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I've recently begun to do the same. I'll list off the resources I've come across, and my thoughts on them.

• Pimsleur French (Audio)
  
  Great for learning proper pronunciation alongside some basic grammar and common phrases. I am currently using this as my primary source of spoken French, while learning written aspects from:
  
  
• Easy French Step-by-Step (Book)
  
  I love this book. I looked through a number of different self-study books, and the pacing/order of this one fits me just right.
  
  
• Rosetta Stone: French (Software)
  
  This was actually my first attempt at learning French. I gave up after a while due mostly to lack of interest and a lack of perceived progress. The combination of the book and audio systems listed above have made me feel more at ease with the language than this ever did.
  
  With that said, I've found while studying now that it actually did help me build up a decent vocabulary, and aided a bit with pronunciation. If its price doesn't deter you, I'd suggest considering it as a secondary or tertiary learning tool.
  
  
• Anki (Software)
  
  This is a free, multi-platform flashcard application. As I've been reading through Easy French Step-by-Step, I've been adding the introduced vocabulary, terms, etc. to "decks" in Anki, which I then study until I have them memorized.
  
  I break up what I study based on the quizzes in the book. I.e., I add everything up until the book provides a quiz about them. Study, take quiz, continue until next quiz adding the newly learned vocab, terms, rules. It has worked well for me so far.
  
• A Frequency Dictionary of Core French Vocabulary (Book)
  
  The authors of this book analyzed a number of written and spoken sources of French to come up with the top 5,000 words used in French. In the book they're listed by order of appearance (e.g., #1 is "le").
  
  As the book is already sorted by order of appearance, you can slowly memorize larger chunks, starting from the top, and know that what you're learning is what you are most statistically likely to encounter.
  
  I program for a living, so I went a bit further and bought the ebook, then wrote a script to pull all the info out for me. I'm now able to practice all sorts of things by filtering the data -- "give me the top 50 verbs that end in -re", for example, to practice conjugation.
  
  
• English Grammar for Students of French (Book)
  
  I haven't read this book, but it's another one that was repeatedly well recommended as I did my self-study research.
  
  
• Rocket French (Audio & Software)
  
  From what I've read, this course is somewhat similar to Pimsleur French. However, unlike Pimsleur, of which I was able to find numerous legitimate reviews online, the majority of those I found for Rocket French were astroturfing. They've registered a ton of domains and set up fake reviews of their product. Whether or not it's any good, I don't know, as their decision to do so turned me off from the course.
  
  
• To save myself some writing, I highly recommend you read this blog post:
  La belle in France: Essential French Language Tools
  
  She covers a number of good resources to aid you in learning French. I'd like to single out http://www.wordreference.com (as well as its forums) though, as it has been a fantastic reference site. Easily the best online English<->French dictionary I have found.
  
  
• Another good roundup post:
  Online Classes.org: The 50 Best Blogs for French Majors & Francophiles
  
  I hope that list is of some help.

I'll say this. As someone who wears the hat of both a torrenter and a language learner, I find that there is such a wild abundance of free (or cheap) learning material that you don't need to search to the ends of the Earth to shake a few dollars out of a small company like RadioLingua. Not putting you down, because I've looked for it also.

So, what I'd like to suggest to you are free resources that would be similar to the paid content of Coffee Break French

• FSI Basic French course A little dated and tedious, but incredibly comprehensive audio / written course. Enough material for months of learning.
  
• LingQ Native content (phone calls, tv shows, articles) with transcripts
  
• News in Slow French App Daily news, read slowly. A couple free transcripts with each installment.
  
  If you're willing to shell out a few bucks, there's this:
  
• Assimil French With Ease course (more comprehensive and formal than CBF)
  
  Not to mention that Coffee Break French serves perfectly well as an Audio-Only course. It's how I got started.
  
  If you need any help, let me know.
  
  Edit: Added links and explanations.

You'd probably find this english/french "parallel" book (and others like it) pretty useful and in the genre of what you are looking for.

