Berlitz Essential French: A Practical Language Study Guide

by Berlitz Publishing Company

This comprehensive study guide allows beginning students to master and reinforce critical language skills at their own pace, offering a quick, practical, and simple approach to learning. Berlitz Essential French features interesting dialogs and entertaining illustrations that provide a thorough introduction to the language within its cultural context. Grammar basics are taught through phrases and illustrations, with no complicated rules to memorize. Extensive practice exercises, self-tests, a pronunciation guide, and a helpful bilingual glossary make this lively guide perfect for anyone looking to tackle the basics.

Genres: France, Reference

296 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1992

Reviews

[Pamela Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Grandmother on my Father's side spoke French fluent. The mistake she made was not teaching it to my Father whose Father was Irish-English. So I did not get to learn much. I could hear to speak French to her sister and remember Tres bien, merci. Very well, thank you or Oui yes. What I like about this book as I am not studying it since I finished my Spanish classes...it that it helps you pronounce the sound of the words. It has pictures and captions to help put into memory what you are studying. It is funny how I am french, but have learned Spanish first...but like they say if you can learn Spanish fairly well you can learn any language.

[David Grimaud · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is done well. Each lesson ("Leçon") begins with a dialogue between French speakers, mimicked by the English translation directly below the French. Following the initial dialogue is an explanation of vocbulary, pronunciation, and grammar, concluding with a quiz on the lesson. The The lessons are divided into four sections, with a review of all the lessons and another quiz.



The book is self contained. The lessons progress in difficulty through steps, and by the last lesson several verb tenses have also been covered.

[meadow · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was ok. Pretty good job of showing you how to pronounce things. The exercises were almost worthless. Near the end, a lot of verb tenses were introduced all at once. There's not really much reference in the back so it's kind of annoying if you forget something and have to hunt through the previous chapters to find it. Sometimes things weren't introduced in the most structured way, and would be introduced without you really realizing it, so you might forget to learn it. It's kind of a barebones book, but now i've got a basic understanding of french grammar now, so it did its job.

[W. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sort of "read"...I finished my French class and am barely better at French than when I started.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay, but inasmuch as French is not a highly phonetic language, a pronunciation guide is essential.

[Abdullah alghadouri · Rating 4 out of 5]

basic , simple , very helpful and the layout is very nice and clean
i definitely recommend this for beginners