Tune Up Your French: Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Spoken French

by Natalie Schorr

Readers can tune up their conversation skills with Tune Up guides--the next best thing to a year abroad! Getting beyond sounding like a beginner is more than just a matter of learning more vocabulary and grammar. It's also about understanding the culture and developing the right mind set for thinking, listening, and talking like a native. The next best thing to a year abroad, the books in this exciting new series offer language learners an entertaining and practical way to hone their foreign-language conversation skills. Tune Up books are structured around 10 key areas for improvement, covering everything from tricky grammatical structures to gestures, slang, and humor. In each area, key phrases are presented in "Top Ten" lists, including everyday expressions for filling pauses, icebreakers, and more. An excellent brushup for learners returning to a language they studied in high school or college, Tune Up books

Genres: France, Language, Nonfiction, Reference

224 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2004

Reviews

[Marta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intéressant pour apprendre des nouveaux expressions et des trucs culturels.

[Helynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't the kind of book you just read, enjoy, then stick on a shelf, but rather, a useful manual to keep on your desk at home or at the office for ready and frequent reference. Tune Up Your French, as author Natalie Schorr states, is not meant for beginners in French, but for people who already know the language but who could stand a refresher on idioms, vocabulary for shopping, travel, food, etc., and the ever-changing dynamic of popular expressions and slang.
The book also comes with a 60-minute audio CD wherein native speakers review key phrases then quiz us listeners by presenting conversations on certain topics, then leaving time for us to chime in aloud. Chapter 1 includes a review of body language, gestures, simple expressions (On va prendre un pot? C’est génial!), interjections, and sound effects a la française. (It’ isn’t Bing! Bang! Boom! but Pim! Pam!Poum!)
Chapter 2 offers a discussion of manners and some appropriate vocabulary, and includes comments on why French people often think Americans are rude, and vice versa. Chapter 4: Practical French includes helpful lists of expressions to use for driving a car in France, shopping in stores, traveling by train, talking on the phone, etc., Chapter 5: Table Talk is fun because it reviews many correct expressions for food and drink as well as for eating in restaurants or in someone’s home. There is an enlightening quiz on French table manners, too, with such reminders that one should eat an apple or pear with a knife and fork and that while at a restaurant, one should never specify a dressing for a salad. (It’s the chef’s job to choose the right dressing [248:].
Chapter 6: Conversation Starters asserts that asking a French person what he/she does for s living (Qu’est-ce que vous faites dans la vie?”) is a delicate question and not always a polite one to ask (130). Chapter 7: Slang and Other Kinds of French was one of the most fun, but also one of the most sobering chapters. First, it lists certain idioms that are peculiar to just a certain part of the francophone world—Quebec, Belgium, Louisiana, Senegal, etc., The section on rude language should save travelers a lot of embarrassment because it points out several different sayings that native French people can get away with saying, but Americans cannot. For example, who would have thought that Ils sont cons means “They’re jerks” when a Frenchman says it, but means something far more crude when an American says it (156)?
Chapter 8: Attitude notes that several things that we call “French” in the United States are not “French” at all in French. For example, French fries are les frites, French toast is le pain perdu, a French horn is un cor d’harmonie, and to
French kiss is rouler un patin (169).
The last two chapters present a potpourri of idioms, proverbs, famous quotes, false cognates and some abbreviated grammar lessons. I found the written quizzes and answer keys in each chapter both informative and humbling. There is always so much French we don’t know and so much more to learn. One thing is certain: Before my next trip to France, I’m going to pull this book out a few weeks in advance and spend some time tuning up!

[Mockingbird · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE book and audio CD I come back to time and time again to brush up my French.
Of the scores of books and audio tricks I own to learn French, this is it for me. SmartFrench also works for me.

[Kelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent resource, from beginner to advanced student of French.