I got this program to help me along in my college french class. It worked very well, especially since I'm one of those people who has a hard time with foreign languages. This was like having a tutor at home to help me. My french professor was impressed with how 'quickly' I was learning, little did she know I had another teacher on the side ; )

SmartFrench and SmartSpanish at first glance may appear unorthodox. Their method is so different from the "standard" foreign language teaching techniques that most Americans are accustomed to, that some people may be put off because it's not what they expected. But if you have an open mind and are willing to try a new approach, you will be rewarded.

For a motivated adult who wants to not just go through the motions, but really learn a language and get to the point of actually being able to converse and function in a foreign language, the SmartFrench series is vastly superior to Berlitz and most every other audio CD method I have seen.

I am a native English speaker who learned French and Spanish as an adult (in my twenties). I can now say that I am fluent in both those languages, but I also spent a lot of time and sweat in inefficient study that, looking back, could have been much accelerated. I only wish SmartFrench and SmartSpanish had existed then.

I've tried a wide range of methods, including traditional in-person language schools. I took five years of German in high school and college, and while I got excellent grades and my grasp of vocabulary and grammar was good on paper, if you drop me into a German beer hall I have no idea what people are saying -- and that's the problem with the way most foreign language is taught. I "know" German, but I can't speak it. If that's your goal, SmartFrench may not be for you. But if your goal is to get quickly to the point where you can actually converse in a foreign language, then I can't recommend this audio product highly enough.

SmartFrench doesn't follow the traditional academic pattern. If you judge it by that expectation, you'll be disappointed, and I think this accounts for the negative reviews. It does something much more valuable -- teaches language the way the brain is actually wired to learn language. It may feel unfamiliar at first, but if you stick with it, you'll see results that will actually pay off, and probably quicker than you expect.

The SmartFrench conversations are, in my opinion, the best way to learn the language short of being in France around native speakers. Christian Aubert has recorded conversations with French natives and they are speaking naturally, i.e. with run-on words, dropped endings, etc. (Not like a perfectly speaking textbook teacher) The real way to learn any language is to listen to the way it is really spoken, to let it penetrate the psyche, and eventually to jump in and try to speak. (Of course, you can read the translations ahead of time to know the meanings). I think listening to these wonderful CDs or tapes in the car would be most helpful for developing an ear for French, and eventually the ability to participate. I also highly recommend the CD-ROM because it has the videos of these conversations where you can see facial expressions and hand gestures, which is very helpful. You can also arrange your learning to suit yourself (view, listen, read, all three, etc), and the CD-ROM has beginner through advanced, plus extra material.

Poor methodology. I would suggest to continue looking for something better. You will not learn frech with this!

I was so exited about the course because of amounts of good reviews it has.... However a total disappointment... So boring and repeatitive that I didn't even finish the 3rd lesson!!! They read and explain 5 times for about 10 minutes a 1 minute conversation. For me it was a waste of money. I would not recommend it.

As said before, rather than a French course this is just a complement to your French course, designed to improve your listening and pronunciation skills (don't expect to find any help on grammar, for example). And it does an excellent job at that. To avoid repeating previous reviews, I will focus on describing this product, so you can judge it for yourself.

Starting with the content, this DVD-sized box comes with three audio CDs and a booklet attached inside. The CDs are recorded in standard audio format (not mp3), so you're sure to be able to listen to it in your car. The CDs contain an introduction to the alphabet, the numbers and the French sounds, followed by the recordings of seven one-on-one real-life short interviews, hand-picked to fit the beginner level (not for an absolute beginner, though).

The booklet contains the transcriptions of all that, including also the transcriptions of the nine interviews of the intermediate and advanced levels - whose CDs are sold with the intermediate/advanced box. It's just that they probably ship the same booklet with both products. Sound omissions are marked in red in the text, while "liaisons" are underlined. The booklet also contains the translations of all interviews into English.

After you listen to and repeat the alphabet, the numbers and the French vowel sounds, the first interview begins. Each interview is repeated six times. The first five times are spoken entirely by a male French speaker with clear pronunciation, and the sixth time is the real interview played back for you to listen. The speaker gives his instructions and comments in English.

