1001 Most Useful French Words (Beginners' Guides) [Paperback]

The book is divided up into 3 sections:

Alphabetical (Dictionary) Section (pages 1 - 49)
Category Section (pages 50 - 53)
Vocabulary Tips (page 54)

ALPHABETICAL (DICTIONARY SECTION):

Alphabetically listed, the book contains a French word in bold type, whether it is masculine/feminine/plural (or neither), the English meaning and then two sentences: the first being an example in French of how the word could be used and the second is it's English meaning.

E.g.

Couverture f. blanket J'aurai besoin d'une couverture de laine parce qu'il fait froid la nuit. I shall need a wool blanket because it is cold at night.

Poli polite Les enfants doivent toujours etre polis avec les grandes personnes en France. Children must always be polite to older people in France.

Although I am unable to put in the different styles of text e.g. bold, the French word is bold and the French sentence is in italics which helps when reading the book or it would seem like a endless page of text.

As you might have guessed from the title of the book, there are 1001 of these French words in the book - each in the same style as mentioned above. Now from a student's perspective or those who may be looking for a specific word, this is not a book which is the easiest to use as reference. While there are over a thousand words, these are only common words so the majority of words that I would normally need a dictionary to find a translation for are not there. Another complaint is you need to know a word to be able to look it up - the English > French section in a dictionary helps this but this book doesn't have one. I've owned this book for a while and there are words which are used in the sentences which I need to look up (even though the English translation is there) because the book gives no indication of how the word is pronounced.

Ways in which the book is useful is just to gain extra vocabulary of words that may not have been known before. I found it easier just to spend a few minutes a day looking at the words, finding their meaning and how it could be used rather than using it to find specific words.

CATEGORY SECTION:

The category section is exactly as it is titled. It reminds me of High School French - the work sheets of vocabulary we used to receive which is divided up into sections relating to their topic. Examples of these are family, colours, numbers, food, occupations... They are in tables - a bold heading given for the French and English titles, then the French word on the left and English on the right. Again it contains the 'm.' or 'f.' if needed. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad point but none of these words are contained in the first section but I guess they are rather self explanatory.

E.g. La nourriture Food
Baguette f. long, thin French bread
Calmar m. squid
Riz m. rice

VOCABULARY TIPS:

This section comes on the very last page of the book, yet strangely, the preface of the book says it is a good idea to start with this section.

The tips are a very quick lesson in several different vocabulary techniques:

1. Examples of words that are spelled the same way in both languages e.g. radio
2. For '-er' verbs in French, the same English word is used but adds an 'r' after the 'e' e.g. 'encourager'
3. An English word ending in 'y' is normally the same as the French ending in '-é', '-ie' or '-I' e.g. 'emploi'
4. The English ending in 'al' is normally the same as the French ending 'el' e.g. 'eternel'
5. The 'oun' in English is normally the French 'on' e.g. fontaine
6. The 'ous' in English is sometimes the 'eux' (f. euse) e.g. joyeux

This section was actually rather useful as it isn't something I was taught to recognise but it is normally the case with each example shown.

The book as a whole is not suitable for beginners of French as most of the words are the infinitives with no tables to show how each word would change in each tense. A basic knowledge is needed but if you know how the language works, this will help to give a wider range of knowledge and use the words correctly in written and spoken word.

Overall, I'd have to say that although the book does have its downfalls; it has been rather useful in even pointing out some of the most obvious things that I didn't see before. The dictionary has been very good in teaching me a little extra and just by taking the learning of the words slowly, my range has widened and I could even give a few sentences with proper grammar (thanks to the sentences). The price is also very good as it says it should be 1.80GBP.