Hi

I've been trawling Amazon to see what I can get in the way of French learning/tutorial cds, but there is so much to choose from I haven't a clue where to start. I'm clear I want to improve my conversational skills/abiliy as opposed to studying and the Michel Thomas course appears to have great reviews but of course it comes at a price ...

Can anyone recommend a course that they've enjoyed or would I be just as well off watching Muzzy?

Thanks

Snowflake

Hi, I would like to suggest to you the Rosette Stone's course which I throughly enjoyed. Can be found easily on the net.

Good Luck

Rosetta stone is great, Pimsleur is also solid.

Cheers

Michel Thomas's courses are quite good. I bought both his German and French ones. You can also download a trial from his website. His claim that you can learn a language in days is a bit exagerated, but I still found them very useful.
http://www.michelthomas.co.uk/

Someone mentioned somewhere in this forum about free language website: www.mangolanguages.com

It is free to use and includes french language. It is simple and quite helpful.

I bought Michel Thomas's course on Amazon and I've been listening to it on the train. My wife, who speaks French quite well, has been impressed by my progress. It is good because you don't look like such an idiot on the train listing to the CD as opposed to the Rosetta Stone (which I also have) which requires you to play clicky-click on your laptop.

I think these two would be complementary to own as they have quite different approaches.

Hey Snowflake.

I bought my Michel Thomas french cd's on ebay at a very discounted rate.
Try there and i'm sure you'll find a good bargain.

Brian

Hi alkas, Pacman, Stephanwolf & BoZz

Thanks for the suggestions and recommendations - a few more options to be looking at. Off to trawl the net a bit more now.

thanks agian

snowflake

I would totally recommend Michel Thomas, worth the money as my husband's finally picking up French and German as a result - he's been trying to pick one or both up for 15 years without success.

I also recommend the Michel Thomas course if it's anything like the German one. It really does help you start speaking the language although your grammer is quite limited. I would definately suggest complimenting it with another audio cd.

Another easy/even cheaper way to get hold of them is at your local library in the UK. A friend of mine borrowed the Michel Thomas series from his library and made copies. I don't suppose its legal though...

Does not sound as legal to me. On the other hand you can also download the same from P2P (torrents), not legal also

I have just started the Rosetta Stone course and it is quite good. I have been strongly recommended to get the Michel Thomas course as well. A friend who spent several years in and out of german group courses and private lessons has just finished the Michel Thomas course and said it worked better than anything else she has ever tried before. She said she is confident and quite good now. Burning a copy is illegal tho it all depends if you care about the fact or not

When I was living in Paris 17 years ago I realized that the French speak a lot of argot (slang) and realized I needed to learn that... what I was taught in school nowhere near sufficed out in the real world. I do not know how French is actually spoken in the French speaking part of Switzerland, but I do know that if you want to learn argot you should check out "Merde!" and "Merde encore!" by Genevieve and Michael Heath. It helped me a lot.

Belated thanks to everyone for your all your kind suggestions. I went the cheapskate route (thanks so much for the ebay tip) and now have the pleasure of tuning in to Michel Thomas' dulcit tones . I thought I was going to drift off during his introduction of French/English language analogies but soon entered into the spirit of it all

Belated thanks to everyone for your all your kind suggestions. I went the cheapskate route (thanks so much for the ebay tip) and now have the pleasure of tuning in to Michel Thomas' dulcit tones . I thought I was going to drift off during his introduction of French/English language analogies but soon entered into the spirit of it all