A beautifully structured book for teaching yourself to read French (not to write or speak French). It's expensive and in need of updating, but it's great anyway. I needed to prepare for a translation exam required by my doctoral program, with a background of a year of French in the seventh grade and enough Spanish and Latin to have a feel for Romance languages. I used this book, making vocabulary flash cards along the way, and I passed my exam.

A tip for choosing a French/English dictionary suitable for beginners: See if there's an entry for "eu" ("had") that at least refers you to "avoir" ("to have"). If there isn't, find another dictionary--one that doesn't assume you know things like entirely irregular past participles. The HarperCollins Robert College Dictionary passes this test; oddly, their Unabridged Dictionary (1998 edition) does not.

This book is great for anyone wanting to learn to read french. When I took the french language test for my MA in history, I succeeded easily. If you need to read, that is not speak french, this book is for you!

...I can't imagine being in a class to learn French for reading -- you can do it all by yourself with this book -- save yourself tuition money and go for it.

I just passed my department's reading exam in French -- like other people mention, the book prepares you for multiple fields of readings (mine was in Japanese Literature) -- I used this book entirely to get me through it.

Forget Jean-Pierre and Marie -- this book has real documents and stories in French -- no generic contexts. Students of Literature will probably enjoy this book not only for the skills, but also the reading selection (you're reading Hugo, Baudelaire, Bergson, Rousseau in the original!). Students of history and science, have no fear -- there's good stuff for you too.

How I prepared for my exam: I read the book, but halfway through I went back and did daily review of previous chapters as I progressed -- things like the French subjunctive, imperfect tenses, etc are hard to grasp, but a little review and you'll comfortable with it. Vocabulary cards and a thorough review of theFalse Cognates at the back of the book are a must. After about 2 months of daily work (about 2-4 hours a day), I was able to read articles in my field with little difficulty. Bon chance!