Smart French by Jade Gold

Smart French, written by Jade Gold (and not to be confused with the language learning software program) is a book introducing 1,894 French words to English speaking audiences; but only the words that are incredibly similar to their counterparts in the English language.  This book is not meant to be a stand-alone language instruction book, nor should it be used as a form of dictionary since it is literally a list of words, one side in French and the other side in English.  And, it only covers those words that are much alike the English ones, so it's a bit useless as anything other than a supplement.

Allow me to give you an example of what you will find in the book:

There are two columns, with one side being a French word, and the other being English.  so, you will see something like this:

amusement                                     amusement
anachronism                                   anachronism
analogie                                          analogy
extraction                                       extraction
extradition                                      extradition

and so on and so forth.

They do come in alphabetical order, but the one thing this book severely lacks, and the only thing to make it really useful (in my opinion), are accent marks or stressed emphasis on  pronunciation with some of the words included.  Quite frankly, everything you find in this book, you will find in a really good English-French dictionary, except the dictionary, you will find more useful.

I think its strength is that it compiles the majority of the words that are the same or similar into one book, which would be great for those who are actively seeking out a book or list of that type of thing.  And, using it as a supplement along with a course and a good dictionary, one can kind of cut their workload by scanning this book and seeing that they will already know almost 2,000 words.  So, I suppose it does have its usefulness in a way.

I would only recommend this book to someone that is studying French and is familiar with the grammar, and only as a supplement. 

2 & 1/2 Stars

You can buy Smart French here.

This book was given to me as part of the Dorrance book Reviewers program, in exchange for an honest review.  The opinions in said review are entirely my own.