This is an excellent program for learning to speak French the way it’s supposed to be spoken. I used to speak as a child in school, but haven’t spoken the language for many years. As my kid is learning French, I’m trying to help. School classes teaches the hard stuff, like grammar, etc., and not exactly how to speak/listen to the language. We tried a few other programs and were fairly disappointed until we got SmartFrench. This is an excellent program where you learn to speak, and as importantly, listen to real conversations, at different speeds. There are also text to refer to, as well as the vocabulary list for the CD materials.
One thing to understand though, that this program (Beginner level) does assume some basic knowledge of the language, and therefore not exactly for the absolute beginners. For the absolute beginners who never had any experience with the language, the also excellent SmartFrench – Introduction to French 1 & 2 CDs, also by Christian Aubert are more appropriate to start with.
Finally, this is not a program that teaches you to conjugate verbs and such. There are many books and others for French grammar. This program excels at the one objective, training your listening and speaking skills so that you can speak French like the French do. It’s a perfect program if you’ve had some French in the past and want to brush up on speaking/listening.
Have fun![keyword]easy+learning+french[/keyword][yahooquestion]easy+learning+french[/yahooquestion]
[articles]easy+learning+french[/articles]
[amazonstore]easy+learning+french, 2, All[/amazonstore]
[amazonstore]easy+learning+french, 2, All[/amazonstore]
[rsspara:http://feeds.technorati.com/feed/posts/tag/easy%20learning%20french:1]
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
This is an excellent program for learning to speak French the way it’s supposed to be spoken. School classes teaches the hard stuff, like grammar, etc., and not exactly how to speak/listen to the language. We tried a few other programs and were fairly disappointed until we got SmartFrench. This is an excellent program where you learn to speak, and as importantly, listen to French the way it’s supposed to be spoken at different speeds. This first set of CDs will give you an introduction to simple everyday words, as well as some fundamental French language structure, and how to use them. Also, the 5 most used verbs are explained on their usage.
Finally, if you’re an absolute beginner in the French language, this Vol 1 and Vol 2 will get you started in the right direction. Afterwards, the next sets (SmartFrench Beginner, Intermediate/Advanced) will get you further in developing the right speaking/listening skills. This program focuses mainly on the speaking/listening aspect of the language and it does it extremely well. This SmartFrench program should be used in conjunction with reading, watching French TV/movies, and working with other French grammar programs if you want total fluency in the language. Enjoy!
I love the SmartFrench products with native French speakers in conversation, but the Introduction to French, Vol 1 and 2, I, personally, would skip, because they are “explanations” of grammar, and I think it is more effective to go right to listening to the conversations, and absorbing the sound and flow, and than speaking. Even with no previous French, I think this is the best way to learn, because this is how I learned the language years ago. So, while this is a good product, I personally would invest in the CD-ROM or CDs with the conversations by native French speakers….and would bypass the CDs which explain grammar.
Hi Eva, I think you are fond of watching movies and TV series, especialy for American series. It can develop your listening and speaking skills, but you should put your attention on their dialog and learn some things from the movie.If you only watch the movie for fun and don't care about the new words or some thing like that, I think it cann't help you to improve your English skills effectively.
Verbix — conjugate verbs in 100 languages -
Head of Miami Operations-Vice President at Barclays (Miami, FL) –
I also found Lam and Rosario-Ramos' article particularly interesting in relevant since the majority of my good friends are studying abroad this semester. They speak to me in English but their status’ will be written in Spanish or in French depending on where they are studying. I once asked my roommate, who is a native Spanish speaker, if she thinks in Spanish or in English and she said at home—where they predominantly speak Spanish—she thinks in Spanish but at school she thinks in English. Her facebook wall has some Spanish posts, from her Latino friends at school or her relatives and most recently the people she is studying abroad in Spain with, and English from her English-speaking friends at school. I think it’s interesting that people practice their native language online as opposed to on the phone or through some sort of verbal medium, but I guess an online medium is more beneficial for maintaining the grammatical aspect of your language.
I also think its an interesting, and similar, phenomenon when people use the Internet to hone an acquired or second language. For example people who set their facebook language to Spanish so that they interact with it every day, sometimes multiple times a day. I know this study was about people of immigrant backgrounds, but I would be interested to hear more about that and other ways in which people incorporate foreign language acquisition into networked media literacies. I think about the ways in which new media literacies could help with learning a second language in new and exciting ways. For example, instead of having a pen pal from another country, we have the capabilities to have a Skype pal so now we can video chat with them, free of charge, and improve our verbal communication in a different language. Most of the time, when we are learning a foreign language, we are more comfortable with the written aspect of it than the verbal because we are able to have more time to think about grammar and diction. It would be a useful and exciting exercise to engage students from a foreign country verbally and improve our listening and speaking skills that way.
The camera does not matter.
Shooting successful closeups is a function of the macro lens you buy for your dSLR
The reason all of us recommend Nikon and Canon is because of the huge array of lenses available. They also have been making professional level (as well as entry level cameras) for decades, Nikon since 1959 and Canon since 1988.
Sony has only been in the still camera market since 2005 when they bought the camera division of Minolta, thus the number of current lenses are about half of what Nikon and Canon offer.
Add to that, Adobe Lightroom 3 supports many Nikon and Canon cameras in the tethered mode, but only those two cameras systems.
At present the two recommended dSLR's for those starting out in photography are the Nikon D3100 ($700) and the Canon 550D/T2i ($900) Both are loaded with features that will keep you busy for the next four or five years, yet can produce excellent images right out of the box if you are willing to read the user manuals.
Remember, these are the basic "kits". You will still have to budget for a macro lens for whichever body you choose. The Nikon 60 mm f/2.8 macro or the Canon 50 mm f/2.5 macro are the most affordable of the macro lenses made by those two companies.
NOTE: There are NO beginner level dSLR's They all use the same fundamental photography basics for obtaining proper exposures, combining the shutter speed, lens aperture and ISO to produce perfect exposures. What there are, are entry level dSLR's, cameras that cost under $1,000. They are the cameras that most beginners buy because of their cost, but they are all capable of producing professional quality images.
Links to the lenses made by Sony, Nikon and Canon:
This should give you a good idea of what will be available to you in the future as your interest in photography expands
You must log in to post a comment.