The first time, the speaker just reads the interview for you to listen, very slowly, in the way French people read. The second time you repeat after him, also very slowly without reading the transcript, but this time with the usual sound omissions and simplifications common in spoken French. The third time you also repeat after him, but this time a little faster and reading along. The fourth time is when the speaker pauses to explain and work on a few pronunciation tricks. The fifth time is when the narrator repeats only one or two common expressions spoken in the interview.

Although I think this product is really effective and helpful, I didn't give it the full five stars because of the following flaws:

(1) The sound chart and recordings don't cover two important vowel sounds that are particularly difficult for foreigners: the sound of OEU in "boeuf" and "soeur", and the sound of UM in "parfum" or UN in "brun";

(2) The recording quality of the real interviews is clearly inferior to that of the studio-recorded French narrator. In the real interviews, not only are there the environment noise and the hissing typical of analog recordings, but also you're forced to increase the volume of your stereo to hear it at the same sound level as the rest of the CD;

(3) The French speaker gives much attention to phonetics and sounds, pronouncing words very slowly and clearly, but gives little attention to intonation, which is an essential part of a language's native accent;

(4) To better train our ear and pronunciation, it would be helpful to also listen to (and repeat after) different native speakers, with varying accents, not just one narrator.

That said, I still strongly recommend this product for improving both your pronunciation and your oral comprehension of French.

If you want to learn French like the French children do, use this product. If you want to start with grammar and vocabulary, try the excellent SmartFrench - Introduction to French, Vol.1 and 2. I use both in combination with this product and I am very satisfied. It's very clear, very efficient and very fast. Thank you.

In my opinion, the lessons contained in both the intermediate AND the beginner levels are not well suited for the person who is not familiar with French already.

That being said, if you have a good amount of French training behind you, such as in college, or independent study, that is, book-learnin', in my opinion this is a good series for putting finishing touches upon your pronunciation and accent. You're not going to learn HOW to speak French with this series (you should already know how, for the most part, before buying this one). But for the person who does have some skill in spoken French, imho, these CDs or tapes are a great way to polish up for conducting conversations with natives. You're going to be exposed to the much more messy version of spoken French than your fancy book-learning taught you, which is good, so that you don't come off sounding like either an American French student or someone who just stepped out of a time machine from back in the day when people paid more attention to the rules.

I am really an intermediate student rather than beginner, but thought I'd start with the beginner CDs in this series. Like most intermediate students of a language, I need to work on listening comprehension. This program does strive for that, but in my opinion offers too few opportunities to listen to native French speakers. Too repetitious--I kept falling asleep, or having trouble paying attention. Can't believe I bought these CDs! The narrator keeps repeating points he had already made...I won't be bothering with the intermediate or advanced versions.

And of course I bought them based on reviews from others, which I consider to be a good indicator...not in this case, though!

I have 2 other sets which I consider better (the "Learn French In Your Car" is especially good for beginners), and a set from the library that is no longer available.

This is an excellent program for learning to speak French the way it's supposed to be spoken. I used to speak as a child in school, but haven't spoken the language for many years. As my kid is learning French, I'm trying to help. School classes teaches the hard stuff, like grammar, etc., and not exactly how to speak/listen to the language. We tried a few other programs and were fairly disappointed until we got SmartFrench. This is an excellent program where you learn to speak, and as importantly, listen to real conversations, at different speeds. There are also text to refer to, as well as the vocabulary list for the CD materials.

One thing to understand though, that this program (Beginner level) does assume some basic knowledge of the language, and therefore not exactly for the absolute beginners. For the absolute beginners who never had any experience with the language, the also excellent SmartFrench - Introduction to French 1 & 2 CDs, also by Christian Aubert are more appropriate to start with.

Finally, this is not a program that teaches you to conjugate verbs and such. There are many books and others for French grammar. This program excels at the one objective, training your listening and speaking skills so that you can speak French like the French do. It's a perfect program if you've had some French in the past and want to brush up on speaking/listening.

Have fun!

The method is great. Listening, then speaking, but for someone like myself with absolutely no French (ie a beginner)the content was inappropriate. I am planning a trip to France later this year. I still don't know any basic vocabulary, how to introduce myself. How to ask for directions, the bank, everyday stuff like that.

