Editions of Grammaire Progressive du Français Débutant

[Cavesa]

I've noticed this book as well, while looking up info about the other (and probably excellent) new book of theirs. Unless I am mistaken, CLE has invented another level, even more basic than the so far lowest one. Level "debutant complet" appears to include not only grammaire but as well communication and vocabulaire. Sounds like a clever way to draw more money from the learners to me.

It may not be bad per se but I'd say lots of French learners are already being discouraged by too little progress of classes and too much time spent learning before they "can" actually use the language. Since levels débutant and intermediare of this series are already overlapping a lot, I agree about that, I don't think another overlapping volume is anything else but a golden mine.

from the website:

FLE - Niveau débutant complet
Pour réussir ses premiers contacts avec le français.
Une grammaire simplifiée et entièrement illustrée
Une organisation claire:
la leçon sur la page de gauche
les exercices d'entrainement et des activités communicatives sur la page de droite
Une introduction aux règles de la langue française avec un vocabulaire de base (Niveau A1.1 du Cadre européen commun de référence pour les langues)

There is now an official A1.1 level?
(Are there as well gonna be levels A1.4 and B2.9? )

"Pour réussir ses premiers contacts avec le français." is something I dislike. Based on the tons of resources I've seen during the last 14 years, the book intros (yup, I read those), the teachers, everything, I am more and more convinced that the French learners get a different kind of encouragement compared to others. The English or Spanish (or even German) learner's world is full of messages like "hey, we're sure you're gonna make it and really use the language soon. Keep working and being awesome!" while the French one gets "it's such a hard language you could fail even your first contacts with it, keep working hard so that you can get to the intermediate level in five years from now. You're not expected to ever trully speak it anyways."

However, the main point: is the book good? Has anyone had a look inside in their bookshops? I didn't encounter it in my favourite bookshop a few days ago and there is no sample pdf on the website. I'm quite curious

[Doraemong's Pocket]

I have bought and (nearly) completed both the debutant and intermediaire editions (2013 Edition for the intermediaire, not sure about debutant). I was shocked to see a lot of the stuff in the intermediaire book was the same as the debutant.

If you look on the back it says that intermediaire covers A2/B1. I think the amount of grammar you need at A1 level isn't worth buying the lower level book. You can find that stuff in other courses from the beginning.

On Amazon there were reviews that said a lot of the Avance book covered the same as the intermediaire.

[Cavesa]

There are overlaps but Avancé is structured a bit differently than Intermédiaire and the overlaps are being covered in a bit more detail, I'd say. Perfectionnement is quite different from all the lower levels. But there are as well significantly larger gaps between the higher levels than between the lower ones. It seems weird to me as well to distinguish so disect the A1 even further as a learner might profit much more from getting through it fast (and deepen the knowledge later) than to dwell on it for ages.

[arthaey]

It seems weird to me as well to distinguish so disect the A1 even further as a learner might profit much more from getting through it fast (and deepen the knowledge later) than to dwell on it for ages.

Call me cynical, but in a word: money.