À Moi Paris Method – Beginner

I have tried many products related to learning French and after two years of study there is one piece of advice that I feel confident in giving. And that advice is to listen to as much spoken french as you can starting as early as you can. It’s even better if you have a transcript in french to help you pick up vocabulary you may miss as you listen. A Moi Paris is a great tool because it provides an interesting story that starts out with slow easy french and in each episode the level of speech and vocabulary grows. There are transcripts in french (and english) that you can read as you listen and that you can also use to practice speaking. I am very happy with this product and believe that it can really help others to quickly develop their comprehension and speaking skills.

For beginners or high-school-French survivors who want to get to first base in French, À Moi Paris Level 2 is as good of a resource as can be found, and it’s affordable, making it the best deal available by far.

It comprises a novel of short 17 chapters recorded in clear, slow French audio, and a 200 page pdf with each chapter’s full text in both French and English. The first chapter is a dialog between people who’ve just met on a train; this provides a way to start very simply. Each subsequent chapter builds on its previous, and includes a chapter guide (in both audio and pdf) that expands and explains the new stuff in each chapter e.g. a new verb or a verb used with a different meaning. The pdf has a few pages of Q&A in both languages for each chapter. Both audio quality and the document layout and editing are impeccable.

The Approach -– The material covers considerable grammatical territory (perhaps on par with a year of high-school French?), but with almost no explicit discussion of grammar. For example, you’ll hear and pick up how to use determiners, possessive pronouns, etc., without naming them as such – just like you did with your first language as a child. It’s mostly in present tense but never becomes awkward because of it. By the last chapter, there are more complicated sentences with object pronouns, some additional tenses, etc. Not worrying about such things as present participles and disjunctive pronouns saves time that can be used for learning to use them by habit rather than by rules.

The Process -– One thing that is quite different about this material is the variety of ways to work with it; this is unlike, for example, a course that you can only use on a PC. You can cycle between listening with an iPod (e.g while driving), reading paper (in a waiting room), immersive study at your PC, and recording and playing back the Q&A on smart phone. The Q&A would support a study group. You’ll choose the mix of media depending on your preferences and availability of time.

What’s Next — Another factor is that there are follow-on materials available in the same series, so that you can continue when you’re ready. Unlike high-school French I for which there is a French II designed to pickup where the first left off, many courses for independent-learners don’t have a next step, forcing you to choose between and expensive restart or bewildering intermediate course not designed to follow the one you started.

I don’t know why high schools and colleges keep to language textbooks with 400 pages of grammar rules rather than a method closer to À Moi Paris Level 2, but it seems me that this is a better way to get going.

Having visited France in the past, my French was diabolical to say the least and I completely lacked the confidence to try and dreaded anyone approaching to engage in conversation.
Having studied and practised using three of Camille’s product’s I certainly feel more confident to start conversations on my upcoming visit to Bordeaux and the surrounding area.
My listening skills are improving daily, need to work on the accent !! and my reading of French has greatly improved over the past few months.

Congratulations Camille and Olivier on producing such a fabulous Library of learning.

A really excellent purchase that’s certainly worth its five-star rating. All of the learning material that I’ve seen from ‘French Today’ is quite outstanding and gives the student of French a superb resource base for making fast progress in the language.

I would like to tell you how much I am enjoying studying French with your audio book novels. I have worked through First Encounter and am now starting into The Beginnings.

While still being far from bilingual, I have noticed a big improvement in my ability to read and understand the stories. My comprehension of real French people speaking is growing in leaps and bounds!!!

I only wish I had more time every day to devote to my lessons!