Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a beautifully structured book for teaching yourself to read French (not to write or speak French). It's weirdly expensive, and it needs updating, but it's great anyway. I needed to prepare for a translation exam required by my doctoral program, with a background of a year of French in the seventh grade and enough Spanish and Latin to have a feel for Romance languages. I used this book, making vocabulary flash cards along the way, and I passed my exam. A tip for choosing a French/English dictionary suitable for beginners: See if there's an entry for "eu" ("had") that at least refers you to "avoir" ("to have"). If there isn't, find another dictionary--one that doesn't assume you know things like entirely irregular past participles.