It is difficult to learn slang from a book, even when the book is well written. Learning it from this book is to do yourself a disservice...ask anyone who speaks French as their first language. And David Burke's recorded voice is always annoying.

From Paris, France, and a teacher of French at at all levels, (including adult courses),I think I am qualified to grade this book.
This is exactly the pronounciation that I try to have my students understand. Even if they cannot pronounce correctly, at least they are able to understand the French when they speak!

Many of the non-native teachers of French can, more or less, speak academic French (some can't!), but faced with a native French speaking person, they can't understand most of the conversation.
I am definitely going to use this booklet as part of my teaching material,along with some other ones.

There is one great thing about the "Street French" series that has been neglected: it is not only a great introduction to "slangy" French, but to conversational French in general. Most of the material in books and tapes that purport to teach conversational French is usually quite stilted. The vocabulary is usually not very large, and diction is much more precise than is actually spoken by the French themselves. "Street French" includes a lot of information that does not even deal with slang. For instance, there is a lot of material about contractions and colloquial constructions that one rarely encounters in college textbooks, even those that take a conversational approach.

There are tapes available (must haves) from the publisher that include all the dialogue in the series--in *real* conversational style. They are spoken very quickly, and are difficult to master at first. But the hard work will pay off !! After using these books and tapes, I can finally understand a lot of dialogue in French movies that I could just never figure out, since I didn't know about the constructions unique to the spoken language.

Sade, long known for being the unprintable,unpublishable and,in the words of Henry James, the great "unnameable", continues to be avoided by the mainstream, as well as the syllabuses of academic literature courses. Several university professors have even frankly confessed to me that they wouldn't touch Sade with a pair of tongs. This is due to his delight in all manifestations of evil, his notorious enjoyment of cruelty and self-inflicted pain, his immoralism and his picture of a loveless and destructive cosmos. For Sade, the universe has no features: there is no God, no goodness, no truth, no unity. Nature, the great aristocrat, is indifferent and the bad and strong triumph while the small and weak go to the wall. These sentiments, presented in their most bald form, may strike us as banal, though they do contain an essential germ of truth and right. The main story in this collection, amply illustrates this theme, as a pious, intensely moral girl, upon meeting with adverse circumstances, travels through life enduring the most agonising injustices imaginable, ranging from slavery, robbery, beating, mutilation and rape by a group of lecherous monks she had ostensibly sought out for aid. Nevertheless, she refuses to yield to the temptations of revenge and hate of the world which so cruelly treats her, but holds fast to her religious and moral principles. As a result, Sade has her punished for her virtues. Other tales touch on Sade's preoccupations with evil and good, including one that touches on lesbianism, though the overall selection is not as dark as it seems, containing a number of episodes of genuinely original humour and irony. "Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man" is one such story, employing the fashionable eighteenth century form of the dialogue. It consists in a dying man outarguing his priest, eventually convincing him of the advantages of vice and converting him to atheism. It's a shame that Sade is so underrated as a humourist.

This book reveales the dark side of a society, the blackness corner of human soul. It is higly recommended to read because it enriches one's knowledge and knows more about the immortal, hopeless reality during Sade's time.

This is arguably the best starting point for one who is interested in the Marquis' writings.

I won't doubt the heart-rending task, or major headache, in trans -lating one of the finest poets of this century. And I thank David Rattray, whose translation of Artaud are wonderfully done, for finally introducing such refined spirit as Gilbert-Lecomte to an English-speaking public. The book, as such, is fine: lovely cover-design, explicit introduction, and clever selection of poems. What else is needed? A new translation!

Dark, Surreal Poetry. Written by Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, translated from French. Each page is layed out with the French translation on the left, and the English on the right. The original spacing is kept, which is critical, because the placement of the text adds so much to the flow of the reading. Lecomte was scoffed by surrealists at the time in France. He died from Tetnis, jabbing a opium needle through his dirty trowsers. His close friend gathered what works he could find, and have since come into the collected works remaining of Lecomte.

