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Title: French in Action, Study Guide Part 1: A Beginning Course in Language and Culture by Barry Lydgate, Thomas Abbate, Sylvie Mathe ISBN: 0-300-03939-5 Publisher: Yale University Press Pub. Date: June, 1987 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The best language course in the world
Comment: I've tried a number of different language course in a number of different languages over the years, but this is far and away the best. It's an immersion course, which means the videos and the audio-tapes are completely in French. It helps at the start if you've done a little French before, but even if you haven't, the extra effort in the early sections pays off handsomely. The videos are an essential part of the whole package, though they seem to be fairly widely available on public TV. (Here in Australia, ABC TV shows them nationwide, continuously, as part of the Open Learning programme). I strongly recommend buying them if you can, otherwise you are going to have to tape all 52 programmes off-air - you need to watch them over and over for maximum benefit. Each episode consists of 10 minutes of the story (a charming and quirky American boy meets French girl in Paris soap opera)and twenty minutes of explanation by Professor Capretz, an equally charming and quirky instructor. The whole is interlaced with hundreds of brief extracts from French film and TV. You watch the video several times, then work through the audio tapes to improve your own speaking, pronunciation and comprehension, read the text, then do the exercises. It might sound repetitive (all language learning is), but the story does hold your interest right to the end. I did it as a two year course with Open Learning in Australia, through the University of New England, and was sorry when it ended. This is a good way to do it, but it will work fine for a self-learning course. It's fairly costly, with textbook, workbooks, study guide and audiotapes, not to mention the videos, but you won't find a better course for learning to speak French or understand it from radio, film or TV. The reading side has been strengthened in the second edition, but to get to be a fluent reader you will need extra reading outside the course.
One of my teachers ( a French national) criticised the course for cultural bias (a little upperclass and American) and he has a point, but for a rapid and enjoyable path to fluency, this course can't be beaten.
Rating: 5
Summary: Best Conversational French method
Comment: This is an amaizing course in how to communicate in French. Communication is not only the words in the sentance but how they are constructed and the subjects that evoke a response. The course is fun, albeit corny but amusing, story of an American boy in Paris who falls for a French girl. Through their adventures one is introduced not only to the language but to the subjects dear to the French heart. I have heard some of the conversations almost verbatum between French people during my 6 years in France. I still listen to the tapes from time to time to memorise sentences that work at engaging french people. Any of the conversations on food are a winner along with things like 'la belle pierre de France'. Its amaizing what cords these subjects and the way they are presented in the course ring a chord with the French. The people who put this course together understood the differences between the American perspective and the French perspective and were able to emphasize or play with these differences to point them out in the course. I wouldn't consider buying any other method until I had this one.
Rating: 4
Summary: Great to use with TV show
Comment: I bought this book because I started watching the TV show on PBS. When I found out there was a book that went with it I was thrilled. I took French in High School and wanted to brush up. It was too hard keeping track of the show without this book but together they make a great combination.
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