Useful and engagingApril 11, 2007 K. Hannay(yorkshire, England) 9 out of 9 found this review helpful
As an advanced learner of French, I found this book very useful. I particularly enjoyed the thoughtful emphasis on identifying (and rectifying) errors of grammar consistently made by English speakers when learning French. Unlike other reviewers, I found the range of texts used to be varied and interesting - I went on to discover the stories of Prevert from reading extracts in this book. The analysis provided for each text is thorough and cross referenced throughout. It is truly hard to make this kind of book intersting, especially if you are reading them on your own but I think this is one of the best out there and I am a sad enough person to have read quite a few!
Concise but toughJuly 26, 2003 13 out of 19 found this review helpful
This is a super concise book for French grammer but it's hard to use. The book is full of texts which deal with a variety of topics and are subdivided into their appropriate Grammatical sections (e.g one text for present tense, one for verbs etc..) and each tense when used in the text is highlighted.There's also questions to answer at the end of each unit. The book's layout is easy but boring. You won't find any adventerous info about France or any enjoyable pictures to look at and the language used to describe what should be relatively simple things can get a little too encumbering but as a learning aid it's good to have. The book isn't easy going and i wouldn't recommend it to beginners. I use it in conjunction with France Extra which is a follow up to A vous la France and it fits in nicely but that's just me. There are easier books to use out there but if you want to learn all the rules about grammer then this might be the one for you. Still if you're not sure then i'd advise you to try and loan it out from the local library and see for yourself.
