This book gives an overview of French grammar and features some very helpful sections. The best one by far is the one on prepositions, it's very detailed and provides and in-depth guide to how and when you should use which French preposition for which English proposition.



The main drawback is the section on infinitives. If you know French, you'll know that the French infinitive may be preceeded by 'de' (C'est important de manger), by 'à' (J'ai commencé à manger) by no preposition at all (je veux manger) or occasionally by other prepositions (On a fini la soirée par manger). While this guide does feature lengthy lists of which verb takes which preposition, the authors had a complete blackout and neglected to provide the English translation for a single one of all these verbs! In other words, you won't be able to use unless you're already fluent in French. The corresponding guide to contemporary Italian usage, in the same series, is almost identical to this one but does feature an English translation for each Italian verb and expression.



I cannot explain why or how the translations were dropped from this book but the consequences for the learners are obvious. A much less useful book than if they had been provided.

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