The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning French

by Gail Stein

This third edition of the backlist staple is packed with exercises, activities, and cultural tidbits-providing enough information to start speaking a little French in just a few days, or to deepen one's understanding and fluency.

€ Idiot-proof techniques to master pronunciation, grammar, and usage
€ Offers a lively and up-to-date vocabulary, without that stilted textbook tone
€ Designed to make learning French fun!

Genres: France, Reference, Language, Nonfiction

464 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1999

Reviews

[Cass · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an idiot's guide, it is not a textbook or a Pimsleur course or a phrasebook... But it kind of tries to be something in the middle of all three.

I definitely learnt things from the book, but not as much as I had hoped, and it felt a bit all over the place (though this is a style that idiot's guides tend to use).

It was good, if I saw a second hand copy I would buy it for my reference shelf, but I wouldn't spend money on a new copy.

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I would have had this book a few months ago when my nephew decided to take French and then brought his homework over to me since I took French in college in the early 1990's.

Est-ce que je peux vous aider? (May I help you?)
This book might be the helper that you need to fake it until you make it in French.

[Aye Aye Sanda Htun · Rating 4 out of 5]

helpful for me in learning french.

[Travis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe I am not a complete idiot, like I thought I was when I bought this book. I bought it and tried to study it. It wasn't helpful for me. I lived in Paris at the time and this specific book, which was written by a polyglot who has taught French for many years, confused me. The way she structured the grammar explanations, as well as the exercises she provided, were not enough. I really couldn't understand why at the time, but for me it was a jumble. She interjects small anecdotes from her own life, I guess to make the book less formal, and I was trusting that since she taught French at a high school and I think a university that she had a set manner of getting the information across, but the whole time I had that book, I didn't progress at all. I think I did learn that j'ai with a verb meant the past simple, and I think I understood a little bit the past progressive, but for me the book really had me confused for months. I actually felt like I must be stupid since I could not get it. However, there are other books, grammar books which presented the language much clearer, which were much more useful to me when I finally had the sense to stop trying to learn with this book. I even bought miniature travel translation books for Czech and a travel guide for Thailand which were not language books (the Czech had useful phrases and a dictionary) but they were much more useful (for helping with their respective languages) than this book to learn French.

[Gracie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to learn french, although I have no idea why. This book has been really helpful in explaining everything and does an excellent job of spelling everything out phonetically! I have come to appreciate it very much.

[AF]

leafed through the 4th ed from library--will require more free time to commit to this as it seems a worthy tool!

[Nurshafiqa · Rating 3 out of 5]

clear and pretty much helpful, i just can't get myself to read the whole book word for word though!

3 stars.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice way to get a quick summary of French. It must have done something, because I can now understand some basic conversation stuff and the majority of what I've read in passing.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trying to brush up on my high school French before my trip this fall -- so far, it's been helpful.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Revision for my French class. Nothing new just need to review more subjunctive!