This is one of the top two must have poetry books of all time hands down. It rests right beside The flowers of evil.

This was the book I bought the first time I took my daughter to the zoo. This is where she really learned to wave "bye bye" and "hello" and practice her animal sounds. She enjoyed roaring like a lion and hooting like the owl. But I enjoyed the message the most: "Elmer's friends are all different, but they all love Elmer." A subtle message, but an important one to learn.

Elmer's Friends was the first book my daughter (1.5 years) took an interactive interest in. She loves the lion. She roars whenever she sees it and it is the first animal sound she has made.

We picked up a copy of Elmer's Friends from the library as part of a stack of books to read to our two year old. She fell in love with it. So much so that we bought a copy. She loves the different animals, and is learning their names. She particularly likes the the lion.

Whenever she sees it, she ROARS out loud, and makes us roar too.

This is the best kind of children's book. One they ask to have read to them over and over.

This story is about two companions Maupassant's "A Corsican Bandit" who wander through nature. Forests, fields, valleys and landscapes. Pine trees, untangled Yet one another short story by this great trunks, umbrella pines, misshapen author. And the way he describes this one is trees, granite. even more gruesome than the last. They walk past a little wooden "A Corsican Bandit" is nearly a horror story cross and one of the men asks the describing very dramtic events... other to tell him about its The story takes place in a petrified valley origin. with beautiful surroundings. So the other man starts telling a story about a bandit named Sainte "Up on the two narrow peaks which dominate Lucie. this pass, a few old misshapen trees seemed Sainte Lucie was apparently a weak to have made their way with difficulty, like and spineless boy, with very little scouts sent on ahead of the huge dense mass strength of character. of trees behind them. We turned round and One day his father had been killed Saw the whole forest stretched out beneath by a young man in the vecinity. us, like an enormous green bowl with edges Sainte Lucie knew he was supposed made of sheer rock that seemed to touch the sky." to avenge his father, but couldn't find the courage to do so, until one day, the When it comes to Sainte Lucie, we same man provocatively, newly married, have a bit more information. drove past his house. Because of the fact that one of the Overwhelmed by a unfamiliar feeling, companions told a story about him. Sainte Lucie set out to kill him.... and did. From then on he continued his avenge, and killed and terrorised a large number of people who had been connected to his fathers murder.

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It's a straight narrative story. Starts off harmless, descriptive, nature-scene, Ends

I think the message is that the most innocent people can turn out to be what you least expect. That shows in the book when Sainte Lucie threatens one of the wedding guests that he'll shoot his leg, if he takes another step. Knowing Sainte Lucie to be weak and cowardly he says "You woudn't dare!" and sets off, and gets shot. Basically, theres more to people than you think.

The main characters in this "so-called" horror short story are the two companions and of course, Sainte Lucie. This is very interesting, because we hardly know anything about the two friends. We don't know their backround, don't know their hobbies, don't know their selection of clothes, we don't even know their sex! All we know is that they are two companions walking through valleys and mountains, and one of them, according from the information that we have received, seems to be some sort of guide, or atleast a person knowing the forests very well and every story behind them. The other interested.

Once the reader browses through the descriptions of Mapassaunt's life and philosophies in the roman numbered pages begining this title, he or she knows that the following stories are going to be quite dark. They are and they are also, for the most part, vividly descriptive, intriguing, full of symbolism and extremely memorable. From the incendiary betrayals of "Monseiur Parent" and "the Dowry" to gruesome consequences of moral lapses seen in "At Sea" and "the Model" to outride incredible savagery of "A Vendetta" and the title story, this book proves that Maupassant is a master of all things dark, pessimistic and brutal.

I loved this book so, it was one of those times it was heartbreaking to come to the end. Each story was a nice short gem, perfect to enjoy in a sitting.

