Easy French Step-by-Step

I really stress the word WRITTEN fluency in recommending this book and NOT for VERBAL fluency. You will have to get Cd's like Pimsleur in order to grasp the basic PHONETICS of French. Easy French, an oxymoron if I ever heard one, was a great buy. I am pretty methodical and went through the chapters one by one and will be finishing the final chapter soon. I got it in February of 2013. It is now the end of August and I can chat with my French friend on Whatsapp! I still make a lot of mistakes and she corrects me all the time, but she was shocked at how much I learned from just one book. So that should tell you something.However, I still have a hard time understanding French verbally. I have now finished Pimsleur French 1: sample size that was around 55$. With the knowledge I received from Easy French, coupled with a sample of Pimsleur really increased my verbal fluency. When I was depending on what I learned from Easy French, I would still struggle with phonetic French. Because of the great increase in my understanding of verbal French from the Pimsleur sample, I will buy the whole pack. But you have to understand that you have to couple Pimsleur with Easy French. There is NO WAY I would have breezed through the Pimsleur sample without having done the Easy French exercises first .Together they make a great combo!If you have a talent to pick up languages by ear, then I recommend you go through the Pimsleur French first and Easy French second. If you are like me, in which I do not pick up a language by ear and I am more fluent in the written language even in English and just learn better through grammar exercises, then do the Easy French first, complete it and then go to Pimsleur.I have always had french classes in my youth and somehow I retained a lot of the basic grammar, which helped in the easy way I swept through the first couple of chapters in Easy French. A big chunk of the chapters are dedicated to the present tense conjugations and a lot of introductions to many verbs and their conjugations. When they titled this book: STEP BY STEP, they really meant it. Which is great for beginners. I used IPHONE translator when I needed to know better pronunciations/meanings.The later chapters then give you the conjugations of the two past tenses, then future, conditional, past conditional, and finally the subjunctive. The in-between chapters deal with negatives, question set ups, reflexive verbs, use of prepositions etc. Each chapter ends with a list of nouns/adjectives and a small article written in the tense you just learned in that chapter, as well as follow-up exercises for your comprehension.If you have no idea where to start in order to start the process of learning the ever so difficult French language then look no further than Easy French Step-by Step for Written Fluency. Follow it up with Pimsleur French 1, 2, and 3 for Verbal Fluency. For further written fluency, The Ultimate French Review and Practice is a great way to keep increasing your knowledge. I also bought this and I already love it. It has an interactive CD where it has a diagnostic test, more exercises and verbal comprehension.Click on the links to direct you the additional material I bought and recommend with Easy French: French, Conversational: Learn to Speak and Understand French with Pimsleur Language ProgramsThe Ultimate French Review and Practice

I am using this book along with my Duolingo app. It is a good tutorial and I like the way it is laid out. I highly recommend the spiral version. I failed the second test in the book which was good because it showed me what I need study. The phone apps don't give you that refection. The apps just keep you moving.

For learning "spoken french":Come on, this in no way makes learning French easy. I might as well have bought the paperback version. It is simply a good summary of grammar. No one I know is only interested in just grammar. No pronunciation guide at all! No index to help find things! I find this simply an inferior product. A much better buy would be Lliving Language French (beginning, intermediate, advanced). By contrast Living Language does it right--pronunciation, grammar, games. For me, Easy French Step by step was a waste of my money.For learning written french and grammar:Recently, I picked this book up again, and found it very interesting. It is well-written and is indeed a great summary of beginning and intermediate French. In fact, I plan on using it for a review of what I have learned elsewhere. What I have learned from my own reviews, is that the review reflects where the reader is at the present time--not everything meets his current needs. But it is good to reflect on the intent of the author. The author's intent was to help the beginning and intermediate student learn french. The author was certainly successfull in this endeavor.My original review was focused on my desire to learn "spoken french"--clearly this book is not too great for that but for my news focus, written and spoken french, it is really good.My first review was thus too critical based on my narrow interest at the time.

I've been teaching French for 25 years and have used an extensive array of textbooks, manuals, teaching websites, instagram postings, countless worksheets, videos and more throughout the years. In the end, I always come back to this book for its clarity, simplicity, and acuracy. The lesson are explicit, the exercices (with answer keys in the back) the perfect introduction to a new point prior to meeting with a student and elaborate on the topic. I have recommended it to many of my students as well as gifted it and continue to do so. I also appreciate the spiral bound version since I refer to it so often. Merci beaucoup :-)