COURSE CONTENTS

Read and Speak French/CDROM teaches French Vocabulary, Grammar, Sentence Generation, Pronunciation and Reading to beginner, intermediate and advanced students. The course is contained in a CDROM that is installed on the student's computer and is designed to teach adults or children.  This French course is easy and fun to use, requires only the mouse and employs hundreds of custom-made color pictures, native speaker pronunciation and illustrated printouts.

The course assumes no prior knowledge of French and covers the language material taught in about 600 school hours.  Course format provides the presentation of learning material using multicolor French text to highlight dinstict word parts, illustrating custom-made color pictures, clickable French sound and explanatory English text.  Understanding of the material is evaluated through interactive exercises that enhance comprehension and incorporate multicolor French and English texts, pictures and sounds.  The course provides about 300 lessons, thousands of exercises and takes about 150 hours to complete.

This course is designed to be useful to children or adults (age greater than 5 years).  Course is suitable for use at home or in schools.
 

Introduction

Provides French words that appear in English and explains the origins of the French language

Presents the origins of the French language and its occasional resemblance with English.

Alphabet

Teaches alphabet letters and their sounds

Presents the French alphabet letters with their sound and tests acquired knowledge through 31 interactive exercises.
Exercise 1 focuses on the recognition of the alphabet sounds.
Exercise 2 focuses on the spelling of 30 words where each letter is pronounced as an alphabet letter.

Phonetics

Teaches the basic sounds and how to pronounce letters and letter combinations

All basic sounds and letter combinations are provided along with (a) their pronunciation, (b) their phonetic spelling and (c) example words. Example words are broken into syllables, each syllable can be heard individually and the individual syllables are slowly fused together to make the word pronunciation.  Acquired knowledged is tested through 204 interactive exercises.

Reading and Vocabulary

Teaches vocabulary, reading, pronunciation and how to relate text to its pronunciation

There are 46 lessons and each lesson focuses on 12 texts (nouns with their articles, verbs, phrases or sentences). The texts introduce to the learner various contexts and situations: days, months, seasons, names, relatives, professions, numbers, and many more.  Acquired knowledge is tested through 3,312 interactive exercises.
Each text has its color picture, its French pronunciation, its French text, and its English translation.
Each lesson has 6 exercises. The exercise score is increased if the response is correct with the first try.
Exercise 1 tests and teaches sound comprehension.
Exercise 2 tests and teaches sound discrimination.
Exercise 3 tests and teaches reading comprehension.
Exercise 4 tests and teaches introductory understanding of gender.
Exercise 5 tests and teaches basic sounds and their spelling.
Exercise 6 practices handwriting.

Accents and Punctuation

Teaches the marks of the language

For each of the Punctuation marks and Spelling marks of the French language, in this section you find English text along with illustrated French text that can talk upon clicking.  Acquired knowledge is tested through 24 interactive exercises.  The section explains the following:
(a) spelling of the mark name,
(b) pronunciation of the mark name,
(c) mark symbol,
(d) brief description of mark usage.
Exercise 1 ("Fill in the Blanks") tests and teaches understanding of French sentence structure.
Exercise 2 ("Unscramble the Words") tests and teaches Sentence Generation.

Structure of the Language

Summary of how French differs from English

Thorough illustrated explanation of the major differences between French and English.  Many explanatory French sentences are provided.  The sentences have a color picture, an English translation and you can click to hear their sound.   Acquired knowledge is tested through 24 interactive exercises.  In this section you find explanations of the following:
(a) gender and number (articles, adjectives and nouns),
(b) conjugation patterns,
(c) the basic tenses: present, imperfect, present perfect, simple future.
Exercise 1 ("Fill in the Blanks") tests and teaches understanding of French sentence structure.
Exercise 2 ("Unscramble the Words") tests and teaches Sentence Generation.

