Learn French with Paul Noble

This course and the Michel Thomas course take a similar approach to introducing french. Both use spaced repetition, in which they come back to words and concepts already introduced. Both are based around testing (eg. they ask continually "how would you say") and testing like this is shown to be much more effective than simply reading a word list or dialogue over and over. I did the Michel Thomas course and then this one; if doing it again I'd reverse the order. It is still worth getting both; hearing somewhat different versions of the same material helps reinforce it. This course (and Thomas) require concentration; it isn't something you can do while driving. I prefer this course to Michel Thomas because the correct response is given by a native French speaker, instead of Thomas who has an accent. In this course the question is posed, there is a pause, then the correct answer. In Thomas you are in a small class as the 3rd student. They often stumble a bit, and if I was in a live class I'd want the Thomas approach because he fixes it by going back to something they know and working forward. But their mistakes on tape may not be your mistakes. Furthermore your fingers get a workout with Thomas since you need to pause after every question, while this course has pauses built in (although in later CDs they seemed a bit too short). Another plus is this course gives all the verb tenses from the start. The Thomas course standard course only uses some of the verb tenses. And I liked the frequent role-playing ("you are at a market", "you are at a hotel") in which a sample interaction is played out, something you don't find in the Thomas course. One nit is that when Paul prompts for 1st/2nd/3rd person he almost always goes in the same order, so you don't get as much of a testing effect to strengthen your recall as you would if he used a random order. So can you get by in French after this course? Both this and Michel Thomas seem to imply that in just a few hours using their method you can accomplish what hundreds of classroom hours fail to do for most students. After this course you can form some sentences, have a small but useful vocabulary, and understand how to use some of the pronouns. It's a good start, but both Noble and Thomas play a trick to sidestep conjugation. They teach the full present-tense conjugation of "want" and "can" so that any other verb can be used in the infinitive form (eg. "can we X", "they want Y", where X and Y are verbs you don't know how to conjugate). That's great, it gets you talking, but native speakers are going to conjugate verbs in writing and speech and you simply won't recognize them. After using this course I started with Assimil French, which has simple dialogues that use grammar and verbs well covered in the Noble course but with real conjugations. I found I understood little from the early lessons the first time I heard them. I'm not criticizing Thomas & Noble, actually I strongly endorse them, but I think the marketing oversells what you will learn.

Great way to learn a new language, Paul Noble makes it approachable and was to excel

The "Learn French with Paul Noble" program lies somewhere in-between Pimsleur (i.e. advanced tourist tapes) and the classroom approach. I was shipped the British version (not sure if there is a USA-specific version) and the DVD is in PAL format that will either play on a computer or a multi-region DVD player. No worries though as the content of the DVD just covers the approach of the program and there isn't any actual French teaching on it. I'm using this program as a bridge between Pimsleur Level 1 and 2. Pimsleur wasn't leaving me as confident as I'd like to be and I'm finding Noble's program covers a lot of what I was questioning while doing Level 1 of Pimsleur. I believe Noble is based in London, and he assumes UK students. For instance, rather than saying that you're from America, as Pimsleur does, Noble will instruct you on how to let the French know you're a Londoner. I guess that's good for Americans who want to be poseurs. Also, more French phrases are evidently used in the UK and Noble assumes that you know them. It's not a problem as he goes over them quickly and Americans like me can just pause and repeat it a couple more times to nail down the meaning. I'm up to disc 6 and the program is working well for me but bear in mind that I already completed Pimsleur Level 1. I'm not sure if this would be the best introduction as neither he nor his native speaker spend anywhere near the time Pimsleur does going over pronunciation, which besides the grammar is one of the most difficult aspects of French for English speakers to master.

Of all the self teaching CD sets available, this is definitely the best. I spent most of adult life living abroad, learning to speak multiple languages. For some, I had an American accent, for others, I was told I had no accent at all. Part of my family is French. I spent a great deal of time with them in Paris, studying at the Alliance Francais and traveling around France. However, I did not like speaking French because I could tell I was not pronouncing words correctly and I had too much of an accent. I also had to think too much about what I was attempting to communicate. The teaching approach by Paul Noble is unique in many ways. He does not go into great detail explaining grammatical structure, such as conjugations of verbs, declensions of nouns and adjectives etc. which is typical of most foreign language instruction which generally requires memorizing pages of words, whether masculine or feminine, endless drilling, memorizing past, present and future tenses of a verb, not to mention more complex grammatical structures. Instead, he assures the listener, not to be concerned about forgetting various words or phrases because they are repeated at different intervals. He explains in understandable terms how French is structured, so that when the listener practices speaking French, one is not all caught up in trying to remember every nuance. There is plenty of time during the intervals in which he introduces new vocabulary or phrases to practice aloud and then a native speaker repeats the words or phrases in French, so that is makes it easier to correct one's pronunciation without being mystified by all the diacritics and spellings. I have made remarkable progress in just a few days time. The beauty of this 12 CD set, is that one can replay sections or replay an entire CD. I highly recommend this distinctly different approach to learning a foreign language.

