I'd like to hear from anyone who can recommend good French language tapes. I've used the Pimsleur (sp?) Italian tapes and thought they were useful in terms of their content, unlike some others I tried.

Thanks, Linda

I liked the Pimsleur tapes, too, for French.

I have an additional question. I have been studying French, and recently attended an intensive language stage at L'Ecole des Trois Ponts in Roanne. While my listiening skills have dramatically improved, I continue to have difficulty in spontaneous converstaion. Recently I decided that I'd love to listen to some French tapes that have a transription- kind of like the well-known Champs-Elysees (http://www.champs-elysees.com), but somewhat at an easier more intermediate level. I have unable to find them. Does anyone know if such a product exists? How have those of you who speak French fluently practiced your converstaion skills? Thanks.

-Margret

My library has a series of videos using something called the Capretz method--sort of immersion French. However, between the pictures and the printed word on the screen, it is much easier to understand what is being said/meant than from solely verbal tapes. I think they were originally shown on PBS.

I haven't tried it yet, but I've heard good things about Rosetta Stone. I'm going to try their on-line subscription (levels 1 and 2 for 1, 3 or 6 months) next. I've used Pimsleur before, and find it the best system for building conversation skills. However, the vocabulary and grammar content are fairly limited. I supplement Pimsleur with the BBC's "The French Experience", which is great for delivering vocabulary, manageable chunks of grammar and lots of information about French culture throughout the world.

Check out this old thread:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgMessa...p;tid=34480036

The French in Action series with Capretz is excellent. You can watch the entire series for free online with a high-speed connection.

I also like the RFI links (the French in easy information or something like that) given in that thread.

Margret: I receive advertisments from Fluent French Audio. Their September 10 newsletter says that they have slower recordings. I will forward it to you. Here is their web site as well:

http://store.yahoo.com/fluent-french-audio/index.html

I also used Pimsleur and found them to be helpful.

Just borrowed Pimsleur CDs from my local library yesterday and it is very good for comprehension, pronunciation, and conversational skills. Grammar, IMHO, is best learned in a class (try a community college) or a book.

I got a series of tapes from Amazon called Flash French. I really like them but it's hard for me to know how easy they would be for someone with no experience with the language at all, if that would apply to you. I took French all through high school and a year in college but of course have never used it for 30 some odd years but I did have the background. I can actually picture the words. He has a french assistant for the prounciation so that's a good thing. He builds on "to go", "to like", "to want", and "to have to" and then just adds verb forms to these so you can build basic sentences fairly quickly. I like the "to go" because it takes care of the near future..I have trouble with future and past tense. duh!!!! I mainly wanted to concentrate on my speaking skills so I find my spelling is just horrible!!! I can read french however..it's just like people here that speak english perfectly well but can't spell a lick...not saying that I speak french well..but anyway, having the previous background in french helped me and I got a lot and am still getting a lot out of these tapes. I guess you just have to experiment and find what works for you. Some libraries have language tapes or cd's, so depending where your are you might be able to avail yourself of some before buying something that won't work for you. Also, bonjourparis.com used to have language lessons. When I first went to that site they were only written but they added audio. I couln't get it on my old computer and haven't tried again with my new one. Also, I don't know if the language portion is still available for free, it used to be but they have changed the site and to access some of the things you have to pay. So, good luck with whatever program you decide to use. It's fun to use some french while in france but it took me awhile to get my courage up..my very first french words actually spoken to a french person were: "pardon monsieur, parlez-vous anglais"?.. go figure..LOL..now guess what the answer was....."NO" Too funny.

Just to add to my post, I also borrowed the Berlitz tape and it's great for brushing up on the common phrases but I find that the Pimsleur tapes work better for me. I find that the Berlitz tape is just a phrase book on CD which doesn't really help if you're really trying to learn the language.

It also helps if you've taken French previously, as crefloors noted, OR any other language rooted from Latin (i.e. Spanish, Italian)--this helps with grammar and sentence structure.

Bonne chance!

P.S. Personally, the hard part is remembering which things are masculine/feminine. Strangely, I don't have this problem with Spanish or Italian.

I have gone through the Pimsleur cd's once almost to the end of set 3, quit, started again and am now on Unit 24, Set 2. I am a visual learner and so miss not seeing the sentences in print. So, I play my cd's on my portable cd player, have my computer on: http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr and when I want to see the sentence in print, pause the player, and type in the sentence in English and get it translated. As you know though, literal translations aren't always the correct phrase so you have to play around with it.

I don't recommend doing this until you have at least gone through the lesson as instructed once.

craisin, in Italian or Spanish, you can usually tell the gender from the form of the noun, with a relatively small number of exceptions. French gender is highly irregular, which is why you have more trouble with it. An attempt has been made to root out what regularities there are, but it's so complex that it's not worth much. You can see it at "Le Truc des Genres", at:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/francais/gender.html

If you're interested in French, Spanish, AND Italian (as I am), you might be interested in the book "From Latin to Romance in Sound Charts", by Peter Boyd-Bowman. It traces the regular transformations from the Vulgar Latin into the four Romance languages French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese (poor Romanian gets left out, as usual). Once you learn some of the rules, it can enable you to guess at words on the fly, and hit them half the time (or at least, get close enough to be recognized).

- Larry

I bought Pimsleur's cd's for a trip to France 2 years ago, and used it on my return to Paris this year. I find them to be a good value and easy to use. However, I also studied for 4 years and have a pretty good foundation in grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. I don't know how people do it without that. I am struggling now with Portuguese! Also, they really focus on eating out - with some rather quirky dialogues.

The fluent French audio tapes are excellent. If you have had a good foundation in French and want to increase fluency, they give you an opporunity with normal speed followed by slow speed. I have used them with students and they have been very pleased as have I. However it will help you more on the comprehension and typical speech patterns more than general conversation.

Another good source for French studies is www.frenchclasses.com
They have a CD-Rom with extensive sound files as well as offering e-mail and telephone turoring. They also have an online audio magazine with transcripts. It is for all levels.