Parts of Speech

Teaches the Parts of Speech and gives examples of their use in sentences

Thorough explanation for each part of speech.
Key chapters are:
ARTICLES (18 interactive exercises)
elision
definite, indefinite, partitive articles and contractions
NOUNS (24 interactive exercises)
gender and number
ADJECTIVES (78 interactive exercises)
agreement and position of descriptive adjectives
possessive, demonstrative, indefinite, interrogative, exclamative, numeral adjectives
PRONOUNS (78 interactive exercises)
position of personal pronouns
personal, possessive, demonstrative, relative, indefinite, interrogative, exclamative, adverbial pronouns
VERBS (534 interactive exercises)
39 example verbs conjugated each at 13 tenses
negative, interrogative and comparative construction
conjugation:
- active and passive voice
- moods: imperative, indicative, participle, infinitive and subjunctive
tenses:
- of the indicative: present, past, past progressive, present conditional, future, present perfect, past perfect, future perfect and past conditional
- of the participle: present and past
- of the subjunctive: present
- of the imperative: present
reflexive verbs
impersonal verbs
auxiliary verbs and agreement of past participle
ADVERBS (48 interactive exercises)
use in example sentences
adverbs derived from adjectives
PREPOSITIONS (54 interactive exercises)
use in example sentences
"de" and "à"
CONJUNCTIONS (48 interactive exercises)
use in example sentences
INTERJECTIONS (48 interactive exercises)
use in example sentences
Exercise 1 ("Fill in the Blanks") tests and teaches understanding of French sentence structure.
Exercise 2 ("Unscramble the Words") tests and teaches Sentence Generation.

Dialogs

Provides examples of French dialogs

Follow the romantic adventures of Michèle and Benoît through 9 dialogs mirroring everyday life situations (about 500 sentences).
At the railway station
On the telephone
At the restaurant
At the hotel
Lost in town
At the store
Reunion
In the taxi
Back to Lille

Audio-visual words

For each word of this mini-dictionary (over 1000 entries), you find the following:
(a) spelling
(b) picture
(c) phonetic spelling
(d) sound
The mini-dictionary works both ways: French-English or English-French.

Course Review

Provides 348 interactive exercises that test the following competences:
(a) Phonetics and spelling
(b) Reading comprehension
(c) Listening comprehension

un crayon (a pencil)	écrire (to write)	l’enveloppe (the envelope)
un journal  (a newspaper)	des lettres (some letters)	lire (to read)
le livre  (the book)	le papier (the paper)	réfléchir (to think)
savoir (to know)	le taille-crayons (the pencil sharpener)	le timbre  (the stamp)

Pronoun	Notes	Sentence	Picture
je I		Je suis français. I am French.
tu you	The informal pronoun "tu" is used to address people of same age or social rank.	Qui es-tu? Who are you?
vous you	The formal pronoun "vous" is used when talking tom somebody older or of higher social rank.	Qui êtes-vous? Who are you?
elle she		Elle est jolie. She is pretty.
il he		Il est italien. He is Italian.
nous we		Nous sommes français. We are French.
on we	The informal pronoun "on" is more common than "nous" in coversational French.	On habite en France. We live in France.
vous you		Vous êtes allemands? Are you German?
elles they (feminine)		Elles sont américaines. They are American.
ils they (masculine)		Ils sont professeurs. They are teachers.

Ordering

Customer Comments
*Jusina Ilochi, Great Britain, 2 February 2008, adomkyaagba@yahoo.com
I enjoyed the program very much.
*Yolanda C Garza, USA, 28 November 2004, ygarza@twcny.rr.com
By the way, it is a great program.
*Ben Okah, Nigeria, 1 August 2004, balkonltd@yahoo.co.uk
The CD is wonderful.
*Joanna Leigh, UK, 20 May 2004, j.leigh30@ntlworld.com
I think it is a great fun and pleasure to learn.
*Andrew Cruickshanks, UK, 16 February 2004, webmaster@nihon-to.info
I am very pleased with your learn French CD.
*Michael Butler, CANADA, 20 November 2003, michael.butler@sympatico.ca
I have two boys and we all enjoy working with the program.
*Arthur Lindsey, USA, 19 February 2003, trailhiker@fuse.net
I am thoroughly impressed with the "Read and Speak French" course I received this morning. I am going to have a great time learning French from this course.
*Danny Nevins, USA, 30 October 2002, dan65251@aol.com
I love the CDROM!
*Sara Ortiz, USA, 29 December 2001, sarilla_4@hotmail.com
Hello! I think the CD Rom is very good for learning French.  I've had a nice time.
*Godfried Lindeyer, USA, 12/08/01, glindeyer@hotmail.com
I think that this is one of the best courses on the market.  I have reviewed a lot of other cheaper courses and found them lacking.  My wife is home schooling out two little children, aged 4 and 6.  Most courses start at a much older level.  If we can get them while they are young, more information can sink in.  To keep up with the children both my wife and I will also use your disk.
*Paul Lueth, USA, 11/11/01, plalvegas@aol.com
I think the program is great! I have learned more French in the past three
weeks than I did German in High School, which I took for an entire year!