The book is designed for beginner-level students and it helps students go from absolute zero into moderate proficiency in sixteen packed chapters.
Easy French Step-by-Step is an independent learner’s tour guide into the wild unknown of the French language. The book is designed for beginner-level students and it helps students go from absolute zero into moderate proficiency in sixteen packed chapters. Be warned, this book is not for the faint of heart, but for those who don’t shy away from grammar exercises.
Easy French Step-by-Step is what one typically envisions when picturing an independent language-learning book. Its structure and layout follow the basic topic-introduction, guided practice format for new skill after new skill. This comforting and familiar design can put learners at ease as they try and tackle the basic language structures of French.
"This book does an excellent job at what it aims to do - arm you with the basics of French grammar and vocabulary. Its comprehensible, easy to follow, and gives the reader a good understanding of the basics."
Pros:
- Structure: The book is very well laid out. It starts you off with basic grammar and builds on itself in an easily comprehensible way. Each chapter has several grammar points and a list of helpful vocabulary. The grammar explanations are superb and by the end of the book, students will be armed with a solid foundation of French.
-Practice: The book is designed in the classic grammar introduction followed by guided practice style. The positive to this is that you get a lot of practice for each new topic that’s introduced. At the end of each chapter there is also a short reading activity, which gets longer as the learner accumulates more language structure.
- Content: This is not for tourists who want to pick up some French. It’s for people who actually want to speak the language. Because of that small distinction, it skips a lot of the “taxi cab” conversations and how to ask for directions, and instead shows you how to conjugate verbs and make sentences. Also, with each verb, the book provides you with several idioms and collocations (phrases) to use, which is very practical.
Cons:
-Listening: The biggest downfall to this book, in my opinion, is the lack of audio practice. Audio and pronunciation practice is so important when learning a language, especially when that language tends to omit half the letters in its pronunciation like French tends to do. The book does have a nice breakdown of pronunciation rules in the beginning, but the learner must constantly reference them until the pronunciation rules have been memorized.
-Structure: It is grammar heavy. There is no easing into the language with introductory phrases and conversation starters. You start with masculine and feminine definite articles and go from there. If this kind of grammar focused learning doesn’t intimidate you, then this can be a positive.
-Practice: The practice follows the same basic formula throughout the book. You are either translating sentences or answering questions. There is not a lot of variety in the activities and again, there is absolutely no listening.
-Layout: This is a text heavy book. There are no pictures, maps, or any other visual presentation to break up the text or to help you associate your new words with objects. It is straight English to French translation.
Even though the con list outnumbers the pros, the quality of the information presented is still very high. This book does an excellent job at what it aims to do- arm you with the basics of French grammar and vocabulary. Its comprehensible, easy to follow, and gives the reader a good understanding of the basics.
