Good but Lacks Creativity of Behind the Wheel French

I gave French Complete Learn in Your Car just 4 stars because of its 'canned' phrase
approach to teaching French.
The strengths of the course are obvious. Good voices, clear presentation, relevant vocabulary. But you're still in a box that they have constructed for you.
This means that you have no way to 'break out' and speak your own mind with a course like this. It's good, but then, so are many others who follow this approach.
Even though I have learned French from this course and am not returning it, I prefer the method and the results I have received from Behind the Wheel French. I was speaking my own original sentences after the first hour. Tough act to follow.

A Long Way From the Way it Was in School

It's amazing to see the changes that have occurred in the way a foreign language is taught now compared when I was in school so many years ago. I didn't remember much from school, but I remembered just a little about things like sentence structure and a small handfull of words. ==With this course you learn so much more because you listen to the language being spoken rather than spending so much time reading. And my need is not to be able to read the language but to be able to understand it when spoken.

The real key to this course is that it makes very practical use of time otherwise totally wasted on the drive to and from work. It's not exactly painless, you still have to concentrate on listening and speaking. Then a little bit of talking with a native speaker, you will pick up the language far better than you expect.

Simply, My Best Language Investment Ever

As a follow-up, I bought this almost exactly one year ago. I have listened daily all year in my car, mornings only (evening reserved for "conversational" programs like SmartFrench and ImmersionPlus). Basically this program is responsible for the fact that I can now speak French (not 100% fluently, of course, but well enough to hold a respectable conversation in all tenses).

I briefly tried Michel Thomas, Pimsleur and others this year, but LIYCF was clearly the very best of the bunch. Very thorough in terms of vocabulary, pronounciation and also very easy to use. And what a bargain. Tutors want to charge me $30-35 *PER LESSON*; for less than $40 I've had a daily "tutor" in my car (during time that would otherwise be a complete waste) for an entire year.

(I imagine another listener could finish the course in half the time if they listened to it exclusively in the a.m. and p.m. But I do recommend something like SmartFrench to "round it out.")

**In fact, if Penton made a Level IV (covering more subjunctive forms, idiomatic expressions, etc.), I would run out and buy it today.**

So as I come to the final side of the final tape, exactly one year later, just in time for my move to Paris, I say "THANK YOU Penton!"