Also, I realize this isn't exactly what you were asking for, but setting custom google chrome searches to ping word reference has saved me SO MUCH TIME whilst studying. Specifically... you can set up google chrome so that if you type a special keyword in the search bar, chrome will run the "search" function that's normally on any particular page. So, I set three custom searches, and I use them constantly:

• fe will search the french-english dictionary
  
• ef will search the english-french dictionary
  
• conj will bring up the conjugation page for whatever verb i type in.
  
  So for example, i'd bring up a new tab, then type fe, space, and then aimant, and hit enter. I'd get the search page for aimant, which of course i then discover means "magnet" in english.
  
  When making flash cards or any of tons of other studying activites, double checking words in the dictionary can be time consuming, and this will save you a million seconds.
  
  You can also find plugins in chrome that will pop up with a definition of a word if you hover over it or right click... which is pretty useful for reading french news or other sites, when you need a little help.
  
  Edit: spelling is important :)

I'm afraid I don't know about The Kite Runner but equivalent books in French would probably push you quite hard. It's normally best with reading not to have to look too much up because it can be a drag. It's also why I'd recommend sticking to shorter works.

You might like to look into some parallel texts (ie French on one page with the corresponding translation on the opposite side). They really help when you come across difficult idioms and mean you can read easily out and about when you don't have a dictionary to hand. Here's a collection of short stories in French. There are more in this series. They will be harder than Le Petit Prince but it seems you might enjoy more literary writing.

If you're worried about difficulty you might like to look at this Easy French Reader which gets progressively harder. In fact, this might be the best stepping stone for you.

Many professors/teachers praise this book for French grammar and all its intricacies. However, I bought it way back when I first started studying French and opened it maybe once or twice. Honestly, I think about.com has the best explanations for grammar points. Whenever I come across a weird grammatical structure or am trying to form a sentence a certain way, I google some key words related to it (ex. pendant vs. depuis) and about.com always has the best explanation. If you're just a learner/student of French, I would stick to google/about.com. It's really the best source and all you need plus it's free.

I find that it's really easy to teach yourself once you have a sound foundation. At that point, you sort of know what you don't know.

I broke my learning into a few main topics:

1. Grammar - Advanced French Grammar and this one
   
2. «La colle française» - (the glue) this mostly includes prepositions, adverbs, interjections, and temporal vocabulary--it's the little things which count!
   
3. Idiomatic expressions - phrases like, "it turns out that" and "on the spot" to "Rome wasn't built in a day"
   
4. Verbs
   
5. Nous + adjectives
   
   I listed them in the order I learn them. I really focus on #1-3 because I think they're the true indicators of fluency, and #3 makes movie-watching a lot easier. Verbs can be tricky if you can't spot their tenses and conjugated forms. Nouns and adjectives are the easiest to pick up. I make my own study decks using Anki.
   
   This and that are good for translating phrases.
   
   I think accents come naturally. Anyway, that's not so important if you can't formulate your ideas in coherent French ;) This is a fun site for testing out pronunciation.
   
   Hope this helps!

Well, I should say that I learn best when I understand the grammar, both for comprehension and composition. It's like a logic puzzle for me. Plain immersion doesn't do it for me. There's a reason why French school children are drilled in written grammar - it's quite different from spoken. Moreover, I am a firm believer in learning hard core grammar to prepare for standardized language testing - it counts for about 30% of any test, at least. It's the middle section in the TCF.

So, I found french grammar books written for French students - it forces you to work completely in French and improves comprehension faster, I think. It also introduces you to French cultural stuff at the same time. Something like the Grammaire progressive du francais series.

I did lots of random online French website conjugation exercises. There are plenty of them, although they look like sites from 1998.

For listening, I used the TV5 Monde website mentioned above a lot for preparation, first with videos and then just the listening exercises. And then as I started to feel confident, I did their online timed tests. BTW they closely match the real TCF material because they provide the content for the test!

