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| | Home French I, Comprehensive: Learn to Speak and Understand French with Pimsleur Language Programs | |
|  | |  | | | French I, Comprehensive: Learn to Speak and Understand French with Pimsleur Language Programs | | SKU:
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Usually ships in 1 business days | | | Comprehensive French I includes 30 lessons of essential grammar and vocabulary -- 16 hours of real-life spoken practice sessions -- plus an introduction to reading.Upon completion of this Level I program, you will have functional spoken proficiency with the most-frequently-used vocabulary and grammatical structures. You will be able to: * initiate and maintain face-to-face conversations, * deal with every day situations -- ask for information, directions, and give basic information about yourself and family, * communicate basic information on informal topics and participate in casual conversations, * avoid basic cultural errors and handle minimum courtesy and travel requirements, * satisfy personal needs and limited social demands, * establish rapport with strangers in foreign countries, * begin reading and sounding out items with native-like pronunciation. | | | |
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| | Product Details | | Author: | Pimsleur | | Publisher: | Pimsleur | | Publication Date: | March 01, 2002 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 0743518349 | | Package Length: | 12.83 inches | | Package Width: | 11.26 inches | | Package Height: | 1.5 inches | | Package Weight: | 2.25 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 23 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review:
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 The best French lessons I know of Nov 22, 2008
Have you had the same history of learning a language in the past as I've had? You buy a set of CD's or tapes, listen to the first one or two and find that you can't quite hear the pronunciation of a simple word or phrase. That word builds on other words and phrases and before long you find you don't understand what you thought it meant and the CD's or tapes end up thrown in a drawer never to see the light of day again. Over the years I've accumulated a drawer full of these.
I first met this Pimsleur language courses on a business trip years ago when I needed something interesting to listen to an a 2 hour drive. I bought the "teaser" first 8 lessons of Pimsleur French. These lessons were different than any other language CD I had listened to in the past. The words were completely clear, repeated several times by male and female voices, and there was never a question of what you were hearing or what it meant. Unlike some other language courses, Pimsleur doesn't just teach you phrases, it teaches you what each of the words in the phrase mean and rearranges them in several different contexts. I ended up buying the whole first course and then went on the buy the second and third.
The lessons start with the most commonly spoken phrases and subjects, like greeting someone, asking for directions, telling time, and talking about everyday subjects. The voices are very clear, you never have a question about what was said. And one lesson builds on the previous, adding more phrases and using words from the last lessons combined with new words. These lessons have you participating in conversations right from the start. It forces you to think about the way you put words together to form a sentence. You aren't just parroting back phrases with mysterious words. You're actually thinking in the language, even in the early lessons.
I've always had this fantasy about learning a some French and then just waking up one morning, suddenly speaking and understanding all, as if by magic. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way and you do have to apply yourself to learn, but for me, Pimsleur is the most painless way to learn a language. It doesn't feel like a chore.
The way I went about learning French I, II and III is to take the CD's along whenever I get into the car. The lessons are a little under half an hour each, and even a trip to the store is at least 10 minutes each way, so I get through the better part of a lesson. I can't tell you the number of times I've sat in the driveway after returning home to finish a lesson.
I try to get through one lesson every day or two. Some are more difficult and take several repetitions, some are easy and I can comprehend in a couple listens. What has worked for me is to count the number of errors I make and go on to the next lesson when I make 10 or fewer errors in a lesson. One lesson builds on the next and there is lots of repetition so this has worked very well for me. I also listen on my iPod often when I'm doing some mindless task. It makes the work go faster and I feel like I'm accomplishing two things at once.
Some people have complained about the lack of visuals with Pimsleur. There are a few words that they go over for pronunciation in a little booklet at the end of the lesson, but most of it is audio. I always thought I was a visual learner, but I found that I learn just fine with the audio. And I can find more time to listen than I can to sit down with a book. Of course, I wanted to also read French in order to practice my language skills. After several lessons I bought the Oxford French Mini dictionary that you can find on amazon. It's tiny enough to keep on the side when you're reading a book or magazine, and has over 100,000 words. I looked up a few French newspapers online and practiced reading those. Amazon also carries magazine subscriptions to a couple French magazines and a newspaper which come out weekly. My subscription to Paris Match was interesting enough to keep me reading, sometimes a couple hours per day. And amazon.fr is a whole new world in French. (And to my delight, after logging in there, my "1 click" magically works just like it does here!)
