Customer Reviews
Keeps its promise - By: Joan Cecil, 03 Sep 2008 
This book is both entertaining & instructive.Writtenin an easy, informal style, it certainly has added many more every-day French words to my vocabulary. I can't wait to try out some of the terms & expressions on my next trip to France! The small size also makes it very handy to slip into the door pocket, or a large bag. Worth buying.
OK but not great - By: Mr. A. Williamson, 02 Sep 2008 
This book is OK, as mentioned before it is really just a long list split into different categories. This book only touches upon certain subjects lightly, littering descriptions with reminders that the author isn't going to include obscenities, which is ok, but i don't see why is has to keep on telling us this. This book doesn't really give an insight into French culture either, it just briefly mentions what we already know. If you actually want to get a clear picture of what France is like that comes not just with a few words, but with whole phrases, how to use them & more importantly how to actually pronounce them (without knowing that you won't use these words as you'd just look stupid) then get "talk to the snail" by stephen clarke. Allin all this is a slightly entertaining book so long as you don't actually expect to learn anything extraordinary about the french language, if you do want to learn some "real" french, better is out there.
Brilliant - By: Julia Rooney, 19 Mar 2008 I wish I'd known about this book when we first came to livein France over a year ago. My ancient O-level French was all I had to rely on at the time & that included none of the extremely useful words & phrases I now know since reading Pardon My French. Not only has it improved my understanding of the language but also my understanding of certain aspects of the French way of life which can be so different from our own. Informative, entertaining & very easy to read. Great book.
French dressing - By: C. Young, 18 Mar 2008 
It doesn't matter what language you learn, as soon as you have to interact with native speakersin their natural habitat you find they use a whole series of verbal tricks, tics, terms & routines you never coveredin the classroom or textbook. Getting up to speed with these takes a while, not because they are difficult, but simply because they are so poorly documented. Traditional courses are always based on an `idealised' version of the language & native speakers are often quite bad at spotting the non-standard wayin which their language is actually used. Indeed it often takes an alert non-native speaker to really understand what is going on! Timoney fits the bill perfectly & provides us with a useful (although not over-long) list of terms for the intermediate student. Normally this type of material is lazily presented as an alphabetic list, but here the author categorises the termsin section such as Food & Drink, Relations & so on & provides an often very funny commentary to go with each. This works very well & Timoney is an engaging & observant cultural & linguistic witness. It reads a bit like the accompanying textbook to Stephen Clarke's very funny "A Yearin the Merde". It loses a star though for the annoyingly retro "Brush up your French" design of the UK edition of the book. Surely this type of book can sell without Sempé-lite drawings of baguettes & berets & the irrelevant "Unleash your inner Gaul" strap line.
A Good Fun Read - By: C. Broadhurst, 22 Dec 2007 Thank you Mr Timoney for adding something more entertaining to my daughters standard French texts.