I watched French movies with French subtitles, not English. And I watched French news online - their accents are quite clear.

However, within 60 days of the test I generally listened to radio online, with transcripts if I could find them. Video news becomes a problem because you build a false sense of comprehension for testing. TCF listening tests are audio-only, no video.

Finally, when you get stuck on a grammar point, as I still do, I highly recommend either English Grammar for Students of French or Side-By-Side French and English Grammar.

Good luck!

French Grammar and Usage, by Hawkins and Towell, is pretty good. It's a decent, quick reference, written in English.

The French About.com site is pretty good, as well. Laura K. Lawless has helped me out quite a bit.

Francaisfacile.com is another good site. I often use it as a reference.

The series Grammaire Progressive du Français is a great text, all in French. I first used it when studying in Québec, but there are various levels, some geared towards adolescents.

The University of Texas at Austin has an awesome online French program, useful for beginners. Here is the link.

Bonne chance!

I read French at Oxford. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

The first years were recommended Le français en faculté and Hawkins and Towell if I remember correctly. We didn't have grammar lessons though so I never worked through them. To be honest, for your purposes I think you might find H&T too comprehensive but LFEF too patchy.

For the application test (NB application is a faux ami in this context) I would highly recommend you swat up on common irregular conjugations, usage of the conditional and subjunctive (incl. triggers), sequence of tenses in if-clauses, and all your basic stuff like agreement of preceding direct objects &c.

You will probably find all you need on the about.com French page which is surprisingly thorough and clear.

I was about at the same level as you when I took up French again. I promise you that you have not forgotten everything. Memrise is great for vocabulary. I would also buy a book of French grammar exercises (I used this one which is very comprehensive: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Practice-Perfect-Complete-French-Grammar/dp/007178781X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1467757819&sr=1-1&keywords=french+grammar). For listening practice, I recommend France Info radio and then France Culture (both available freely on internet). Le Monde and a dictionary are excellent for reading comprehension. Don't forget wikipidea.fr too.

I like Schaum's Outline. Instead of starting with verbs like the Practice Makes Perfect series does, Schaum's starts with the very basic building blocks / concept of gendered nouns, which is very foreign to monolingual English speakers. It actually doesn't even get into verbs til the 5th chapter! So if that's the kind of start your student is looking for, I recommend that. :)

Hope that helps!

I highly recommend the textbook Easy French Step by Step:

https://www.amazon.com/French-Step-Step-Myrna-Rochester/dp/0071453873

Very affordable, friendly, easy to use, modern and covers pretty much all the essentials.

Duolingo is great. I have used it for the past year as the basis for my own French-learning program, and I've already managed to read two novels in French. It works if you stick with it, but you do need at least a few things in addition.

For books, I really like Schaum's Outline of French Grammar. I find it really helps with Duolingo. Whenever you see something confusing on Duolingo, look it up in Schaum's. Don't try to read Schaum's like a book--use it as a reference.

On Duolingo, make use of the per-question discussions. Whenever you find yourself thinking "why was my answer wrong" or "what is happening in this sentence" if you look at the discussion, you'll probably find people there who have talked about it.

I really, really recommend using flashcards in addition to Duolingo. I like the Anki package (it's free), and I have a strategy for using Anki with Duolingo.

You're welcome!! Thank you for liking my explanation ヾ(＾-＾)ノ. My comment got downvoted for quite a few times so i thought that maybe I wrote something wrong (´･ω･`)? . Anyway, it depends on your level actually so may I know where your level is at now?

This one has the grammar book that is said to be good for any level. I've browsed through it and it's quite thorough. and there is also the vocab book on the same page.
https://www.reddit.com/r/French/comments/4n18w7/just_came_across_the_practice_makes_perfect/

For me I personally love this one, even though it's not really complete, but it's still very thorough. Ultimate French Review if u don't wanna buy it i'm sure the the pdf is somewhere on the internet. however i only recommend this for those who are at least A2, or preparing for B1, and you totally don't need it if you're sitting for A1.

