Excellent help
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Thoroughly recommend this book for anybody studying GCSE or starting AS/IB level French but not for beginners.
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Far too advanced for me
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I'm not saying this is a bad product, but I found it completely incomprehensible with my basic knowledge of French (I'm not clueless but hardly fluent) and it's obviously aimed at people way beyond my skill level. I just wanted other potential buyers to realise it's intermediate at the least.
Perhaps it was the fact that it contained cartoons which threw me off track and made me assume (when purchasing) that it was quite a basic text in a fun format aimed at adults. I think it's actually aimed at people who'd be able to read a whole short story (without pictures!!) in French.
I've decided to try the Rosetta Stone software instead.
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An enjoyable way to pick up vocabulary
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I've enjoyed using this book. I wanted reading skills so the fact it is designed to help conversation wasn't particularly useful to me but I wanted to be able to write 'forum' French and this has helped - it has also built my vocabulary. As one reviewer says you won't be rolling on the floor with laughter but the cartoons are amusing and the areas of life they cover are ones that you need even if you have long ago said goodbye to sweet 16 or even sweet 30! Don't be fooled by the cartoon layout into thinking the vocabulary is easy - it isn't. It is sometimes quite challenging but I found that useful. There is a glossary at the back and a verb table so the book is self contained. I used it along with several other grammar books and it did all I wanted it to do. I've re-read the stories as my knowledge of French has improved and it hasn't bored me. There are no exercises.
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Excellent
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You'll smile ruefully, rather than belly-laugh with these cartoons, but they *are* funny. They also look contemporary and the vocabulary is genuinely useful.
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A brilliant way to brush up on your French
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Before buying this book, I found it very helpful to buy French comic books such as "Boule et Bill" to aid in my learning of French as it made the reading enjoyable and light-hearted, and the pictures really helped me to guess the meaning of the French text. However, I still had to have my dictionary and verb book by my side in case I came across some vocab that I did not know. This book from OUP, saves the trouble of having the dictionary and verb book as all the key phrases and verbs are on the opposite page... Great.. now I can read them on the train during my commute without having to go through the embarressment of pulling out my heavy dictionary because of my poor memory! My only disappointment is that they have not published more of these books. Please publish more... P.s. Even better would be to include a audio cassete/CD so that I can get the pronounciation correct.
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