LesRonces wrote:What's the Phonétique book like? Like the Conjugaison book but with phonetics i guess ? Listen and repeat stuff or something ? I would definitely be interested in something like that if you or anyone else has used it.
I have the intermediate Phonétique book (and the answer book that accompanies it). For me, it's one of the most useful books in the whole series of Progessive du Français. (You really don't need the beginner book: intermediate book covers all the basics well).
Like other books in the series, in this book, the explanations on the left are immediately followed by exercises on the right. After an introductory section (8 chapters) that deals with characteristics of spoken French, there are sections on vowels (some 20 chapters), consonants (14), semivowels (2), and finally a section dealing with communicative activities. The book comes with audio but you need to buy the answer key separately.
First section (which I find really nice) deals with things such as l'enchaînement, la liaison, l'intonation etc. The next two sections take French sounds (that are similar or difficult to differentiate but important) in groups of two or three. In every chapter, a description of how each sound is produced is shown with pictures of the tongue position, the shape of lips etc. This is followed by some notes on how these sounds are represented in spelling. As you guessed, some exercises are Listen and Repeat but there are other types that require you to produce oral responses according to a given pattern/questions.
Publishers website used to have a Look Inside function for some/most of these books but after the recent revamp of the website,
it's gone. Here is the link to the relevant page:
https://www.cle-international.com/reche ... gories/699
Overall, I find it to be very useful. Having said that there are several alternatives as good as this one. For example:
These two from Hachette
http://www.hachettefle.com/ouvrages_Exe ... 56984.html
http://www.hachettefle.com/ouvrages_Exe ... 57545.html
These two from Didier
https://www.editionsdidier.com/fr/sous- ... ncais-a1a2
https://www.editionsdidier.com/fr/sous- ... u-trancais
These two again from Didier
https://www.editionsdidier.com/fr/sous- ... phonetique
Or this book (Typical of CENGAGE, this is quite expensive and you can't get the answer key unless you are a lecturer. Copies of the previous edition can be bought at a much lower price)
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/1305652592/ref ... 4P3V75NZ7F
If you prefer a book in English, there's one from Pronounce it Perfectly series. As far as I know all other language books (except the English one) in the series are out of print. Unlike other books in the series which, in my opinion, are not very useful, this French book is different and quite good. (However, I prefer the French books).
https://www.amazon.com/Pronounce-Perfec ... +in+french
Hope this helps.
Edited for typos.