Learning French through German

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moo
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Learning French through German

Postby moo » Thu Dec 22, 2016 8:58 am

Just wondering if anyone can recommend any courses/ books/ anything for learning French through German preferably with audio.

Thanks in advance!!
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Speakeasy
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Re: Learning French through German

Postby Speakeasy » Thu Dec 22, 2016 1:24 pm

As you are probably already aware, there are more materials available for learning French from an English base than there are available for learning this language from a German base. I would assume that your project reflects a desire to maintain, and perhaps improve upon, your present level of German.

My first inclination was to look at the Assimil.com website and, as I anticipated, this publisher offers their introductory and more advanced French courses from a German base as "Französisch ohne Mühe" and " Französisch in der Praxis" respectively. Although this publisher claims that a level of C1 can be attained with their upper level course, my evaluation would be B1+ in terms of one's true ability to speak the L2 should one study these materials only. Nonetheless, the combined courses provide a fair amount of materials at a reasonably low price. An advantage of using the Assimil courses would be that the dialogues, exercises and audio are standard for a given L2 language and only the textbook changes for the L1 languages. Thus, you could purchase either edition of the course (German or English) along with the textbook only for the other language. Doing so would permit you to compare the translations of the dialogues and carefully review the course notes (the latter would most likely contain slight differences given the different L1 target audiences). I would add that, in my experience, the notes in the Assimil courses seem to be written for those who already have a sound grasp of the L2 grammar. Thus, I would recommend that you accompany these courses with a very basic French grammar*.

I had a quick look at the offerings on Amazon.de under "französisch lernen" and did not notice anything particularly interesting. That is, the vast majority of the self-study courses were very elementary, they contained the habitual two CDs-worth of audio and, in my experience, they would not be as in-depth as the two Assimil courses.

A similar general search of the Internet under "französisch lernen" yielded results for the "big box" online language websites, free or pay-as-you-go, along with few dedicated websites that might be interesting.

The well-known German publishing houses Langenschedit-Klett and Hueber offer materials for the study of French for levels from A1 through C2. However, the vast majority of their courses are meant for classroom instruction, they are not designed to meet the needs of the independent language-learner, acquiring a complete set of materials would be a very expensive proposition, and they would be written completely in the L2 language (which would not be of much use if your goal was to practice your German while studying French).

In addition to my recommendation above concerning a French Grammar*, you might wish to consider acquiring a copy of each of the following books: "English Grammar for Students of German" and "English Grammar for Students of French". Your appreciation for the similarities and differences amongst these three languages would be greatly enhanced!

Addendum:
As an afterthought, I Googled "Linguaphone Französisch" and I located a couple of offers for used copies of Linguaphone's standard German course in an audio cassette version. The course book, which contains the dialogues and narrations, would be in the L2 only (French). Linguaphone does not provide translations for the course book and, in their place, they provide a separate book of explanatory notes in the L1 (German in this case) in fashion somewhat similar to Assimil. As for the Assimil courses, you could very easily find a copy of the course notes in English and compare the two, if you so wished. The audio, which is in the L2 only, is approximately 8 hours in length.

Good luck with your studies!

EDITED:
Additional comments concerning grammars.
Typos ... and more typos!
Linguaphone Französisch
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moo
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Re: Learning French through German

Postby moo » Fri Dec 23, 2016 6:22 pm

Thanks so much Speakeasy! Really helpful :)
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donJhon
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Re: Learning French through German

Postby donJhon » Sat Dec 31, 2016 4:27 pm

I saw the below yesterday.
German native speakers

Langenscheidt-Sprachreihe ‘mit System’ – Englisch, Spanisch, Französisch, Italienisch, Portugiesisch, Niederländisch, Russisch, Griechisch, Norwegisch, Schwedisch, Dänisch, Tschechisch, Polnisch, Türkisch, Chinesisch, Latin. This series includes both normal and slow speed audio files.

Langenscheidt’s ‘mit System’ series is probably the best series of languages manuals in the world!
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William Camden
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Re: Learning French through German

Postby William Camden » Sun Jan 01, 2017 11:49 am

If you are ever in Luxembourg you might check out the bookshops - the country is more or less bilingual in French and German, being right at the Romance-Germanic boundary, and it is trilingual if you count the local vernacular as an independent language (I tend to view it as a German dialect with a lot of French words). If you want to work through this language combination Luxembourg might be a good place to do it, or at least pick up materials. Larousse and Langenscheidt both publish bilingual dictionaries in German and French.
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Thunter
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Re: Learning French through German

Postby Thunter » Sun Jan 01, 2017 12:25 pm

Appart from Assimil I can recommend you Langenscheidt and the course available from SGD which is probably the best one. However it's very costly and you need to invest a lot of time.
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Speakeasy
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Re: Learning French through German

Postby Speakeasy » Sun Jan 01, 2017 4:25 pm

Thunter wrote: ... the course available from SGD which is probably the best one ...
Interesting! I am not familiar with this publisher. I tried to locate them on the Internet but was unsuccessful; could you please provide a little more information? Thank you.
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Thunter
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Re: Learning French through German

Postby Thunter » Sun Jan 01, 2017 4:49 pm

Speakeasy wrote:
Thunter wrote: ... the course available from SGD which is probably the best one ...
Interesting! I am not familiar with this publisher. I tried to locate them on the Internet but was unsuccessful; could you please provide a little more information? Thank you.


http://m.sgd.de/index.php?

It'a a private institute with high quality materials. I've studied French both with Assimil and with their books. The course I took included among other books 14 books for beginners and 9 books for advanced persons. (The other books where for business French and book analyses). After every book you will send one written exam and one mp3 file to the institute for correction. (In the advanced course you will send 3 or 4 exams per book). Due to the fact that it's a correspondence course you will speak fluently after it without practise.
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Speakeasy
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Re: Learning French through German

Postby Speakeasy » Sun Jan 01, 2017 5:20 pm

Thunter, thank you very much for the link to the SGD website and for the course description and evaluation. I see that they offer the "more popular" languages and I just might try their Deutsch als Fremdsprache B1 course. Frohes neues Jahr!
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