Practice Makes Perfect: Advanced French Grammar: All You Need to Know For Better Communication (Practice Makes Perfect Series)

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. 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.

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