Street French 1: The Best of French Slang (Street Language) (Bk.1)

While I bought the book knowing it was used, I anticipated it being clean and with a minimum number of markings. Unfortunately, quite a few of the exercises had actually been worked in pink pen throughout the book. Other than that, the transaction and shipping went smoothly, and I was satisfied with the purchase.

This book is a very well considered review of colloquial French as it is spoken. It's broken down into easy to digest lessons with insightful advice for those who want to speak and understand French as it is commonly spoken.

This book and this author's book 3 (Naughty French) are 2 of the funniest books I have ever owned. I studied French at University for 7 years and believe me the French in these books is not what I learned. I cannot tell you how refreshing these two books were to me after having studied French formally at the University. These books teach you how people in the street talk, how the people engage informally with each other in every day interactions. I can remember when I first went to France and could barely survive for the first 2 weeks I was there because I could understand next to nothing---because the natives were all speaking in slang. I wondered if I had really been taught French or Greek---but after 2 weeks I began to figure out that the French I had been taught was proper French and the natives could all understand me---but they had their own lingo of slang just like we have here. Slowly, but surely I began to pick up the slang expressions from them, but having been exposed to these 2 books would have made my transition period infinitely easier and smoother. I strongly recommend this book and his other books to anyone planning on going to France and to those who want to have a good laugh---this book is extremely funny as well as useful. I wish I had known about this book a long time ago. I think a book like this should be used in French classes in conjunction with a formal French language grammar because this book to me is just as important as the formal grammar boook---you need to know how the people actually talk in every day circumstances---not just formal conversations.

I bought this book before I trotted off to Paris a couple years ago. I'd taken French in high school and college, and I bought this book to refresh my French a bit. I'm so glad I did! This book teaches you the way that the French really speak, dropping letters and words just the way we do when we speak English. None of my French teachers prepared me for Paris. I would've thought I'd learned the wrong language.

This book will help you take the French that you were taught and turn it into the language that the French actually speak. I'd recommend that most people have had at least a year of high school French to make the most use of this book. If you haven't had any French, or at least a Romance language, and you're going to France in a hurry, you might want to get a phrase book and memorize it. This isn't the right book for an emergency.

TK Kenyon
Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous: A Novel

This is a really good book, I must say. It's not the book that I originally wanted to like, thinking that it was just going to teach me basic vocabulary, but it goes much deeper than that. Mr. Burke teaches you many important things such as the contractions that the French commonly use and also the way Fench ask questions, etc. These ideas are what seperate this book from just a basic slang vocabulary book.

Mr. Burke will teach you how to sound like a native French speaker. The contractions section is a great example of how this works. He teaches you that instead of saying something like 'Je ne peux pas' (the English equivalent of "I am not able to") you should say something more along the lines of 'Je'n peux'pa' (sounds more like "I can't.") These are the essentials that will keep you from sounding just like a French student (and speaking Scholarly French) to sounding like a native speaker who has lived in France for years (something much better).

If you are interested in learning French beyond what a typical academic setting can bring to you, this is definitely a book and a series I recommend. For anyone who wishes to go to France and speak a more natural and believable French, this is the book for you. I would recommend this to anyone and would even be willin to buy it as a gift for any one of my friends.