You do feel you are making real progress with this very early on. I would recommend buying the entire set; the first 2 alone will leave you wanting more (or at least they should) and it will be far more cost-effective.I have tried many different self-instruction methods over the years, and this is the only course I have finished. It is imperative that you concentrate and participate - i.e. pause the recording and have a go at the answers before his 2 students do. I think merely passively listening isnt enough.
After the 8 discs you should certainly feel confident enough for average holiday French needs. Well ... speaking it, anyhow. It may not prepare you for a fast barrage of dialectic French in return. But what does? That is just practice and exposure. Also I tried picking up a French newspaper and couldnt understand a word of it. I may have to start with childrens books.
The final disc changes the pace, and his previously slow and patient explanatory style is almost left aside and he rushes through quite a few confusing sentence options. It would also have been helpful if he would have spent 5 minutes or so at the end suggesting what to do next in order to effectively carry on learning. He sells a separate language builder CD which Im about to start, but without that you do feel like hes just abandoned you at the end of the set.
For those like me who want to learn French reasonably thoroughly, you do feel at some stage that you will have to revert to a more formal method, using pen and paper and traditional text books. It is notable that you cant even count to ten at the end of this 8 hour course!
This box set will give you an initial confidence boost and a fair degree of usable French in the meantime, and I guess that is as good a way of getting started as ploughing straight into a more traditional textbook.
His method isnt perfect though. He spends too much time on how to say "I am going, doesnt once mention how to express the past tense (which might be quite useful, even for a holiday maker eg. "Yesterday I went to ....") and sometimes confuses what is and what isnt strictly a verb - which affects how you understand his rules for not conjugating the second verb in a sentence.
He generally tells you how to spell most words, but it is frustrating when he doesnt for about 3 or 4, because I think that is your best chance to visually fix the words in your head. At one point I became so distracted about how you might spell a particularly tricky word that I missed the rest of what he was saying.
You will generally need to listen to each disk 2 or 3 times, the final 3 disks perhaps more often.
Finally, a word about the 2 students. The man student is very bright and likeable, but he has a tendancy to stutter, mumble and chew the end of his words which is quite irritating, but he does get chastised for this by Michel.
The lady student is ... well, no disrespect to her, but she makes you feel quite clever in comparison. Whilst she is cheerful, you can just tell that shed come away from there without having remembered a thing. I think Michel knows this and he only asks her the easy stuff. I think her contribution - although irritating at times and quite laughable at others - is psychologically quite clever in order to give the listener a confidence boost.
Overall I liked this and will consider the Spanish set next.
