The Complete Merde!: the Real French You Were Never Taught at School

A handy and thorough book about French slang phrases, covering most of the slang and typical relaxed sentence structures from everyday French speech as contrasted with the formal type we learn first at school and in textbooks, as well as some less common, and often amusing, examples of colourful phrases.

As to complaints here about lack of pronunciation guidance or copious examples of use - I'd say this book is aimed at people of about A-level standard or more, who already have a good grasp of standard French. Anyone else would glean a few useful tips from it, but not take it all in. As a graduate in French, I think it would have served me well if I'd read this before going to France in my gap year before uni. Even now, reading it, there are some expressions I'd not seen before, along with many old favourites.

Some of the content is a bit on the strong side, but that's part of the point!
Also, bear in mind some of the advice on how to speak like a native is helpful and practical (t'es sympa instead of tu es sympa; j'sais pas instead of je ne sais pas), but there are times when even in speech you might want to sound more 'text book' and less 'street'. It all depends on context.

Whilst the content is very amusing, there is no hint to any of the pronunciation so it's almost useless unless you want to send a dirty French letter, or speak good to fluent French to start with. In which case you would not need this book, would you.

The author really needs a word in the war for missing such a basic and important thing as this.

A funny book with useful slang words and phrases. As well as being a fun read it gives a useful insight into the French culture with helpful tips on what exactly things mean eg. how to read a driver's number plate and know what it means - like where the driver is from etc. All in all, an ok book!

My parents gave this book to me as a Christmas present a few years ago, and it has had a lot of use since! It proved indispensable during my year abroad and I've lent it out to a few friends - both English and French.

The book is divided into chapters according to subject, with practice sections at the end of each. Well-written and comprehensive, once you've mastered the contents you cannot fail to get a few "OOOOOHS" and "AAAAAAAAAAHS" !!!

Recommended by my funky french teacher a few years ago, this book has become my bible during my stay in France. It's amuzing illustrations and highly up-to-date content, not to mention it's crudeness, have caused many a laugh among my french colleagues. It covers a wide variety of topic areas from body parts to baby french and gives you useful phrases to learn at the end of each chapter. If you're off to France, don't get left behind because this is the real french you'll need to know to survive!