I bought this course to teach my high school daughter French. I already speak French, and she has done a fair amount of Rosetta Stone which helps a lot with comprehension. I wanted something systematic to help her start talking. I love this approach, it gets you speaking sentences and asking questions right away. My daughter is dyslexic which makes language learning very difficult, so the fact that she is enjoying it says a lot. I give her the Kindle and she pauses it whenever she needs more time. Most of the chapters take about half an hour to do. Because I already know French, I write a lot of notes while we are doing the lesson so that she can also see the written French. The next day she reviews the notes before we start the next lesson, but it only takes her about 5 minutes. Since Paul Noble is British, I'm very glad he has a native French speaker say the words in French. He does a great job explaining the way that French works, but I want my daughter to hear French spoken by someone French.

Easy to follow

After downloading so many different audio books for learning French, I think this one is the best, in terms of the content, structure and methodology. I can easily pick up the language and speak well. However, to be honest, you have to own some basics before using this audio book. I think this is true to all kinds of audio books. You have to learn all the alphabets, their pronunciations first, pronouns, etc. This would make you easier to understand and learn faster.

Very basic introduction to speaking French. I guess I should have read the description more closely. I was hoping that towards the end of the CD series there would have been more in depth language development. The series is about the same as one semester of high school French, but with no grammar and limited vocabulary.

[[ASIN:0007363958 Learn French with Paul Noble I have had this Paul Noble French Course for a few weeks now and am so glad I decided to buy it. In my opinion it has to be the best French Course on the market. When I decided to learn French I tried a few of the other well known coures but found them all totally confusing, I thought that learning to speak another language was absolutely beyond me, and was about to give it up when I dicovered the Michel Thomas French Course in the local library. Right from the first Michel Thomas Cd I was able to speak complete sentances in French, and his teaching method really opened the door to the French Language for me. What Paul Noble has done is to take the Michel Thomas teaching method of no taking notes or books to study and improved it 100% Michel Thomas has two students ( One bright and one thick) learning French with him from scratch. This seems like a good idea at first, but when you have repeated the Cd a few times it becomes a bit annoying to say the least. Also Michel Thomas uses learning tools that are sometimes really confusing. Michel Thomas is Polish, so you end up speaking French with his Polish accent! Paul Noble uses a French speaking assistant to say the words or sentances for you with a perfect French accent. For me, comimg from the Michel Thomas course, the first impression with The Paul Noble course is how everything is really slowed down in the pace of each lesson, at no time during any of the lessons have I ever felt stressed out, Paul has a really relaxing way of speaking, and you feel as relaxed at the end of each Cd as at the start, and he explains things so clearly that you don't have to try to remember things, you will find you will remember what you have learned without all of the stress trying to remember. You will need to know some basic French before starting The Paul Noble Course, a good place to start would be The Michel Thomas Introductary Course which is available at most Public Libraries. I am sure that anyone who has been struggling to learn to speak French will be blown away the amazing teaching method of Paul Noble. Also Amazon sells this course at the lowest price on the planet!

Ottimo corso introduttivo al francese. Dopo averlo completato ciò che si è appreso resta quasi tutto in memoria. Ovviamente, essendo la lingua in cui sono date le istruzioni l'inglese, presuppone una buona conoscenza di questa lingua.

I really enjoyed learning to speak French. This course starts out very simple and become more challenging as you go along.

Clear, easy to follow script that introduces French to beginners very well - plenty of tips on how to absorb the language.

I did GCSE French so bought this years later as I had forgotten nearly everything. This is brilliant and gets you up to a high GCSE standard again, but much much more than that. It sticks in your head for much longer than it did when I learnt it at school, and you have an excellent understanding of the French language. Paul Noble teaches you French how a child born in France would learn to speak it; by learning how to construct all the basic sentences. By the end of the 12 CDs (12 hours) you have an extremely firm understanding of a huge amount of French-all the basics I would say-that you can build on by learning new words, practice, and listening to French TV programmes etc. If you listened to this before you went on a French holiday you could order anything you want very easily and have a conversation with a French person (if it wasn't too long). You don't have to put in ANY effort, you can just download the CDs onto your iPod and listen to it on the train or when jogging etc. and he repeats things and leaves gaps for you to say things so that you are always engaged and it all just goes in magically. He has a pleasant voice, not to posh and not too broad, and very clear. Also he uses a French lady for the French speaking parts so you get really good at proper pronunciation. I think I will be getting the German and Spanish ones as well, although I'm not sure if I'd get on as well because I didn't learn these at school beforehand. I got this for £25 but it would be more than worth it at full price.