French Grammar and Usage

By Richard Towell and Roger Hawkins

Book Overview

Long trusted as the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and user-friendly grammar book available, French Grammar and Usage is a complete guide to French as it is written and spoken today. It includes clear descriptions of all the main grammatical phenomena of French and their uses, illustrated by numerous examples taken from contemporary French, and distinguishes the most common forms of usage, both formal and informal.

This book's key features are as follows:

comprehensive content, covering all the major structures of contemporary French user-friendly organisation offering easy-to-find sections with cross-referencing and indexes of English words, French words, and grammatical terms clear and illuminating examples to help students at all stages of their degree useful indications of what cannot be written or said as well as what can

Revised and updated throughout, this new edition offers updated examples to reflect current usage, headers to include chapter number and section parts, as well as cross-referencing for easier reference, and explanations of notoriously difficult points of grammar. This edition includes references to changes in French spelling now being introduced across French education and to social change towards inclusive writing.

The combination of reference grammar and manual of current usage is an invaluable resource for students and teachers of French at the intermediate and advanced levels.

This Grammar is accompanied by Practising French Grammar: A Workbook (available to purchase separately, ISBN 978-1-032-44140-5) which features related exercises and activities. An Instructor and Student Resource site also accompanies this book and offers additional resources at https: //routledgelearning.com/frenchgrammarandusage

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1032444630
• ISBN13: 9781032444635
• Release Date: January 2025
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 470 Pages
• Weight: 1.79 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.8" x 9.7"

Customer Reviews

So Good I Bought the Book!

I originally checked this out at my local library and it was so helpful and chuck full of information I decided to buy the book. If you are serious about learning French the correct way this is the book for you. It is very easy to find the information and material that you need. It is down to earth and in simple language with tables and examples so you will completely understand what you are reading. I can't say enough about this book it is simply amazing and should be on everyone's bookshelf.

Excellent reference grammar

Hawkins and Towell is a very good reference grammar of written and, to some extent, spoken French. It is best suited to intermediate or advanced levels, although curious and motivated beginners would also profit. The second edition is a definite improvement over the first. Remember "reference"--it is not a standalone self-teaching grammar. If you are studying on your own and you are a beginner, you will want another book to walk you through French grammar from the basics up. However, the clarity and the organization of Hawkins and Towell make it a superb companion to the solitary student who may not find things explained fully in a step-by-step grammar.

the best book i've yet to find on the french language

Simply put, this really is the very best book on French I've ever come across, so much so that I bought it on the spot, which is something I very rarely do. It is well-organized, has wonderful examples, and has a particularly good section on adverbs. Although most grammars are simply grammars, I think this is a wonderful book for vocabulary expansion because of all the examples provided, and for the most part translations are provided for both phrases and individual words. It also has a very good index, which is always good in a book, especially so thorough a book. One of the best and most easily-overlooked conveniences is that the formal or colloquial usages are noted right alongside the rest rather than being put in seperate formal or colloquial chapters which would complicate things too much for the student.I'm not sure how the beginning student would find this book though, but I think I would've liked to have it when I first started out. Perhaps some pronunciation guides would help, but I really don't think that the lack thereof is particularly detrimental.

God bless this book

I'm glad I've finally a decent grammar book for French. It's an extremely helpful reference. The earlier review mentioned that the cover is hideous but I have to say, the cover is *not* a problem.There are notes on the differences between "written" and "spoken" French. Overall, this is a great book. Easy to use. Even if you're a complete beginner, you shouldn't have a problem.

Very thorough

This is an excellent grammar for English speakers. It has a thorough review of preposition usage, an excellent guide to the subjunctive and pretty much everything else I usually get wrong ;-) I browsed for a couple of hours in Borders on Oxford Street and couldn't find anything better. Nicely type-set as well. The only problem is the hideously ugly cover.