This book is a great overview of the period covered; however I think it was a bit over-industrious to sqeeze so much into one book (the normal Men-At-Arms size, that is). I think keeping it to the early period (up to Poitiers or Najera) and a separate one for the Agincourt/Joan of Arc period would've been better. McBride, master illustrator that he is, kind of disappointed me with his renditions of both du Guesclin and the Maid. Joan was shown in a dress! It still has good illustrations of the armor of the average man at arms and "lowly" infantry types, though.

This lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched Osprey Men-At-Arms book is a concise, yet informative study of the composition and tactics of French armies of the Hundred Years War. My only complaint is that the author has not gone to the same extent as Nicholas Michael (Armies of Medieval Burgundy, 1364-1477) in covering the compagnies d'ordonnances. Aside from this fault, this book is a great introduction to a subject that has long been neglected by Osprey publishing.

I REALLY LIKED THIS BOOK. ALTHOUGH I FELT THAT ZILIA WAS A PITYFUL GIRL WHOM NEEDED TO TAKE CONTROL OVER HER SITUATION BUT SHE WAS A GOOD CHARACTER. I THINK SHE HAD A GREAT LIFE IN THE END. THE BOOK IS A QUICK READ AND ENJOYABLE. GREAT TO READ WHILE WATCHING THE MOVIE CRUEL INTENTIONS 1999. HOPE YOU LIKE IT TOO.

Graffigny has been neglected too long. Her fictional heroine's commentary is as effective a response to the marginalization of women as Olympe de Gouges' "Rights of Women and Citizen". Perhaps more importantly, it's an entertaining narrative of a young girls journey towards independance and her own definition of autonomy.

this book is full of self-created misadventures by a love-sick college professor...i am not sure whether or not it is intentionally humorous but i found it to be hilarious in its bleak blackness...one bad thing after another for this poor self-involved creature...well worth reading....slim and captivating.

Very elegant. Very droll. Very Nabokovian.

An excellent introduction to "naughty French", this book contaons phrases and words that are both considered insulting as well as just those that are common in informal speech. Chapters on sexual terms, body parts, put downs, and so on make this book very useful as well as amusing to read. This is not only for the vulgar minded; a certain skill in understanding certain profanities is necessary so that one does not intentionally say something inappropriate. the author gives an example in the introduction: an American teacher teaching English in France tells her class that she "kisses" her husband everyday in the doorway of her house. However, the word that technically means kiss, in the case mentioned, can also mean "to screw". So you can understand how knowledge of such terms are used is a necessity if one is to communicate effectively in French.

Well, I'm not French, but I'm a certified francophile and I enjoyed the feeling of knowing what a typical French person knows, supposedly. Although there are some words that are probably region-sensitive, because one time, my friends and I wanted to have fun during a birthday of a French friend and he couldn't get the joke! Just like his other books Street French 1 and 2, Burke tries to give a close translation to the words--not an easy feat. This book is definitely for those who might want to keep a vocabulary of naughty things for fun.

Perec's literary output was as varied as anyone's, comprising everything from encyclopedic novels to comic couplets, but he was consistent in one way--the quality of his writing was always excellent. Each of his works revelled in the myriad delights of language, whatever its subject. In this novel, published posthumously in an unfinished form, he uses the generic elements of the mystery novel, confounding and fulfilling them at the same time. A writer disappears from a fictional French African colony, and an unwilling acquaintance is drafted to study the vanished man's final manuscript for clues. The usual dangerous woman makes an appearance, and there are plenty of veiled warnings that the search should be dropped, but at each turn the narrator, well-versed in fictive custom, recognizes the conventions and turns them on their heads. The chapters abound with references to other works, classics and potboilers alike, and the plot in fact begins to hinge on them. Perec scholars or fans will additionally note a host of allusions to his own oeuvre and coded biographical details. Mystery aficionados will be disappointed that "53 Days" was never completed, but its editors have included the outlines and notes that wrap the story up; anyone with an interest in the writing process should find that these appendices more than make up for what's missing.