Really useful source for studying and refreshing French knowledge. Useful for both children and adults studying the language and as a refresher for those who studied it a long long time ago!!

An awesome book, easy to read, understand and follow. I love learning languages and will definitely use this to improve my language skills!

Unlocking French With Paul Noble is a book I have noticed many times on Amazon and have always been intrigued to read but never ended up getting as I didn't think it would be that effective.

I have tried learning French on and off since leaving school but got more serious in the past few years. I know from experience many ways of teaching French, whether it's books, apps, websites etc., tend to start with the obvious followed by the most useless phrases. Everyone knows how to say hello and I've yet to find a situation when I've needed to say cat, dress or tea with no other French knowledge.

Through a wide range of free language methods online I managed to get myself to a fifty percent understanding or written or spoken French if I have kept up with doing I think daily at the time, otherwise it drops and I understand less, but I've still always struggled to construct a sentence and that's where this book came in to help!

I was really pleased to see when I read the book that there was no sight of the word cat, apple, dress in the first page or anywhere throughout the book. The book began by slowly introducing you to simple but useful sentences and showing how you could easily change them for other similar sentences that you could actually use.

I like how it read as if the teacher was actually there teaching you as it felt more personal and easy to read as some books make it seem like you should know what they're teaching already but this was written in a kind and understanding way. I think the way the book is set out with the blue words needing to be covered is a great method to get you thinking about what will come next but at times it's tricky to not see the blue writing as you turn the page. I liked how the words in each chapter were put in a table for practicing and that it was put in both English to French and French to English as it was a great way to practice and see progress gradually growing and showing just how much has been learnt.

I thought the tips between the chapters were great and made it a lot easier to learn certain things like, for example, masculine and feminine words. This has always confused me about the French language and I tend to use the same method I used to in school even today, I'll just put whatever I feel like in front because there's too many to learn but now I have a more effective way to work out which each word belongs too!

I really like the idea of the word robbery as it makes learning all the words seem less daunting and if you can work out 13,000 words in that way alone that's incredible. It is also so easy to understand, as is everything in this book. Nothing complicated leaving you wondering what it means but all simple and effective explanations of what and why it is that way. The building blocks are also very helpful as it is a great way to play around with the words and new language and they give so many more sentences than you originally think they will.

I particularly liked the end pages and where to go next as often when you complete a language on, an app for example, you are just left wondering what to do next as until you get to that point you don't realise an app is not going to teach you an entirely new language on its own! I liked the tips and although I have not tried watching dubbed TV as I always thought native content would always be better I will now try that method and see how it works.

I really enjoyed making my way through this book and although I knew what most of the words were in the book it gave me the much needed help to actually construct a useful sentence with little effort and had great tips throughout. I think this is a fantastic book for any beginners in learning French and I'd definitely look to buy other languages in the future as I know it would give me the best start to learning the language!

This was a great book for anyone who is struggling to learn French and feels like giving up. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning French.

Once I started reading this book I realised it is for absolute beginners (and it's not my case). My own fault for not reading more carefully the description. I was intrigued by the method, which might suit me for other languages I know nothing about, but it does not seem well fitted to the e-book format version, at least judging by the ARC copy I got. It requires you to have physical pages in front of you and to cover one side, so I think this will work better as a paperback or a hardback.
As I say, I cannot comment on how well it works as a method because I'm not its intended audience, but I might check others in the same series.
It is for absolute beginners.

Brilliant and easy to follow little book.......Unlocking French with Paul Noble is.
Just hope I can understand french more now. A must book for anyone trying to learn French.

5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley.

As a languages student, I was so excited to find this book on NetGalley and absolutely had to read it! I have studied French for 17 years, and whilst I am at a fairly advanced level, I'm rubbish at studying and because of being a part-time student am unable to devote as much time as I would like to my languages, so this book sounds perfect for me!

I started reading this book almost as soon as I got a copy, and I found it so engaging and easy to get into the flow of. Each chapter is of a reasonable length and doesn't try to cram in too much. I like how the book emphasises the importance of not having to learn everything you read off by heart and instead it uses repetition to help you remember words and phrases.

Unlocking French is yet another fantastic addition to the Collins language collection, and it's one that I will be thoroughly recommending to people wanting to improve on their language learning. It's such a unique take on learning a language that really explains why you're doing a certain exercise and focuses more on how we naturally learn a language rather than expecting you to remember everything you learn.

This is a great book for anyone who is struggling with French and feels like giving up. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in improving their skills.