I have not used the book you have mentioned, but I have found the teaching method to be utterly ineffective with most of the glossy and colourful books that are generally published/prescribed these days, with few exceptions.

My first French textbook was Cours de langue et de civilisation françaises by Gaston Maugher. I have gone through many, many books since then, but this remains to be my favourite.

I recommend The Ultimate French Review and Practice and English Grammar for Students of French - the former covers all basics in a clear, concise and thorough manner and the latter draws neat comparisons with English grammar to help you understand French grammar.

The most concise, efficient, and easy to read grammar book I've found is by far Essential French Grammar by Seymour Resnick. There's a great cheat sheet in the back to help you remember specific grammatical terms, a list of cognates, and the book is easy to read in short doses.

>There are a few good grammar review books out there. The Ultimate French Review and Practice is good, as is Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French Grammar.

Would you recommend one over the other? Or both?

I've got a copy of French for Readng which I've found helpful. Its focused entirely on increasing reading comprehension and French-to-English translation skills, plus it briefly reviews grammatical rules covered by other materials.

Also, English Grammar for Students of French is an excellent resource for improving your grammatical foundations in both English and French.

Here's a grammar textbook I bought from Amazon for like $11. There's a whole series of these. There's also an app that comes with the book.

Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French Grammar, Premium Third Edition (Practice Makes Perfect (McGraw-Hill)) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259642372?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf

I've got a lot of benefit from reading 'parallel texts' (par example https://www.amazon.com/Short-Stories-French-Penguin-Parallel/dp/0140265430 ) - I don't know your exact level but I really enjoy it and the translations on the other side of the page are accurate and helpful.

I love this book Mot à Mot, it carried me through A level and still helps me at University.

It's cheap and concise and full of phrases for speaking in discussions and essay writing, if anyone knows anything similar for Italian I'd be very grateful!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mot-Fifth-Advanced-French-Vocabulary/dp/1444110004/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409337992&sr=1-1&keywords=mot+a+mot

https://www.amazon.com/Exercises-French-Phonics-Francis-Nachtmann/dp/0875632157/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=french+phonetics&qid=1573506967&sr=8-1

​

This book a friend gave me is pretty good.

i torrented a copy years ago when i first learned. Its no better than any other electronic resource, including free ones.

Rosetta were one of the earlier decent language softwares around in the 90s. that justified a high price at the time. its really not worth it nowadays. I think the only way they are still making money is by historical reputation.

Start with Duolingo, listen to lists of french music, and get a text book like this one which excellent and save your money.

​

http://www.amazon.com/Merde-French-Never-Taught-School/dp/0684854279/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368841585&sr=8-1&keywords=merde

http://www.amazon.com/Merde-Encore-French-Taught-School/dp/0684854287/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1368841585&sr=8-3&keywords=merde

Oldies but goodies. Le langage populaire is pretty fluid, but if you're already in Paris I would think you'd have plenty of opportunities for exposure to the real deal. Do you spend much time with Francophones?

For me, i found the following very useful:

1. michel thomas audiobooks
   
2. Duolingo (for grammar) and Memrise (vocabulary)
   
3. anki (for creating your own vocab flashcards)
   
4. websites for reading the news (radio-canada, lapresse, vice france or quebec)
   
5. youtube channels ('easyfrench' was particularly useful for comprehension skills)
   
   after that, search out some french speakers or enroll in an immersion program and just start talking as much as possible.

You probably just need a phonetics course. Most of the challenges with 'sounding anglophone' involve not being able to make certain sounds reliably, e.g. (in IPA notation) /y/ and the nasal vowels /ɑ̃/ /ɛ̃/ /œ̃/ /ɔ̃/. Check out the 'French Sounds' Youtube channel, a book like this, and maybe find a one-on-one tutor (iTalki?). Again, you almost definitely need to work on general pronunciation more than developing some regional accent.

