Chris

I agree with Julie, in that a lot of courses are very over-priced. I'm a language nut myself, and have looked at and used a great number of courses (and I've even written two in the Teach Yourself series - not in French though, so I'm not advertising myself here - but that's another story!). Linguaphone courses are very good, in my opinion, but they are very expersive, and you don't need to spend that much. If you live anywhere near Manchester, I know for a fact that the Central Library carries virtually all the Linguaphone courses, and you can rent them for a minimal sum each week. If there is one problem I can see with Linguaphone, it is that the courses assume you already know the metalanguage of grammar. It doesn't make such concessions to the beginner, but in reality, grammatical terminology has been dropped or played down in UK schools to the point where the understanding if the grammar consitutes a hurdle before you even start to learn the language. Not just to be partisan, I do recommend Teach Yourself as a way to start out learning a language. I know their requirements, and authors tailor their courses to the complete beginner, explaining everything in simple terms as you go along.   However, my favourite book/CD series is the 'Ultimate" series by Living Language. They reflect the way I advocate studying and learning a foreign language. Moreover, some of them, including the French version, offer an advancaed course that you can take after the first book. Well, TY does too, in French. 'Ultimate' courses are not too expensive either. The BBC courses are usually pretty good too, although I haven't had much contact with the new(ish) French one. A vous la france and the books that followed it were very good, and tailored to conversational French, Why were they replaced, I wonder? You can get those at Manchester Central Library too, so presumably there are such facilities all over the country. Pimsleur are fantastic...and so is the price! If you can get hold of them cheaply to supplement your language learning, I recommend you do so. There's also a software course called Rocket French that's pretty new on the market, and that you might be interested in, that's very good. Hope that helps. As a final note, and one that you won't want to hear, in the end it doesn't matter how good your course is, if you don't put in dedication and effort, you won't learn French. You are the key. The resource is important, but secondary to your motivation. Learning a language as an adult is nothing like learning it as a child. In spite of what many commercial courses and suspect methodologies claim, you cannot learn a language in adulthood the way a child learns it...and why on earth would you want to? [;-)] Chris