French and Visual Learning

[DRMPlato]

I consider myself largely a visual learner and was wondering if there were any tools available to help me in that respect.

[terence studye]

You might try the Rosetta Stone tape series. I checked it out when I was trying to find materials. It's good for visually-oriented learners because they have pictures and you learn the words/phrases by clicking/dropping & dragging the words onto pictures of the subject matter. Kinda pricey though.

[DRMPlato]

Thank you I've considered that but the price but me off as well. I've been using Je French.com

[terence studye]

Ditto moi.  I looked at Rosetta in the mall; then checked out Pimsleur, which seemed a little cheaper so I got that.  The FBI uses Pimsleur  but it's not visual and at times you really need something written (or in your case pictured) so you can figure out what the heck the word they are using is.   You could try looking on EBay or even Amazon.com - both sometimes carry used materials (both tapes and books) from second-hand bookstores.  I have gotten some good materials that way without paying full price and the quality is always pretty good.  I had not heard of JeFrench.com before but I checked it out this morning and it seems pretty good so I would just keep going until/unless you find something better.  I pick up everything and anything I can find, no matter what format, and try to learn from them all and it is slowly starting to come together.  Hang in there!

[DRMPlato]

Thank you, terence, maybe amazon is the way to go.

[terence studye]

At least look.  I got a $100 textbook for $5 which has been very helpful and a $40 verb conjugation book for $3 from their second-hand sellers.  Both are in excellent condition and the textbook even came with a CD to listen to as I read through the exercises.  I think you would have better luck with Amazon than EBay because they do have some quality control, i.e., if they get too many complaints about bad quality books/slow service etc. on a second-hand dealer with whom they partner, they'll drop them.  Good luck.

[Erwan]

$40 for a verb conjugation book is very expensive!

A lot of french pupils learnt (and still learn) french conjugation with a book called "Bescherelle". It costs €8.30.

You can, also, use this precious site.

 

[Neil Coffey]

I wrote a short review of La Conjugaison pour tous (the Bescherelle book) a while ago that people may like to look at. The main thing to be aware of is that this book does require you to be quite "analytic".

 

Another option could be Barron's 501 French Verbs. As I say in the review, a negative apsect of this book for some people as that it "overeggs the omelette" a bit: you end up with conjugations of multiple verbs which basically behave identically. On the other hand, this may suit more visual learners, and the book does also work as a mini vocabulary builder, giving various expressions involving the verbs in question.

 

As far as software is concerned, I also reviewed Instant Immersion French a while ago, which I think has quite a lot of merit for the very basics. Possibly other products such as Rosetta Stone are more comprehensive (I don't honestly know -- I've never been sent a review copy so am just going from heresay), but obviously at a higher price.

 

See also the Verb Conjguations section of this site's French grammar page, where you can conjugate essentially any verb.