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Grammar Errors and More! Beginners need only to apply.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 16 / 23
Date: January 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I had this game for 2 days and played it for a few hours...only to realize that it's a horribly made game.

The grammar is never really touched upon, and the use of articles (critical in French) is overlooked almost completely. You are taught words like pastéque (watermelon) but are never taught that it's really "un pastéque", a masculine word.

If you ever have a vocab word longer than 14 letters, then it won't show up in most minigames and you'll have to play other games to pick it up, and you have to if you want to go to the next lesson. I reached lesson 24 before I gave up on this silly game.

Fairly good as a vocabulary builder

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

My French Coach is fine for learning new words. Early on in the sequence there are some lessons that impart new concepts, but at some point, it seems to morph into nothing more than a vocabulary builder totally void of any grammatical concepts or lessons. That's fine I guess. I had hoped for at least some sort of rudimentary lesson structure to build upon throughout the many, many levels which one can progress. It can't hurt you to spend time with this game. Just don't expect too much in the way of improving your grammatical skills.

You formal, You informal

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: January 24, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The game teaches Tu is the formal form of You. I'm rusty on my French but not the basics. Tu is the informal form of You, and Vous is the formal form of You. I'm sure others fluent in French verify that. I can't see how they messed up on that, as it is very basic.

Simply google: french you tu vous. You will see other sources state that Tu is informal. The game teaches Tu as (fml.) when it should be (infml.)

Probably not ideal to be learning to use the incorrect form of You when you visit France and talk to strangers but oh well. Vous will apply to most everyone: strangers, older people, waiters, store clerk, doctor, and anyone you don't wish to offend.

Overall, I'd say it's ok as a supplemental activity to learning, but not as a main source. Best to look out for errors as you go along with the game, and check against another source. Otherwise it's fun as an activity involving French language.

very limited, mostly focused on vocabulary

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: February 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

this is a decent game/edutainment title in terms of production and content, but it's severely limited. there are relatively few mini-games, and the focus is almost solely on vocabulary and short phrases. several verbs are introduced, but there's very little reinforcement and conjugation is never fully explained. after you get to lesson 35 or so the rest of the "1000" lessons consist of completely unrelated groupings of often useless vocabulary (e.g. "quarry"). there are tons of cognates (e.g. "cookie", which is the same in french) which could've been spaced out a little more, and there are numerous notable mistakes (e.g. one lesson skips over presenting half of the word list and still tests you on them, and there are places where a word is presented as the translation, but then a different word is used when quizzing). all in all this is a good, but def. not great, package. clearly a quick money-maker that with a bit more time and effort could've been truly indispensable.

My French Refresher

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: May 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I purchased the game to help me review 4 years of high school French. I'm not sure if it would help a person just starting out but it does help review. Some of the games are useless and give too much credit towards mastering words but for the most part the oral and flash card challenges are good.

Great learning tool.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: December 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a great learning tool. I took three years of French, but forgot most of it. This game is refreshing my memory in a fun and easy way. I recommend it to anyone that wants to learn the language.

Learning made fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: May 06, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is helping me learn French with easy/fun games in just minutes a day. My only gripe would be that the voice compare function does not tell you if you are saying it correctly. So far, it's been great for word memorization.

A Great Gadget!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Not perfect, but a great gadget for review. My husband and I are enrolled in an elementary French class, and we also have bought language programs for our computers. My husband transferred the audio parts of the computer programs onto MP3s that we can listen to when we are out and about, but I found that this "My French Coach" makes a great additional gadget to review what I have learned.
I am not so sure that a person could *learn* French this way, but it is a fun program.

As far as am "on the go" translator/dictionary I have had trouble using it in the French class. It doesn't have everything! Still, I am finding it a nice additon to resources I already have.

Je parle français!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 70 / 71
Date: December 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I moved to a French speaking part of Europe a few months ago and have been determined to learn French ever since. I enrolled in a university level course, hired a tutor, and try to practice at my local pub as much as possible.

I was doing "OK" but then I heard about this title. I ordered it from Amazon and I have to say I am IMPRESSED! This is exactly the type of study program I needed. Unlike listening to straight audio (Berlitz Rush Hour French) the DS makes the process interactive. You get ranked (from enfant on up) based on your completion of the levels. The title has an excellent recording feature to let you record a word or phrase and then either listen to it alone, or play it back in unison with the French audio.

The many games you must play to master words to unlock the levels are challenging, somewhat addictive, but fun. I try and play all of them on the DIFFICULT level as they make me work harder.

But, it's not perfect:

One glaring thing missing is they do not list the masculine or feminine identifiers for the verbs. That would have made this a perfect tool because the M Vs. F tense is still a killer for me as I try to weave sentences together.

Also, they make a very strange error in that "Tu" or informal version of "You" is listed as "Formal" and the formal version "Vous" is listed as "Informal." That's a very blatant error.

The dictionary is very limtied. For example, while it has the word for "puppy" there is no word for "dog." It also does not provide definitions, so you'll need a dictionary to ascertain the exact meaning of a word because as in English, a single word can have many different meanings.

The audio and visual "phrase book" for social situations and traveling is probably worth the price of the game alone. It came in very hand on a recent trip outside Paris.

I play this every morning for about between 10 - 15 minutes. It also helps pass time when I have to wait someplace, e.g., barber shop, car dealership, etc. My vocabulary is now over 500 words and even my French tutor (a very picky and precise Parisian) started recommending it to her other students.

No matter what your level, from don't-have-a-clue-about-French to advanced level people who want to brush up on vocabulary, this title will be a useful training tool and a quality way to practice and brush up on existing French skills.

I have to give UBI Soft and Nintendo credit for scoring another way to attract adults to the DS. Unlike a bulky laptop I can play this thing anywhere and that's what makes it so appealing. It really is a quality and inexpensive learning tool, but could be even better with a little tweaking in (hopefully) newer releases.

My rating for this should be four and not five stars.

Wonderfully educational & entertaining at the same time!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 32 / 34
Date: November 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is an absolutely wonderful title in the DS line up. I have been wanting to learn French for years, & finally I have a way to do it easily. I've used this multiple times now & it is very addicting & leaves me with a feeling that I've really learned something. I would DEFINITELY recommend this title.

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