at 6:37pm | IP Logged |
Aside from more exercises and a nicer format there is very little difference between the older Improve Your French and the new Pefect Your French - It is interesting to note that Pefect Your French claims to take you to C1 whereas Improve Your French took you to 'an intermediate level'.
There is no way Pefect Your French takes you to C1 - Comparing it to the Didier Latitudes series and the CLE Echo series I have, I would say it is firmly in the B1, perhaps low B2 range.
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