Easy French Reader Premium, Third Edition: A Three-Part Text for Beginning Students + 120 Minutes of Streaming Audio (Easy Reader Series)

I will leave my original review below, but I have updated my rating from one to four stars since they have updated the app. Now that it works as it should, I love it.I am extremely disappointed in my purchase and will be returning it to Amazon. I have been waiting for this product since April. I am a French teacher and love this text, however my students (who are homeschooled and only see me once a week) need to HEAR as much French as possible. An earlier edition of the book came with a CD so that students could listen to the first section of the book (about a third of the book.) When I saw they had a third edition coming about, one that says it has 36 audio recordings (which would be more than the previous edition) I was excited to see they were providing more recordings so I decided to pre-order and wait til the estimated date it would be ready: May 15th. Before May 15th came, they had moved that date to July. I was irritated, but what can you do.Today they finally arrived. NO CDs. So I realize they meant there was an app with the audio recordings. Fine, I will get the app. I follow their instructions, download the app and open it up. The description on the inside of the book tell me that this app is "free with these French titles" and it instructs me to "choose your title and chapter" once I open the app. Yeah, one small problem with that. The Easy French Reader is not a choice! They have four titles to choose from, leaving two titles out completely. The back of the book says that the app provides audio recordings of 36 passages, so maybe they are still in progress adding those files to the app but as of right now I basically have a book that I waited three months for, which instead of having MORE recordings than before, actually has ZERO recordings.To give them the benefit of the doubt, the release date of the book appears to be 10 days from now . . . so perhaps the app will be updated at that time and will include the recordings I expected. I will update if I learn anymore about it.

Concerning the first 1/3 of the book, it is pretty "meh" in my opinion. I also abhors the app that reads the audio to you - it is very poorly designed. I would have much preferred a CD or mp3. The story is rather boring. I think almost a full two chapters were about sitting in a classroom describing the movements of a fly. I cannot recommend this text to a true beginner - the difficulty ramps up pretty quickly and it will eventually outpace you.With that said, the second two thirds of the book is where the gold is found. There are 22 lessons on French history, from the founding of France to modern day. They are each 2-3 pages, and I found them pretty compelling. I would put the reading level at about A2, and they are excellent reading practice indeed. After the history lessons, there are maybe 10 more 2-3 page readings from famous French authors. The text doesn't gloss many words, so be prepared to look up some things (not many people at an A2 level would know the word for "invade," for example).It may not have ten dollars worth of material if you are a stickler for money, but if you can get it used for 3-5 dollars, I would say this is a must have for an independent French learner.

Just like everyone else here, I am very disappointed that the app does not support this book as promised. I e-mailed the company for an explanation (hoping that maybe I had just missed it on their site), but I never got a response. I specifically chose this book because of the audio recordings, so this is a huge problem. I am trying to relearn French while at the same time teaching my kids, so audio is very important to me. The stories themselves are OK... the beginning ones are perfect for my 8yo. However, they do seem to get complicated quickly, so this will be interesting, and we may just have to work through the book in broken chunks, instead of a lesson a day as I had hoped. I was looking for something that increased in difficulty a bit more gradually.

Not easy... but if you remember your basic French from HS, then this should help you a bit to retain whatever knowledge you still remember about conjugated verbs. Immersion is the only true way to learn a new language, and by that, I mean actually living somewhere for at least a year where people speak the language!

I like these easy reader three part texts for beginners. I bought the Spanish 3rd edition awhile back and now the French and it is equally likeable; I would likely purchase these specific editions for several languages if they have them. Aside of whether you access or are able to access the audio, I think the text itself is a great stand alone resource for beginners. I studied a bit of basic grammar and pronunciation before diving in them so as to try and pronounce it close to correctly as possible while reading...You get a basic level character interplay reading to start, a nice history brief of the country you're studying and lastly some famous native literature readings.

As described by other reviewers, this 3rd version of Easy French Reader lacks the access to the online audio. The directions have you download the McGraw-Hill App but this book's audio component is not yet present in their offerings for French audio files. Therefore this "new" 3rd edition is essentially identical to the less expensive 2nd edition....which is the same as 1st edition (the latter only differing in artwork). I'm considering returning this 3rd edition book since I already have the 2nd edition and bought this 3rd edition exclusively for the audio component.

I use this reader in French for Travelers class and it is easy to follow and read.

We love this book and this is why:1- the layout is beautiful and it is made to gradually get harder as you go through it.2- texts are relevant and enjoyable for kids or adults.3-small -not too small- to fit in any bag. easy to hold and read as well.4- after reading the texts there are questions to help solidify your knowledge.5- it comes with a website with audios to help you through out the book.6- Audios are of very good quality made by native French speakers.7- I do not like CDs that comes with books as you don't find them when you need them or generally it a fiddly business. This Book doesn't have CDs but the apps and the free website are very reliable.8- the content of the book is translated to so many languages. I bough the easy French and Spanish reader.over all, it is a very good book for beginners or someone who wants to improve their French.

I was very disappointed. The book is very reminiscent of the text books I used study at school a few decades ago. The text is not very interesting and the audio support for the book is almost non-existent. I went to the Language Lab site, where there is lots of information about how good they think they are, but was unable to find more than a five short audio recordings. The flashcards and progress tracker are just a waste of time. Where are the 36 Audio recordings mentioned on the front cover?This book would be improved if it was accompanied by a CD with all the readings clearly recorded. The first readings need to be read quite slowly and the later ones should be read slightly faster, but still slow enough for learners to be able to hear the words clearly.

I bought the Kindle version and found the audio files from the McGraw Hill Language Lab website. The URL to this is in the Kindle book version. Once on the website you need to launch the Web App for the Audio Study Player. Unfortunately it's flash based so you can't access this via an iPad. Apart from that the site looks like a good resource with flash cards for this book and other McGraw Hill French publications

Text is fine but would have preferred second edition with CDS. Don't like apps

Really handy little book if you want to start reading the French language.