Superpack Using French (Book + CDs + 1cd MP3): French Level 2 Self-Learning Method

These cd's are very easy to understand. The readers speak very clearly and the sound quality is excellent. I also enjoy the humor and the relaxed atmosphere. A very enjoyable experience.

Excellent tool to review and feel more at home with colloquial French !

First off, the content of the book is quite good, with some humor (although I would be OK with including more humor -- too much history can be dry).The content of the lessons is a lot more about France. I enjoyed learning about the different parts of France and some of the history. They have a lot more idiomatic language and that's exactly what I was looking for. There probably aren't enough repetitions to really acquire some of the colloquialisms, but some exposure is great. I remember one of the lessons had a song (!) in the middle of it, which was a great surprise and really helped to break up the monotony. Additionally, this book teaches the missing historic past and imperfect subjunctive (literary tenses), which is required for really reading French literature. And what do you know, it contains extracts of Real French Literature (TM), so you can even see how far you've come! It was really motivating to see that I was able to understand it. The author's sense of dread over the corruption of French (usually Anglicisms) and the elegance of certain phrasings that really aren't popular is quite amusing and very French of him. And actually, I find it kind of endearing. I do think the exercises are more interesting and varied than in the beginner course, but these are just for improving my listening skills (transcribing and spontaneous understanding).Now, the bad. The book has a copyright of 1985, which shows. The font isn't like the New French with Ease that I have (or really, any of the 2010+ courses that I own). The text is small and monochrome, which I guess is alright, but feels like a step down in print quality. The audio is clearly more muddy than the pristine recordings found in newer Assimil courses. Sometimes I can't make out what the person is saying because its so unclear, and I don't mean, "they speak too fast", I mean, "a loud sound floods the speaker and I can't hear anything distinct." Majority of the time, it's not a big deal, but it feels like I'm listening to a tape recording again.The references to "francs" as a currency instead of Euros (again, content is from 1985) is starting to show its age. Obviously then, modern inventions like email, cellphones, the Internet, etc. do not appear. Some of the English translations of the French text are somewhat unconventional but not difficult to understand. The author notes that there is no perfect English translation of some of the French, so fair enough.The book is hardly 350 pages (see image comparing Assimil's Arabic vs Using French), compared to the 600-800 of the introductory courses. This one, in particular, is very compact due to the small font and most notably, the lack of any dictionary / glossary / grammar reference. There is simply a short "irregular verb summary" at the end, where the author gives some irregular verb forms. Useful, but at times, I've found it beneficial to simply look up a specific word that isn't clear even while having the English translation.Still, it's short (70 lessons). I probably overpaid for it here at Amazon as I later found the course for <$40 at a foreign book store (Schoenhofs).

An excellent follow-up to the "French Without Toil" starter volume.

Using French is the advanced volume of the New French with Ease (itself a revised edition of the older version: French without Toil)-- it belongs to a very effective series of language learning devised by Assimil, where the students are not bored with elementary introduction but rather plunge into the core of the language from the very beginning and are supposed to absorb the material gradually in a natural way--of course, provided that they keep studying the stuff on a daily basis... In this regard, perhaps half an hour study a day appears to be too short and it might entail more time span to be dedicated to the study slot--especially for one who is not much familiar with the language ...Although one may appreciate the method, I wonder how in the world the publisher has not addressed or improved certain shortcomings. The most obvious flaw is with the audio synchronization: the point is that the audio CDs do not cover the Review Lessons (Revison) which appear every 7 lessons. Thus you get into trouble to work out which number you should press on your CD player to go to the lesson you are studying. For instance, to jump to lesson 8 one has to press audio number 7, and it lags further on in an accumulative way ... Fortunately, the publisher has also provided the MP3 audio CD which one can download on a computer and then use for the audio...A sign that the publisher has not paid much attention to removing some shortcomings appears very early on--e.g. in the very first volume (New French with Ease) you encounter "to se again" instead of "to see again" (p. 86) and "il vendent" instead of "ils vendent" (p. 89) ... Although these are quite insignificant for a smart student who can easily recognize such typos.Aside from these cons, the method works quite well for a persistent student who enjoys learning a language provided that s/he allocates a daily schedule to language study without any procrastination ... In this regard, I think Assimil method is the best one can find in the market ...

There is booklet, a separate cd, plus 4 cd's. Trying to syncronize the learning process is very difficult.