On a positive note, I thought , hey, this is what I need for Spanish. I did very well in high school Spanish but have never been comfortable trying to speak. This method actually gets you speaking right away. So with a solid vocabulary in Spanish and a knowledge of grammer, I expect Smart Spanish to get me speaking.

I tried a lot of material before, but all I was looking for was good tight nicely designed, organized and natural dialogs, with different degree of complexity and good vocabulary. Up to date course. This information isn't just thrown at you, but is being guided through, by the author who created this courses. You feel more like you are in the classrom and he is tutoring you, this is so valuable when you are trying to learn it fast with our our speedy needs. The name speaks for itself. Smart person's choice definitely!
Thanks a lot Christian!
SmartFrench Audio CDs Beginner Level
SmartFrench Audio CDs Intermediate/Advanced
SmartFrench: Learn French from Real French People

I tried a lot of material before, but all I was looking for was good tight nicely designed, organized and natural dialogs, with different degree of complexity and good vocabulary. Up to date course. This information isn't just thrown at you, but is being guided through, by the author who created this courses. You feel more like you are in the classrom and he is tutoring you, this is so valuable when you are trying to learn it fast with our our speedy needs. The name speaks for itself. Smart person's choice definitely!
Thanks a lot Christian!SmartFrench Audio CDs Beginner Level

My investment in SmartFrench was the best money I've spent in a long time. I'd had some French experience in my growing up years while living overseas, and some high school and college French. But though I had a basic understanding and comprehension of the language, I didn't feel comfortable enough to actually open my mouth and attempt an actual conversation! About three months ago I purchased the Intermediate/Advanced cds from SmartFrench. The best way to describe the effect that my exposure to these cds has had, is to say that my mouth feels comfortable (and even rather delightful) with French rolling about in it now! After all the listening and repetition (the cds have been my constant driving companions), I'm no longer feeling tentative about pronunciation, or even the rhythm of the language. It's as though I've learned some dance steps and am now free to, albeit somewhat tentatively, move about the dance floor!
It's also very enlightening to listen to the French interviews and learn to understand what is being said by the non-teacher-types!
In addition to the new freedom I feel with the language, SmartFrench has clarified a lot of what categorizes a non-French speaker as just that - and has given practical advice on how to sound more French and less obviously foreign.
French feels approachable and adventuresome to me again, and I'm excited that I discovered these wonderful cds.

I recently moved to France for a short-term job, and unfortunately I studied Japanese in high school and Spanish in college. No French. So I had about 6 weeks to cram before moving to France; Smart French was luckily just one of the items I purchased.
The primary problem I have in learning French is that words on the page and the slow speaking of most French CDs do not help you understand people on the street, or in the next office, or anywhere. Spoken French is fluid, many letters are left out, and many words are linked. This is where SmartFrench is helpful.
If you are starting from scratch on French, like I was, I highly recommend getting a good beginning French book, a good set of beginning French CDs, and studying for a few weeks before listening to SmartFrench. Then, once you know some words and sentence structures, start listening to SmartFrench so you know what things will sound like when you hear them in real life!
The CDs are well-produced, and move at a pace that does help you to quickly follow the 'real-life' situations. It stops in places to explain why things sound the way they do, and points out general rules. You can use the enclosed booklet or not to follow along or read the translations, I have found benefits to doing it both ways. SmartFrench gives you a very honest view of what it will be like to hear french spoken on a day to day basis, and for that alone it is worth getting--otherwise you will think you know a lot of vocabulary, and feel incredibly lost when you must follow someone's directions or answer their questions.
Bottom line, I recommend this as a supplement to other methods of learning French. Do not use it as your first step in the process of learning French, but don't neglect to use it early in the process either. Once you have a little bit of knowledge, it will help you know better how to read to yourself and what to listen for in conversations.

The key is to understand what it is, and what it's not. It's not a comprehensive language course. It is a set of dialogues which can help tune your ear to French, and help with your pronunciation. It is not a competitor for Pimsleur, which develops your recall response in the foreign language, or Learn in Your Car, which hones your grammar skills. If you're looking to purchase your primary language learning tool, this probably shouldn't be it, but if you're looking for something to complement other materials, this has it's niche.