101 French Idioms with MP3 Disc Book

Two stars for "it was ok" - I had such an internal DIY curriculum-refinement journey with level II.

Up until French Level II, Lesson 13, I had been having a daily half-hour dose of low-effort fun, until I realized I should begin taking notes. This was around the time I began spiraling into YouTube videos for Street French, Comme Une Française, and not yet with Damon and Jo, so while I understood I was working with audio discs produced in 2004, I did not realize HOW out-of-date it was for late 2019 (lolll). It was hard, then, to feel like I could not trust any of the material and to unlearn the entire level I disc of « Je voudrais » and switch it out for « J'aimerais » or « Je prends » for when I wanted to order something. Then every time they were using « nous » I corrected it to « on » . All kinds of things like this throughout the discs. Until I gave up and went with the flow, knowing in my head this is wrong and I am only using Pimsleur strictly for pronunciation practice.

But actually, my biggest frustration with this level II set is the layout of the lessons, the pacing, and the male voice actor who gives the instructions in French. The lessons do not allow you to try to say really easy phrases on your own first and will give it to you ("écoutez et répétez" ughhh), then for the longer sentences, they don't give enough pause before moving on. Then the voice actor will say an extremely blurry « Demandez s'il y a s'il ouais de la banque ». I replayed it 3-4x to see how it is supposed to connect with « Est-ce que vous savez où il y a une banque ? » >:-|

Favorite moments: how much time is devoted to learning how to say « Je vais jouer au tennis » since the listener, or the French, only play tennis. There are no other sports vocabulary to learn + how important it is that you go out to buy mineral water.

Most difficult parts: remembering to insert the « y » , pausing too long at times to form a sentence. . .