French the Easy Way (Barron's E-Z) by Christopher Kendris Ph.D. (1996-02-01) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JXN62X8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_E6lUCbZ213RYE

Here is the link. I don't know why it's so expensive right now. I remember it being much cheaper, I would search around and look for a cheaper one.

Here is another one I use :Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French Grammar, Premium Third Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259642372/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_b.lUCbDE3KWZH

Despite what many people will tell you, books like Le Petit Prince and L'Etranger are in no way easy to read if you are a true beginner. You are probably nowhere near ready to read authentic French novels if all you've done is a third of Duolingo, but if you want to try reading something anyway, I would suggest starting with something that was written specifically for beginning French students. Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Easy-French-Reader-Roussy-Sales/dp/0071428488

For listening, subscribe to Yabla.com and also listen to Francais Authentique (search for it on Youtube or a podcast app).

This is a nice basic little grammar book to have on hand, only 2 bucks from Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-French-Grammar-Language-Guides/dp/0486204197

I also find the "Coffee Break French" podcast very helpful, it starts out with your basic greetings and phrases to use while travelling etc. but moves on to cover fundamental grammar in a more systematic way in approx. episodes 40-70.

Hello. Actually, it does not make sense in English with the blank. ‘Est-ce que Marc en France?’ means ‘Is it that Marc in France?’, which is incomplete. The blank would be ‘is’, which is ‘est’ in French. So, the correct answer should be ‘est-ce que Marc est en France?’.

Also, ‘ils sont’ and ‘elles sont’ are the same thing, except ‘ils’ is masculine and ‘elles’ is feminine.

I highly recommend ‘English Grammar for Students of French’ by Jacqueline Morton for clear explanations, translations, and comparisons of French and English grammar.

I recently bought this book.

Seems like a good selection and it's also cheap!

Are you wanting to speak French or read it? I use French for Reading, it's created for graduate students to pass language exams. It skips typical language learning tropes like "how to talk about your family" "how to order at a restaurant" and teaches you how to read literature and documents. Since I don't need French for communication it's been extremely helpful, within reading 4 chapters I was able to read articles written in the early 1900s about colonization and only had to pull out my dictionary a couple of times. I also combine it with duolingo to try and help with the speaking/listening but I really only need it for reading.

Bonsoir ! Tu dois acheter ce livre pour apprendre des bonnes phrases sales: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1569756589?pc_redir=1406923083&robot_redir=1

C'est vraiment super ! Je l'appartiens.

OK I saw this post again and I have more tips:

• Make sure you've finished learning grammar. Grammar books for self-study cover almost all the bases, so you can flip through one, see what's familiar to you, see what you have left to learn... Practice Makes Perfect Complete French Grammar
  
• Find weaknesses in your vocabulary. Pick a topic like "car" or "sandwich" and write down all the related words you know, in English and French. That includes verbs and adjectives! Now use Wikipedia and Google Image Search to translate or confirm all of those words.
  
• Write a lot.
  
• Follow the news, in podcast and written form.
  
• Follow this user's tips for reading I also use an index card to write down words I don't understand but I don't look them up.

I don't know this one. I've used the Assimil one to learn Italian and I was really impressed by it considering I didn't think a book alone (I didn't have the version that came with audio CDs) could really teach a language well enough. Here's a link to get the Assimil French With Ease book with audio CDs on Amazon, but you can look into the one without discs if you're tight on budget.

take a look at this book, it is great for translation exams.


https://www.amazon.com/French-Reading-Karl-C-Sandberg/dp/0133316033

I have Essential French Grammar and McGraw Hill's Complete French Grammar. I find them both to be great, but Essential French Grammar is very cheap via Amazon.

This book, French for Reading, sounds like exactly what you need, I'm reading it now myself.

I recommend buying used, I got my copy for $33.50 including shipping. It's not a workbook so a used copy shouldn't be marked up too much.

Try and get a copy of the Michel Thomas French course if you can. It's expensive but it'll improve your conversational French really quickly.

