David Lebovitz

Blog of pastry chef David Lebovitz, author of Room For Dessert, Ripe For Dessert, The Great Book of Chocolate and The Perfect Scoop. Dessert and chocolate recipes using seasonal fruit and berries, and writing about Paris, including travel tips and stories about living the sweet life in Paris.

Learning French...Simplified

7 comments - 06.05.2005

Just in case anyone thinks that learning French is difficult, my French workbook offers this simple explanation of how to easily construct a phrase.

7 Comments

By Anna S. on June 5, 2005 9:57 AM

I just signed up for a fiveX/week French class at Santa Monica College, and may I say this diagram scares me. I'm just going to assume you're in an advanced class. :)

By David on June 5, 2005 10:05 AM

Don't be too worried Anna. Just print out that simple diagram and your French will be perfect! French is one of the harder languages to learn-even French people have difficulty with all those verb conjugations (English has 6 verb tenses vs. 14 in French.) Although come to think of it, some Americans, even Presidents, have trouble with English!

By Shuna on June 10, 2005 2:09 AM

I ran to my fridge to pull out a petite swisse to eat whilst reading your post! But I ate it plain so that I could get right inside it's personality. What a nifty size and packaging the whole minute thing is! wondrous.

By Sam on June 18, 2005 7:15 PM

you can blame me for that as i gave them to shuna

http://becksposhnosh.blogspot.com/2004/08/made-in-france-village-imports.html

By Jonathan on July 1, 2005 3:07 PM

Where can one find that workbook? Or at least the name of it? I live in NYC, but will be in Paris this Fall. And, yes, French IS difficult to learn, but once you get the hang of it, it's absolutely wonderful to hear something so beautiful coming out of your mouth! :-)

By David on July 2, 2005 4:34 AM

Hi Jonathan:

It's from the workbook "Grammaire Progressive Francais" which I got at FNAC in the basement of Les Halles. They have tons and tons of French workbooks, but that's the best, I think. It's published by CLE and costs around 12 euros.

David

By Aimee Cardwell on July 7, 2005 11:44 AM

Oooh. That looks interesting to me, too. Which one of these do you have:

http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/402-5293595-6912113

My husband and I (expats from SF) have been studying for about 7 months and we're doing better, but can definitely use more help.