eBook A Short Course in Reading French ePub

If you’re like me you’re looking at this book because there is an exam in your future—maybe your very near future. I began this book with all the anxious energy of having to pass a PhD proficiency exam. I would’ve torn through the pages except for the word of pedagogy the author was kind enough to share at the start: work slowly, she admonished, let speed build organically, she said. That bit of sage advice was what I needed to get myself to stop and take breath. So, Instead of rushing, tumbling, skipping over the surface, I began working my way slowly, deeply—and then—joyously, through the book. What happened next was what I think you call… learning. 

Another bit of strategic frustration built into the book was also just as critical. No answer key! At first that took me aback. How was I, outside of a classroom, going to know whether I was getting any of it right? My first thought was to email the author for the key, but then I gave the book a chance. The author explained that if I had an answer key I would give in to the temptation of jumping to it every time I hit a knotty problem. And… she was totally right. I would have. In fact, I’ve done that. Not having a key was the best thing! I puzzled through every “what, how come?” moment. And, honestly, it made me marvel at the safe-cracker skill of the calibration of questions and translation exercises. All those knots were hard enough that I had to work at them, but none that weren’t supplied with all the necessary tools. As each gave way, linguistic mechanism by mechanism, I thought again, that’s right, this is what you call… learning. 

There is one kind of confidence that comes from the gratification of mechanically matching an answer key, and there seems to be another that comes from understanding the living language itself. You become, slowly, but increasingly sure of your translations because, as you patiently engage it, it yields its inner workings to you. You know you are right, because, you are starting to know French. There are so many fat volumes that just lay on the desk pinned down by a bloated taxonomy of linguistic data—There’s one such introduction to French literally collecting dust in my bedroom right now—The primer Celia Brickman has produced is nimble elegance, and it’s always on hand in my satchel. It seemed to understand what I needed—and what I didn’t—in order to understand the language, and therefore felt more like a fluent partner than a ruler-straight matron.

I wanted to write a review, not just because last week I strolled in and out of my French proficiency brimming, almost humming, but because something else happened along the way to my exam: I actually learned French and I learned to love French. If you think this review is already too glowing and uncritical, I can do you one better. Honestly, the first thing I did after the proficiency test? Well, I celebrated and relaxed for an hour. Then… I went to Starbucks and read French philosophy. Voila!

I am under no pretense that everyone will have a uniform response to this book. As with any thing, you get what you give it. You have to take it seriously, there’s no getting around the hard work of learning a new language. But, with any truly good thing, it makes you want to give what it asks for. It convinces you that it’s worth it, and gains your trust that reward will follow. Grammar books get as boring as grammar books when all they care about are the technicalities. To be sure, this book is precise, and unfolds its arrangement in a model of efficiency and calculated accessibility. However, you get the sense the author is not interested in dissecting orthography and morphology as much as mediating an encounter with French itself. I’m sure many books get the syntax and the semantics of French right, but this one, well—it captures some of the sparkle too.

It could be great, but it's not optimal for self study. An answer key is available only if you are a professor or teacher assigning the reading. The idea that a bunch of grad students, who are the target audience, are going to "cheat" by looking at the answers to exercises that most likely wont be turned in anyway is rediculous. This is geared towards adults, not 12 year olds, make the answers available to everyone.

This book is truly one of a kind. In a world where true language acquisition, and where notions of internalizing the nuances of language have rather receded to the backside amongst both scholastic ideals and lay presumptions, we finally find a book that reveals the real power of intellectual prowess and integrity.

Celia Brickman does with this book what almost every aspiring author of language learning desires: make the reader more able and functional with the particular language that she is studying but also inspired by the entire experience. Learning comes alive in this fine book. In fact, many of the language learning apps out there can learn a good deal from this text. Plunging hard and deliberately into this text will reap tremendous rewards.

Celia is a top rate scholar of French, and what she does for the English reader wanting to learn to read French, is absolutely wonderful. For the middle schooler to the retired herdsman wanting to learn to read French - buy this one! It’s a good read, and full of depth and intentionality. It works both as a workbook and a reference text. It’s fun! French modern history will make more sense. French cuisine will say a great deal more than "bon appetite."

Adieu!

Describing this book as useful for self-study of the French language is borderline fraud. Its big selling point is that it will help graduate students learn enough French to translate excerpts of advanced-level texts, which is required by many schools for M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in the humanities. Not to include English translations in such a book is indefensible. This book, therefore, is no different from any standard French textbook -- actually less useful because they all translate some of the passages in them. Worse yet, the excerpts included by the author, about which she brags in her Introduction that they were "selected from a variety of prominent French theoretical, historical, and literary sources, classical and contemporary," are nothing that cannot easily be found online. The lack of effort (she cribbed much of it from another author's work that she used to "teach" from) and true didactic purpose exhibited by this book are appalling. A student would be better off with any of the dual-language texts from Dover Publications and the Ultimate French Review and Practice from McGraw Hill. Amazon should make the publisher of this book state in boldface in its promotional description that the book contains no Answer Key for anything in the book. A real waste of money.

I took Ms. Brickman's course through the Hyde Park Language Program while she was developing this book many years ago. I decided to buy her book as a bit of a refresher course and I am not disappointed. Going through it and doing the exercises brought me right back to her class. I cannot recommend this book enough.

good for passing the french reading requirement for humanities phd's

It's a great book for breaking down the basics. Great for grad students taking a language qualifying exam!

Excellent book!