French for Reading is the exact book you're looking for. It's written for grad students in exactly your position and will teach you in 80-120 hours how to read academic french writing. I've found it to be quite effective.

There’s a whole book about it, with useful rules to memorize. Essentially, there are about thirty rules and a small number of exceptions:

https://www.amazon.com/Rules-Gender-French-Nouns-Revised/dp/1604943068

This a good book that taught me a lot of naughty French terminology.

The assimil books are like that - French on one page with English translation on the facing page.

Also if you just want to read stories, then there are the Penguin Parallel texts.

I really like all the Ultimate French series. There's one specifically for grammar http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-French-Review-Practice/dp/0071744142

I'm a fan of this grammar. It's fairly thorough and doesn't talk down to the reader, as many French grammars are wont to do.

I'm a fan of this grammer. It's fairly thorough and doesn't talk down to the reader, as many French grammers are wont to do.
FTFY

http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-French-Grammar-Crocker/dp/0071828982

I've been using Schaum's via my weekly evening french class. It's got a little bit of lesson like material but it's mostly just grammar exercises that our prof uses to supplement the ones in our primary textbook. It's also WAY cheaper than an actual textbook.

You might want to consider "Short Stories in French: New Penguin Parallel Text," available from Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Also available at Waterstones if you're in the UK.

Also I don't think this is dumb or weird -- there are also books that explicitly teach "French for reading," since this isn't an uncommon request. In some academic fields (particularly some history fields) there's a requirement to be able to read French (or often German) to be able to read primary sources in the original, but this doesn't come with any kind of speaking requirement.

http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Français-Dual-Language-English-Edition/dp/0486264432/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332907615&sr=8-1
This book has 10 short stories with the french page on the left and the corresponding page translated into english on the right. This about what you had in mind?

Penguin has a line of books: https://www.amazon.com/Short-Stories-French-Penguin-Parallel/dp/0140265430

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rules-Gender-French-Nouns-Revised/dp/1604943068/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Here's a short book that I transcribed to index cards. Saul Rosenthal-Rules for the Gender of French Nouns. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/Rules-Gender-French-Nouns-Revised/dp/1604943068&ved=2ahUKEwis_96lqP7aAhWJq1kKHQcrA-UQFjAKegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw2goBkGOeITuRMw6CxG3rBt

I have a book called "Short Stories in French" -- has parallel pages with the exact translations: http://www.amazon.com/Short-Stories-French-Penguin-Parallel/dp/0140265430

I'm hearing this too.
Additionally, such was pointed out to me in the first few pages of this textbook

J'ai dû acheter et lire ce livre dans un cours de grammaire à la fac il y a quelques années: Cliquez Je le trouve assez utile comme référence : il est écrit de façon directe sans compliquer les choses et contient plein d'exemples utiles.

Merde!

I picked this up at a book store last week.

https://www.amazon.com/Merde-French-Never-Taught-School/dp/0684854279

English Grammar for Students of French

There are a few good grammar review books out there. The Ultimate French Review and Practice is good, as is Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French Grammar.

Depending on how well you read, a quick read of the Bescherelle books (in particular Grammaire would be good). You're reading in French and just getting a solid presentation of the grammar. It might be boring, but what I have done is read one small bit and then focus on that for the next little bit while I read/talk/speak. Then I grab another bit of grammar (doesn't even have to be related to the previous one) and just focus on that for a bit. I've found that you don't have to fully review every little bit to death- once you start using that part of your brain again things kinda just fall back into place on their own.

• Ça va? / Tu vas bien?
  
• Je viens du -insertbirthplacehere- et je suis monté comme un âne
  
• Mais je ne l’ai baisée qu’une fois!
  
• T’es sûr que tu as dix-huit ans?
  
  Et le dernier, mais non le moindre
  
  
• Quand tout va mal, éjac’ faciale
  
  source:
  http://www.amazon.com/Dirty-French-Everyday-Slang-Whats/dp/1569756589