Further French [antikvár]

r What this course is all about Take your time to read through the next couple of pages, which explain the course to you. Understanding what is expected of you and how the course is built up will make learning easier. Breakthrough Further French is the result of listening to hundreds of people telling us what they want and how they learn. It's not a beginner's course -the emphasis is on 'further'. You should already be beyond the 'un café, s'il vous plaît' stage if you want to make the most of this course. It helps you to keep up your existing French and puts you in situations where you can use your language for making real and useful contacts, getting to know the French and their country better. There is no specific progression, though the earlier units are generally easier than the later ones and vocabulary is built up gradually. Each unit has a carefully selected balance of the following: • Interviews/eavesdropped conversations with ordinary French people which carry key vocabulary/idioms and structures. They are recorded on location in France and you practise understanding the real language right from the start. To help you, there is a transcript in the book of each dialogue you'll hear on the cassette, plus essential vocabulary, explanatory notes and exercises directly associated with the text. Please note that you are not expected to switch on and understand immediately. Learning comes from a combination of listening - using pause and rewind buttons as many times as necessary - and of studying the text. • A list of key words and phrases follows the introductory dialogues and exercises. You can use this to check that you have mastered the most important elements before going on. • Grammar is the cement ofthe language. It helps you to understand the way French works and in each unit we've included a short analysis of items we think you'll find useful. But Breakthrough Further French is not a grammar course. Understanding when you hear or read something and making yourself understood is more important than knowing all the troublesome intricacies, which the French themselves quite often get wrong. Don't get bogged down here. If you find some ofthe points too fiddly just move on. • A short reading section comes next. It consists of two or more exercises based on authentic examples you might see in the streets of a French town or read in French brochures, papers and magazines. • Radio comprehensions unique to this course then give you some extended listening practice. In co-operation with Radio France and Radio Service Tour Eiffel we have selected and edited parts of real radio programmes to give you some more genuine listening practice and to help extend your vocabulary further if you wish. You can approach these in different ways. More advanced learners might be able to listen in and complete the various listening exercises. On the other hand you might need to go through them bit by bit, helped by the transcripts which we've put at the back of the book. It's up to you to select the approach which most suits your experience and your needs. • A speaking section in which you can practise relating information to your own life concludes each unit. The tasks here are open-ended. That means there is no right or wrong though we do give you some ideas on what to say, and on the cassette you'll find a model version spoken by our two actors, Marie-Thérese Bougard and Yves Aubert. At the end ofthe book we've put a comprehensive vocabulary (both French-English and English-French). This contains all the words in the course apart from the most basic ones, like 11, elle, un, deux, etc. or obvious ones such as possible, destination etc. where the spelling and meaning are the same as in English.