The Ultimate French Review and Practice

I had French for 3 years in high school (many years ago), and wanted to study a bit for an upcoming trip. I have a couple dozen miscellaneous French books that I purchased in search of the elusive perfect book. This book has everything that I was looking for. It is extremely thorough. It is very up to date, with phrases like surf the Internet, save/delete a file, etc. It has enough exercises to reinforce the material but not so many as to overwhelm you. And most importantly, it is action packed! For example, the first chapter, at 14 pages, teaches one the present tense of enough regular verbs to have a fairly solid repertoire for communicating. And the second chapter at 16 pages, teaches one enough present tense of irregular verbs to round out one's verb repertoire. Two chapters into this book, and I feel like I know enough present tense verbs to communicate the vast majority of one's needs.Only a couple drawbacks:1) The book starts at a level that would probably best serve those with some background of formal classroom education in French, as opposed to those learning it for the first time. If you've never studied French formally, I highly recommend using the "Look Inside" feature to check out the first chapter, to see if you might be overwhelmed by this book. The first chapter is quite representative of the academic level of the book, so if you can follow it, you should be fine.2) CD-ROM only works with Mac OS X 10.3.x, 10.4.x, and 10.5.x., a rare occasion where you're actually better off having older software/equipment!Since the CD-ROM did not work with my system, I cannot attest to the quality of it for assisting with pronunciation. I have used Google Translate to assist with pronunciation, and French n Action for rounding out my auditory comprehension skills.[...]Bonne chance!!!

Awesome French grammar for the serious student. Plethora of exercises. I bought it before I knew any french at all, used it to memorize the grammar by rote, and then tested into fourth semester French (B2).One note: This book teaches that the subjunctive be built from the 1st person plural "nous" stem of the verb. Having studied French in a variety of methods in- and outside of the United States, I have discovered that the more common practice is to present the subjunctive as being built from the 3rd person plural "ils/elles" stem. This avoids confusion with certain groups of verbs that change stems like "recevoir", for example: The method presented in this book would have us build the subjunctive of "recevoir" from the nous-stem "recevons," resulting in the subjunctive forms "receve, receves, receve...." which are wrong. The more common practice instead would rightly teach us to build subjunctive forms from the ils/ells-stem "reçoiv-" which leads us to the correct subjunctive forms "reçoive, reçoives, reçoive, reçoivions, reçoiviez, reçoivent."My ONLY other wish is that the book went more into linguistic details. I understand that this is probably beyond the scope of the book, but I think any book calling itself "the ultimate" should have linguistic information for students desiring deeper context and explanation for morphological and irregular phenomena of the language. Even just a corresponding appendix would be nice!5/5 nonetheless

I liked this book alot because it contained every possible grammatical concept that I could think of. However, I felt that this book was too advanced for the average INTERMEDIATE french student. It provided a lot of exercises but I felt no motivation to do them. After covering a grammatical concept, the book continued with more grammatical concepts which made it overwhelming! I would say i liked it overall and I will reread it again after I have become more fluently, to further better my french, but as of right now, I am going to study more to fully understand this book. I did not like that this book did not introduce vocabulary.! It introduced some vocabulary, but I thought it was useless vocabulary. I consider myself an intermediate French student and I had difficulty with this book, but I overall liked it because it challenged me and made me think harder and I would say it improved my french level. from 1 to 10, (0 being beginner and 10 being fluent native) I think I am at a 4 and this book helped me become a 5, but I think this book is meant to be a 6.5.Hope this helps,Word of Caution, I really do not think this book is for the absolute beginner or even just french beginner. I think to best maximize the benefits of this book, you have to be at least a one year french student who diligently studied the french language and is enamoured by the language as well!Carlos A.

I've bought so many gimmicky titled books to learn French through the years... I would say I've spent at least $500 (at least!!!) on books to learn French. Now in the age of culture and smartphones, I have better use with language apps than with these sort of books... of course, they are still useful to me for practicing the worksheets because I have to handwrite the answers, which I feel helps you to retain something a lot better than your index finger on an app does.

I like the book very much except for two very important defects: 1) there is a newer (3rd ed) version out which I hadn't noticed before purchasing; and even more importantly, 2) there is no way to get the cd audio materials that the book indicates should be available electronically as well as with hard copy book. In this regard, I feel that the book has been misrepresnted to buyers. If you leave a reader to believe that a CD is included, then a CD that works should be included. I can't find a way to officially register my complaint, which is even more irritating. .

I was recommended this by a another French learner who warned me to take it slowly - he did a page a day. I wanted to firm up my grasp of grammar and this is perfect. I've managed more than his one page daily, but, 2/3 of the way through it has occupied me for 9 months. You need a good understanding of the language to start, but this will do more to improve your French than any other course I know. It would be better to do with a friend, as the opportunities to talk are limited if you're doing it solo, but nevertheless, I have found it an invaluable resource. Some sections are much easier than others, but the sections on verbs and especially pronouns are the clearest I have ever found, including having them explained by a native French speaker! Be prepared to work and you will reap the rewards of this incredibly well prepared book.

Have only had this book for a few days but already consider it a must-have. The grammar is explained in a very clear and straightforward way. You couldn't fail to understand it!I would definitely recommend this book to others like me who have some knowledge of French but would like to revise and improve their grammar and vocabulary.

Nice modern text with a structured appoach to the language. I found it ideal for starting again with French, and it did not seem like being back at school.

Very good explanation and sensible repetitive exercises.Alas, as the English is intended for North American Readers, there are some tortuous translations from the French, but if you can live with this (and do your own translations from Amerenglish to Britenglish), the book will be superb.

excellent synopsis of the basic structure of French, a good backbone for developing language skills