French Grammar in Context by Margaret Jubb and Annie Rouxeville (review)

Reference grammar books are not always user-friendly and can be quite tedious. There are numerous examples on the market, and it is really for the language learner to locate among this mass of resources the one most suitable to their needs. Should it be in English or French, or be bilingual? Should it include exercises in the core of the book, or a CD-ROM, to encourage independent learning? Normally, the student’s existing level will motivate the choice. Books that move from grammatical points to illustrative examples can easily lose the reader, but Margaret Jubb and Annie Rouxeville, by looking at texts first to explore key areas of French grammar (tenses, pronouns, negatives, adjectives, pronominal verbs, etc.), offer a different approach, one that aims at consolidating the learner’s understanding of the language by going beyond the scope of single sentences, as well as immersing the student in French from the outset. French Grammar in Context targets both intermediate and advanced students, as specified in the Preface; it is not really a book for beginners. Drawing from authentic texts — both literary and journalistic sources, which have been updated for this fourth edition — makes the book engaging and gives the learner an opportunity to discover, or maybe rediscover, authors such as Camus, Queneau, Prévert, Stendhal, or Zola, among many others, through the lens of grammar. The book also concerns itself with the style of various popular French newspapers and periodicals — an area often neglected in reference grammar books — from Libération to the regional Ouest-France to the magazine Elle. This provides exposure to different registers of French, as in a natural linguistic environment. The texts and explanations are usefully supplemented by spoken and written exercises, with answers provided at the back, which will enable the student to build up knowledge and gain more confidence in handling the structures covered. In addition, cross-references point the user towards further readings, which will be particularly helpful for grammar enthusiasts or for language teachers in search of extra material. One might have expected a little more variation in format — it seems rather monotonous at times — and the inclusion of visual illustrations would have made the book an easier read without any loss of seriousness. Explanations are too synthesized on occasion and not as helpful as they might be. For example: ‘Purely or essentially pronominal verbs’, as they are generally called, like s’évanouir, are simplified ‘as common pronominal verbs [that] have no particular reflexive or reciprocal meaning’ (p. 130), which is rather confusing. The agreement of past participles with an infinitive (laisser/faire + infinitive, for instance), often a source of mistakes, is treated in another section under ‘the infinitive and present particular’ (p. 142), which is misleading. Nevertheless, while there is always scope for development, the book’s aim is to limit itself to the most important points and features, for the sake of clarity. On the whole, therefore, the work is very successful and will undoubtedly prove a useful tool to supplement university classes in French grammar.