The other complaint I sometimes read about Pimsleur is that it's expensive. For me, I figure you get what you pay for. That drawer full of discarded language tapes and CD's that I couldn't use probably added up over time to a lot more than a Pimsleur course. The Pimsleur courses are fun to use and you actually learn something. The French courses gave me the ability to converse with people when we went to France on everyday type things and even more importantly it gave me enough knowledge of the language to build on it. I highly recommend it.
0 of 2 found the following review helpful:
PIMSLEUR FRENCH 1 May 15, 2008
Hi,
I suppose that the product is fine but the execution and treatment of the Order by Amazon.com left a hell of lot to be desired!
The Order was duplicated and your System definitely does not allow one to amend or cancel part of, or the whole order. Try as I might, shunted from one page on your web site to another and back again, I could not amend or cancel the order. {I think that the system was purposely designed to make it impossible to do so.} I then sent several e-mails to you{your Contact Us details are useless and no responses to my e-mails only aggravated the whole issue.
I then had to wait for the parcel to arrive and paid R 100.00 Customs Duty on the one item to be returned. Following your instructions for a Refund, the return of the item by Insured Parcel Post cost me an additional R 320.75 plus VAT of R 4.67. I want this money back.
Right now I am one very, very unhappy customer!!
Regards, Francois Snyman
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Excellent, it is working for me... Apr 28, 2008
There are a number of excellent positive reviews of Pimsleur's French on this site and I agree with what they have to say. My perspective is a little different, since I have been reading French haltingly since high school, have passed reading exams on the university level, have sung melodies from memory in French for 25 years, BUT I still had no confidence in forming French sentences. Pimsleur is doing it for me. The audiochip format is very convenient and easier than dealing with CDs.
This is not a rote method, it requires you to retrieve words from memory and put them together in different ways, not just parrot back preconstructed sentences. The pace is good, giving you very simple building blocks to start, in all the general areas of gender, those essential linking words, different tenses, personal pronouns, numbers, days of the week, etc. Then you build skills gradually. After new words or concepts have been introduced, the lessons generally cycle back to something easy so you can feel more confident. You can always repeat or take more time on a lesson, if you don't feel ready to move on.
I admit to being a bit bored in French I, since I knew most of the vocabulary and concepts. I stuck with it because I wanted to gain more confidence in pronunciation and in quickly using what I know, and now I am glad I did, because French II builds on that foundation and gets harder. Directions are given in French, and at first they are hard to understand, but by the time I got to French II I was understanding them much better.
I have worked on this sporadically over the last 3 months and am now upping my frequency to two lessons a day. I find myself thinking and forming little sentences in French and that is very rewarding. I also find it possible to read some French blogs without resorting so often to the dictionary. I find that it's not that hard to plug in previously learned vocabulary to the structure I am learning. And I'm excited about speaking French when I go to France in a month!
Good supplement for language learning Jan 20, 2008
I own Pimsleur's French I and II language courses. I just love them! I plan on purchasing French III. I took private lessons in French for 6 years. I can read the more basic French and am familiar with French grammar but wasn't very fluent. I hate to memorize. That's what my instructor said I must do in order to become more fluent. I love the Pimsleur series because it forces to do that. I plan on using what I learned with the Pimsleur method as a foundation for further learning through other methods including more reading in French, review of vocabulary and grammar, and finding more opportunities to hear French spoken and speaking in French.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
GREAT INTRO FOR THE FIRST-TIMER!! Apr 23, 2007
I have an extremely limited ability with the French language. While written foreign language comes a lot simpler to me, this set of lessons has given me an insight into the speaking side of the language. This course is a wonderful introduction to pronounciation. It also gives basic sentences and/or phrases to get any one started on speaking the language.
While no course is perfect for all who wish to learn, this is a good, basic set of lessons for those who plan to spend a significant amount of time in France on business, travel, or for someone who plans to move to France. Most certainly dedication is the key. With practice, once you get to your destination, you will have enough knowledge and comfort with French to continue speaking to others on your own.
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