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JaneNickerson
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Do you use a Bescherelle? What do you use it for (besides verb conjugation)?

Which publisher do you prefer? What is the difference between a Bescherelle and a book called L'art de Conjuguer? (besides price :))

I was pricing them at Staples today.

 

I believe (but don't quote me) that they are the same book. There is the Bescherelle Complete Guide to Conjugating 12,000 French Verbs (in English) and then the French version of the same book, L'Art de Conjuguer (which is essentially an updated version of the 1980s book La Conjugaison 12000 Verbes and the 1990s book La Conjugaison Pour Tous). It is basically a resource for all the various (and sometimes difficult) conjugations of French verbs -- very complete.

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Thanks Kailua Mom! I am trying to learn French ahead of my children.

 

I am studying The Berlitz Self-Teacher. Yesterday at my son's ball game my friend (who is French Acadian) was helping me with pronunciation. I did not know that you could learn French phonics!! Does anyone know of any French phonics resources?

 

She mentioned a Bescherelle when we got to a difficult verb. I would have bought both books, but then I remembered my knowledgeable friends at the hive. :)

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Thanks Kailua Mom! I am trying to learn French ahead of my children.

 

I am studying The Berlitz Self-Teacher. Yesterday at my son's ball game my friend (who is French Acadian) was helping me with pronunciation. I did not know that you could learn French phonics!! Does anyone know of any French phonics resources?

 

She mentioned a Bescherelle when we got to a difficult verb. I would have bought both books, but then I remembered my knowledgeable friends at the hive. :)

 

As Sarah mentioned, The Easy French includes instruction on the French phonograms. The author based the phonics instruction on the Writing Road to Reading method, so the program includes a set of flashcards for all the French phonograms as well as the pronunciation for each phonogram on the CD. I really like this approach, but it's an expensive route for teaching yourself, IMO.

 

A free online option is FSI's Introduction to French Phonology course, which consists of a student text, audio component, and instructor text. I believe it was originally designed for American diplomats with assignments in French-speaking countries, so there is an emphasis on oral skills (listening as well as speaking). Your ear would be trained to distinguish between correct and incorrect pronunciation. You could make phonogram cards as you learned them throughout the course, but it looks like the course mostly covers the vowel phonograms and some of the harder consonant phonograms; I haven't actually used this.

 

I did use The Basic Course - Vol. 2 in my upper division French advanced oral expression course (at U.T.). We were required to go to the language lab once or twice a week to listen to the audio tapes as we followed along in our texts and recited words and sentences.

 

HTH!

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