Rapid French: Volume 1

This review is about Audible rather than the item itself. The issue i have is that the download isn't an MP3 it's audibles own secure file format. This means that to listen to it you have to donwload software to your laptop, or if you want to listen to it on your phone like i do, you have to download an app. I personally just find this annoying. Secondly after buying it from audible and having to waste loads of time downloading software and apps to listen to it on my phone i went to Earworms own website. This was a bad idea as i found that they are just MP3s so no additional software or apps required, and secondly i could have got volume 1 & 2 for the same price as i paid for volume 1 from audible. So all in all pretty annoyed!! Do yourself a favour and buy it direct from the Earworms website!!

You can only listen to this when you download the app, meaning you have to download the app on everything you want to listen to it on.

I must first of all disclose that I was offered a copy of the Rapid French Volumes 1 and 2 for review.This review refers to both volumes.I have recently discovered the Earworms system and really enjoyed listening to both volumes of  RAPID GERMAN: 200+ essential words and phrases anchored into your long-term memory with great music. Vol. 1. EARWORMS mbt ( Musical Brain Trainer) . Despite the fact that these courses are aimed at absolute beginners, after trying out the German one I saw how they can be quite useful for slightly more advanced speakers of a language in 'implanting' some useful vocabulary and phrases, as well as helping with pronounciation (which, particularly with French, I find a bit of a struggle).Rapid French did not disappoint. Written in the same style as Rapid German, it contains pretty much the same vocabulary, with a few minor changes here and there. The format revolves around a conversation between a British male 'student' and a French female 'teacher'. If this triggers any alarm bells in your mind at the thought of the hopeless and irritating 'students' of the Michel Thomas course, please stop worrying now: the Earworms student's responses are carefully calibrated so that he still makes the odd mistake, but not too frequently, so that the teacher's corrections are actually useful as a form of reinforcement and not an display of repressed frustration (you can read my review of  Start German with the Michel Thomas Method (Michel Thomas Series)  here).In addition Earworms employs speakers with voices that you actually enjoy listening to - both the British man and the young French teacher have really really nice voices. It sounds really obvious, but choosing the right voices is vital. However, a lot of language learning audio material still relies on boring, stuffy recordings that not only fail to engage the listener, but also often sound like parodies of language courses themselves. The dialogue in Rapid French is delivered in a light-hearted manner, with a few jokes in between and at the end of Volume 2 the two speakers agree to go on a date together. It'a more humorous approach than Michel Thomas or Pimsleur, and one that you are more likely to see through to the end.The 'learning to music' method is something I'd never consciously considered before - I say 'consciously', because, like many other non-native speakers of English, I learnt a lot of vocabulary through pop and rock music. So it makes sense to try this in a more targeted and structured way. The tracks used as a background to the dialogue cover all sorts of music genres, from jazz, to dance to folk and so on. They are inobtrusive enough to let you hear the dialogue but still a good few notches above muzak. Within a few minutes of listening along, I found myself drawn into the rhythm, repeating the various phrases to myself. Even after using the course, whilst doing something else, random 'songs' from the course would pop into my head, proving that the 'Earworms' are really beginning to 'stick'. I also noticed that by using two Earworms courses at the same time - French and German - when prompted to say something in one language, my mind seems to bring up the answer in both, as the English dialogue is the same. This reinforces my belief that it is actually easier to learn more than one language at a time, because your mind becomes more flexible. I would advise anyone to try it in the name of science..!My only criticism to the Earworms method is that it really is only designed for complete beginners. Although still useful to intermediate learners for all the reasons listed above, it really can't take you very far. I would like to see a Volume 3 level available, with more general conversation-oriented dialogue that goes beyond the usual travel and tourism material. I really hope that Earworms will consider it.My next challenge will be to 'test' the Earworms system with a language that I know absolutely nothing about: maybe Arabic, or Mandarin. I am confident that I would learn enough to get by and maybe make some new friends. Watch this space...