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Take off in French

Beginning- to intermediate-level French learning kit

About.com Rating 4.5

By Laura K. Lawless, About.com

Take off in French, from Oxford University Press, is a compact French learning system for new French learners and those looking to expand on the basics.
 

French learning kit

Oxford's Take off in French kit includes a course book, 4+ hours of audio CDs or MP3s, a phrase book, and supplemental online exercises and activities. The 14 units in the coursebook cover the basics like greetings and numbers and then move on to French for shopping, restaurants, and work situations. The accompanying audio exercises included detailed instructions to help you follow along in the book as you learn and practice.
 

French lessons

Each unit covers realistic and useful situations related to traveling and working in France. Short grammar lessons are introduced throughout the book, and there are a variety of practice exercises. Each unit ends with a short test, and there are also four review sections so that you can make sure you're learning all you can as you progress through the course.
 

Warning

Oxford University Press is a British company, which obviously means that the audio is done by (and therefore for) speakers of British English. This is not a problem for speakers of American English except when it comes to the English equivalents of French sounds. For example, the pronunciation guide offers "hot" as an equivalent to the o in comme and téléphone, but for most Americans, "hut" is a much closer approximation. Likewise, "her" for the vowel sound in deux and bleu and "fun" for coiffeur and acteur would both be better off as "good" for speakers of American English, and "cot" would be better than "cat" for the American English equivalent of the a sound in café and papa. I can't say how English speakers from other countries might be affected, but American English speakers using this French learning kit would definitely need to supplement their pronunciation studies with other materials.
 
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