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Publisher: Topics Entertainment
Pros
Good production values
Great French accents with a wide range of material covered for a basic course
Emphasis on immersion by listening to French phrases and then having a go at translation without clues in English.
Short lessons encourage everyday practice
Cons
Pacing is a little slow
Relies heavily on memorisation for progress
Conclusion
The course is quite comprehensive for a beginner course (8 CDs), covering all the basics, as well as other useful topics such as the weather, travel, numbers, shopping, meals, as well as a diverse range of grammar structures, verb conjugations, adjectives and adverbs.
Each section contains new material, followed by specific practice exercises to reinforce the vocubulary. Structure is not a high priority for this course, encouraging you to learn from phrases and develop your own understanding of how the language hangs together through listening.
I like the practice exercises, translating first from French into English and then from English into French. This is important. The accents are great, the production values are excellent and the wide range of material keeps the course fresh and interesting.
Further comments
The pace of speaking is very slow, so it's easy to recognise. They use a range of native French speakers. The accent of the English speakers is very American.
It's a subtle difference, but in this course they give you the French first, followed by the English, encouraging you to translate first, and then have your answer reinforced/corrected afterwards. It's a little easy to slack off, however, and just wait for the English without working on the translation first.
Personally, I prefer a more active learning method, learning structures first, developing confidence in speaking from the first and then pickup vocabulary to create fluency. This course is much more reliant on memorising phrases and learning to offer them when appropriate.
