Fantastic for starters

This is a great audio book to test your knowledge. It progresses in a natural and way way. I did end up referencing other materials to get to grasp with some specifics. Overall this stands on its own as a great way to hammer in your French knowledge

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3 people found this helpful

More of these please

Really love these stories. Feel they are really helping to improve my french in an enjoyable way. Like the length and the content.

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Good

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

This was a good book for beginners, and I quite enjoyed it. I really like the vocabulary sections, especially with a gendered language like French. The stories were nice and varied.

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1 person found this helpful

Brilliant audiobook learned a lot of new stuff.

Brilliant audiobook learned a lot of new stuff. that is actually usefull in real life conversations.

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Really useful resource for anyone learning French

This is a really useful resource for anyone with a pre-existing knowledge of French who wants to practise their listening and reading skills. Twenty amusing stories set in different contexts that will help you expand your French vocabulary and let you see working examples of different grammatical structures. The audio book comes with transcripts in French and English to support your learning. An advantahe when using an audio book to learn a language is the flexibility to rewind, fast forward and play around with the speed. The recording is clear and the French is clearly enunciated. I really enjoyed using these stories and look forward to exploring other recordings by the same publishers.

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9 people found this helpful

A really handy learning tool

I really try but struggle with learning languages and I'm sure that to those more gifted than me in picking these things up this would be a treasure.

I am however, improving slowly after listening and going through the synopsis, the stories are short and enjoyable and I will continue to use and learn from this book ... one day I will master the questions!

Many thanks to TBC Audible Listeners for the opportunity to listen to this educational book

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3 people found this helpful

Useful but only if you're an advanced beginner

These are nice little stories which are helping me with my French. They come with a helpful PDF transcript.

I wouldn't say they are for beginners though. The language is getting on for intermediate. Right from the start you have not just the present tense but also the perfect, imperfect and future. No really complicated sentence structures but it's read fast enough to make it hard for a beginner. The reading is clear but could do with pauses between sentences to help.

I would question the worth of adding the vocab lists. It is bizarre that the lists contain the very simplest words (even le, la, aller etc) when if you don't already know those words then you truly don't have a hope in hell of following the story. Yet there are more unusual words which are missed from the list.

For instance, from this sentence: 'il cherche un foyer d’accueil, la pension affiche complet', the word they choose to put in the list is 'complet', which is just about the only word a beginner would NOT need to look up in a dictionary!

Furthermore, the nouns in the lists are not given with any clue to their gender, which is a very frustrating omission. Rather than record the word list, it would have been more helpful to record the story again, more slowly, so the beginner can hear the story that way if they are struggling.

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8 people found this helpful

Excellent way to develop your French

I purchased this book via Audible so I have both the pdf version of the book and the audio tracks.

This book contains 20 short stories (Chapters 1 - 20). The stories are in French followed by a short summary in both French and English. Following this are 1-2 pages of vocabulary related to the story and then a short multiple-choice Q&A (4-5 questions in French) to ensure you have understood what you have read.

Each story covers a different aspect of the French language. e.g. Chapter 1 - On the Road to Summer Vacation (Basic vocabulary), Chapter 2 - The Wedding Plans (Time & Units), Chapter 3 - The Speed Dating Evening (Basic Introductions and Simple Conversations), Chapter 4 - The Scapegoat (Pronouns), Chapter 5 The Inheritance (Numbers), Chapter 6 - The Domestic Dispute (Adjectives), Chapter 7 - First Trip to London (Verbs – Infinitive) etc.

In all the stories, certain words are highlighted in bold, and these words can be found in the vocabulary section along with their English translation.

You will need some basic comprehension of French to understand these stories but you shouldn’t be put off purchasing it. I’m a complete beginner and although I am struggling with some parts of these stories, the more I read them and learn French from other sources the more it starts to come together.

Purchasing via Audible makes a huge difference as you get to hear what you are reading. You get to hear the correct pronunciation of the words and with Audible, you can slow down the speed of the audio so you can hear the pronunciation very clearly. You also get the read along at the same time to practice your spoken French (I think this is the best way to learn).

My only disappointment with this book is that the contents pages only list Chapter numbers without the title of the story. I don’t know if this is a restriction caused by Audible as all my books purchased have the same issue. It would be nice to have the titles next to the Chapter numbers.

I’d highly recommend this book and the other Lingomastery books on French, especially Conversational French as you get a full English translation of the French text rather than a summary.

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1 person found this helpful

Handy for improving listening skills

I found this really useful for focusing on practicing my listening skills. The PDF that comes with it means that when you miss a word, or can't make it out, you can check what it looks like, figure out the translation, and give it another listen.

I'd certainly recommend giving this a go if you're wanting to improve listening comprehension, but you'll probably get the most out of it if you're around the top of "beginner" level - i.e. CEFR/DELF A2 level.

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1 person found this helpful

good stories but disappointing as a learning tool

No accompanying text so you only have the audio to go by and can't read along at the same time which is massively ungelpful. Secondly there are no genders given in the vocab lessons so you can't learn the definite or indefinite article. Thirdly some of the translations I suspect are a little "off"

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1 person found this helpful