Review: French For Beginners

Have you ever wanted to learn French or maybe brush up on what you have learned in the past? French For Beginners is a free podcast to teach you French from the most basic greetings on up.

Podcast: French For Beginners
Episode Title: French For Beginners - Lesson 1
Length: 12 minutes 29 seconds
Date Recorded: March 10, 2006
Podcasters: Alexa Martin & Adam Smith
Audio or Video: Audio
Quality: Good
Language: G
Website: http://frenchecole.libsyn.com/

Alexa introduces herself and explains that she has been teaching French to primary school children and adults for fifteen years. She gives a quick overview of what to expect from the podcast, which includes learning the basic words, how to write the date, days of the week, months, numbers, colors and very simple French. Eventually, she will teach putting together sentences, how to describe yourself and how to have a very short and simple conversation with a friend. The end of every vocabulary lesson will have a short quiz and the answers will be given on the following podcast. The end of every podcast will have Adam with reviews of French films.

The vocabulary lesson begins with learning how to say "hello," "my name is" and "how are you?" She lets you know that it is best to repeat out loud the words you are learning and not to feel embarrassed doing so. Alexa then goes into the answers to "how are you?" that you can give such as "I'm good," "I'm okay" and "I'm not okay." She repeats things a few times, but you may want to go back and listen a few times before moving on.

The next section is about asking and answering the question "where do you live?" The possible answers given are France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, England and the United States. She lists off the countries in French and asks if you can figure out which is which. Then moves on to the question "what is the weather like?" and the possible answers such as "it is sunny" and "it's raining." She quickly recaps all of the French words that have been covered in the first half of the episode and recommends you listen to it a few times until you are comfortable with those words.

The vocabulary lesson ends when she explains that what you have learned so far is more traditional, but the French also use slang words. Alexa gives us the equivalent of "hi" instead of "hello." After that she hands over the rest of the episode to Adam.

Adam explains he will be doing a segment each episode called "Movie of the week," which will include his recommendations on French movies that you should seek out and watch. He recommends a 1986 film called "Jean de Florette" directed by Claude Berri starring Gérard Depardieu, Yves Montand and Daniel Auteuil. This film about a tax collector, played by Depardieu, who inherits land and tries to set up a new life, but his plans are disrupted by envious people cutting off the water to his farm. Adam says that it has a dark ending which is "very French." It's worth watching for the musical score and the beautiful images of southern France. He gives it a 9 out of 10.

Alexa finishes up the episode with a three question multiple choice vocabulary quiz. She gives the English and you have to pick how to say it in French. The answers are given in the next podcast.

The twelve and a half minutes go by quickly, and it's enough to decide if this is the type of French class that will work for you or not. The vocabulary sheet that downloads with the podcast is only a page and it has all the words that are covered so you can see how they are written. It's very basic and you can check off the words as you go or use them to practice. There is plenty of space on the page to make notes if you like.

I took French in high school and found this to be a nice little refresher as well as a good place to start learning from the beginning.

Download this Episode: Yes
Subscribe to this podcast: Yes
Episode Grade: A "Tres Bien!"

If you would like to read more of an overall review of the entire podcast series, please click HERE.

Please come back next week and check out the interview with Scott & Melissa Whitney, who do the "Living in Las Vegas" podcast.

Powering off.