Using French: Advanced Level (Day by Day Method Assimil): Using French Book

How refreshing. I have lost count of the number of exercise books I have ditched due to being mind-numbingly bored of asking for the way to the train station or politely requesting a millionth ham sandwich.This is a course book that just lets you dive straight into the nuts and bolts, without the preamble. If you have some knowledge of grammar terms, how languages are put together and want a straightforward book that helps you assimilate the language, then this is it.The author is straightforward, the examples are black-and-white, straight-up French, and I have to admit to being a convert...finally getting over that 'intermediate plateau'. Je suis sur un petit nuage!

Just what I was looking for. Thanks

I learnt French from Michel Thomas courses (the original, language builder and advanced, before it was repackaged). I got to the stage where I managed to get through 10 mins speaking French in the middle of an interview. I would say the majority of my progress at that point was through those MT courses, plus my own self study through reading short news stories.I never really found any course to progress with French until I found this one. I hear often statistics saying that you only need a few hundred words to know X% of the daily language - I am doubtful this helps much, I think that is because a high frequency of those words are just meaningless filler words. So there is clearly so much more vocab out there and to stand any chance of saying/understanding anything interesting in French the MT courses alone are not enough. Most of the other courses that did have more vocab seemed pretty boring to me.So this is where this course comes in - it is based on snippets of conversations, but crucially they are not just about asking directions, how many brothers or sisters one has, or about items on a menu. In fact the reader is not part of the conversation, he/she just listens to the mini-stories.The author clearly likes his literary works, and I am sure many will appreciate this. I actually started to tire of it a little - but purely subjective.I did really enjoy many of the scripts though and laughed at more than a few - they are genuinely funny. The scripts also date this, which I enjoy as it just seems to give it some authenticity.

This advanced French course is very thorough. True to Assimil form, it throws you straight in and there's no shortage of content. You get 70 lessons in which you get, through varied text/dialogue, a *lot* of extremely profound vocabulary, idioms etc, all with an English translation.The French you will find in here, and the excellent explanations given, will literally give you a good grounding in extremely-advanced French. It says it will take you to level C1 of the European Framework for Languages, but the text at the end of the course is in my opinion C2 material (the highest). It even gives you extracts from Voltaire and other classical authors!!However, whilst very rich in resources, its effectiveness isn't superb - there are translation exercises at the end of each lesson, and some filling in the blanks, but this has been kept to a minimum and whilst the texts are very rigorous, the exercises aren't. It's a shame because the content is really great. The book is also very small, and printed in black-and-white text and makes it all look dull. The audio is good, but really goes so fast, it could do with having a slow and fast spoken version of each text, as it can get disheartening when the audio zips by so quickly (if you blink you'll miss it!) It also looks as though the design/printing quality hasn't improved from the fifties or whenever it was originally done, it could really do with upgrading.A good course though in essence, so four stars. It's really a shame they don't do more of these assimil advanced courses for other languages.

One of the speakers has a virtually incomprehensible voice

As you'd expect from Assimil, this book is well planned and well executed. The dialogues are usually interesting, and the explanations are clear. In addition, you get a good exposure to some classic french authors which is not only greatly entertaining, but a great confidence boost.This item is just the book - you need to get the audio elsewhere!

This is a great book, I ordered this book because i just finished the first book, assimil with ease 1, which it was also a fantastic book too, this book takes you to an advanced level of the french language, the book without the CDs is not worth it, if you really want to improve your french and speak like a native just buy this book and the CDs but remember first learn the first one which is called french with ease 1

A falta de um material de apoio em aúdio - que deve ser comprado á parte - me impede de dar uma nota 5 ao produto que, no mais, atendeu plenamente ás minhas expectativas, com um material agradável e prático de se aprender o idioma, sem se deter em extensas e aborrecidas regras gramaticais!

Si vous avez déjà une connaissance de base du Français et vous voudrez avancer, c'est bien le livre pour vous. Conseils: 1. Travaillez régulièrement chaque jour. 2. Écoutez l'audio du livre.

Quite useful. Muy útil para subir desde un nivel básico. Aprendizaje con usos y diálogos De uso común. Muy recomendable.

Amazing method for self learning.I learned six languages thanks to Asssimil.