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Product Description
Product Description
Take your French grammar skills to the next level and speak with more panache!
To fully understand how to speak French effectively you must move beyond the fundamental principles of grammar and tackle more sophisticated sentence constructions. Practice Makes Perfect: Advanced French Grammar focuses on intermediate- to advanced-level topics to help you create more complex, meaningful sentences and communicate more naturally.
Instead of just applying sets of rules, Practice Makes Perfect: Advanced French Grammar helps you better understand the nuances of the language and develop your skills and confidence as a French speaker by providing easy-to-absorb explanatory materials, examples, and exercises. Inside you will find:
- Thorough explanations of topics that often prove difficult for English speakers when they learn French, such as the correct use of object pronouns.
- Practical exercises that give you the opportunity to test what you've learned
Learn the ins and outs of:
Compound tenses • Translating -ing • The subjunctive • Relative tenses • Ce versus ça • Prepositions • . . . and much more
About the Author
Véronique Mazet, Ph.D., is an adjunct professor of French at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas, and is the author of Correct Your French Blunders.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
50 of 50 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Advanced French Grammar dives into the the most difficult aspects of French grammar. I think the chapter on the subjunctive and the distinction between "c'est" and "il est" are worth the price of the book.
Here is a list of the chapters in Advanced French Grammar
1. Understanding the verb
2. Compound tenses and agreement of the past participle
3. Use of the past tenses
4. Translating the -ing form into French
5. Relative tenses introduced by que
6. The subjunctive
7. Relative tenses not introduced by que
8. Articles
9. Other determiners
10. Relative pronouns
11. Neutral relative pronouns: translating a different kind of what
12. Determining a noun with prepositions
13. Object pronouns
14. Position of object pronouns
15. Expressing this is and that is: ce, ça, and il
16. Questions
17. Translating for, since, and a few other expressions of time
18. Negative sentences
I've already mentioned that my favorite parts of the book were the sections on the subjunctive and c'est/il est. I especially liked how the author gave a list of "trigger expressions" for the subjunctive. She also gave a list of expressions that do not trigger the subjunctive.
I liked the chapter on the past tenses, but I didn't love it. It seems to explain the imparfait the exact same way several other books and teachers explain it; they say it describes the scenery. And I really don't like this explanation because it's so unclear to me. When I tutor students on the difference between the imparfait and the passé composé, I use the acronyms HIDE and STARS.
Imparfait - HIDE
Habitual Actions (used to + VERB)
Incomplete Actions (was/were + ing form of verb)
Descriptions in the past
Emotions/Feelings (most of the time)
Passé Composé - STARS
Sudden Ocurrence
Time Limit/Complete Action
Action Disrupts Action of Imparfait Verb
Reaction/Result
Series of Distince Instances or Events
The other chapters explain prepositions, pronouns, making questions, negating, etc. I highly recommend this book to any intermediate or advanced French learner.
Brandon Simpson
Here is a list of the chapters in Advanced French Grammar
1. Understanding the verb
2. Compound tenses and agreement of the past participle
3. Use of the past tenses
4. Translating the -ing form into French
5. Relative tenses introduced by que
6. The subjunctive
7. Relative tenses not introduced by que
8. Articles
9. Other determiners
10. Relative pronouns
11. Neutral relative pronouns: translating a different kind of what
12. Determining a noun with prepositions
13. Object pronouns
14. Position of object pronouns
15. Expressing this is and that is: ce, ça, and il
16. Questions
17. Translating for, since, and a few other expressions of time
18. Negative sentences
I've already mentioned that my favorite parts of the book were the sections on the subjunctive and c'est/il est. I especially liked how the author gave a list of "trigger expressions" for the subjunctive. She also gave a list of expressions that do not trigger the subjunctive.
I liked the chapter on the past tenses, but I didn't love it. It seems to explain the imparfait the exact same way several other books and teachers explain it; they say it describes the scenery. And I really don't like this explanation because it's so unclear to me. When I tutor students on the difference between the imparfait and the passé composé, I use the acronyms HIDE and STARS.
Imparfait - HIDE
Habitual Actions (used to + VERB)
Incomplete Actions (was/were + ing form of verb)
Descriptions in the past
Emotions/Feelings (most of the time)
Passé Composé - STARS
Sudden Ocurrence
Time Limit/Complete Action
Action Disrupts Action of Imparfait Verb
Reaction/Result
Series of Distince Instances or Events
The other chapters explain prepositions, pronouns, making questions, negating, etc. I highly recommend this book to any intermediate or advanced French learner.
Brandon Simpson
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book includes an enormous amount of material at the advanced level which the title claims. There are pages of explanation and comparatively few exercises. The answers are at the back and there are explanations for some of them though not all. I did learn a great deal but feel that it needs revision and better proof-reading. There are some accents missing in places and some carelessness: for example, on p. 140 question 13 two words are run together. The expression "phrase" is used whereas I (an erstwhile teacher of English grammar) would use "clause" and some explanations lack clarity: in the answer to Chapter 8:3 no. 10 (on the use of definite article after ni...ni) it merely asks the learner to compare it with the answer to question 4 - which I did but failed to see the difference. On p. 209 it puts the expression "T'as pas encore fini" under the heading for written language (surely not!)and on the bottom of page 152 the explanation for using "dans" or "dedans" at the end of a sentence is largely meaningless: the layout of the position of pronouns on p. 165 is somewhat muddling; there are two identical examples on p. 198: "Nous habitons à Paris depuis dix ans" and on the same page the two expressions which are supposed to avoid ambiguity left me confused: "Ça fait deux heures que j'attends" and "Il y a deux heures que j'attends." There is some contradiction as to whether or not a French sentence can end with a preposition. All this sounds very niggly but at this level few learners are suffiently sure of themselves to think that the book could be wrong and I am a little hesitant to do so. Having said all that I have learned an enormous amount from all the Practice Makes Perfect books particularly when I think what I would have paid for private tuition and it is good fun filling in the spaces for answers! The book is excellent value for money and the only one I have come across that takes the reader to this level but I still feel it needs a closer proof-reading eye for another edition.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having used several Practice Makes Perfect books in the past, I imagined that this would follow the same structure. The sheer number of exercises which backed up each section of grammar explanation ensured that practice did indeed make perfect. However, this book does not follow the same format and I feel it is less effective as a result. There are far fewer exercises and they're confined to the end of each chapter, making them less targeted to the area of the chapter that they relate to.
Given that the reader gets little practice in a book called 'Practice Makes Perfect', it seems counter to the aim of the series.
Given that the reader gets little practice in a book called 'Practice Makes Perfect', it seems counter to the aim of the series.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
excellent value for money
Excellent value for money, arrived in no time, big print comes handy also, good for linguists or just for a linguistic hobby
Published 1 month ago by a languages aficionado
teen help
Bought this for teen doing A levels to help her out, book looks good and well structured, but lacks crucial section on motivating teens to stop watching tv rubbish and playing on... Read more
Published 3 months ago by glad2bhere
Very good book
I am very much a fan of these "practise makes perfect" language books. Every one I have purchased in French, German and Italian have been very good. This one is no exception. Read more
Published 4 months ago by adr11iano
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