It used to be that you had two choices for learning French - go to a night course or buy very expensive (and quite boring) sets of tapes to Learn French at home. Times change though, and now with the advent of the internet and the home pc you have a huge number of choices for French home study courses.

Now don't get me wrong - I've got nothing against French text books. There are some very good ones about that use modern teaching methods and patterns of learning that your brain naturally adopts. They're much better than when I was a kid and I've bought quite a few.

But they can't compete with modern CDs and the interactive programs that are available. A book can't really talk to you. You can't hear a French accent from a book. A French book can pose some questions, but it can't actually react to your answers, correct you and then give you the opportunity to revise your newly learned French phrase or move on to a new one.

The interactive French teaching software available today can do exactly that. In fact it can do more. Some of them supply French MP3 files that can not only be played on your PC but can also be transferred to your MP3 player or a CD so you have portable French language lessons as well. Obviously you don't get the full benefit of interactivity your computer will give you, but you can listen in the car, on the train, jogging, whatever takes your fancy - and you didn't pay any extra for it, it's all part of the system.

I am generalizing to an extent, of course. Not all interactive French courses are the same, just like not all French CDs or French books are the same. In general, however, they offer a level of 'playability' that is more involving and more entertaining and thus educates more quickly and with more retention than a book ever could. I love to sit down and read a good story with a book in my hands, but if I need to learn something like the French language, give me my PC and a software program any day.

If there's a downside at all, it's price. Now it's not possible for me to check every program to learn French at home but the ones I've found that do what I want them to - which is teaching French to a reasonable degree of competence and confidence - are considerably more expensive than a $20 book. Having said that, they're not what I'd call expensive either, considering what you can get from them. Rocket French for example has MP3 files and interactive lessons for grammar, words, French verbs (quite a complicated area if you're an English speaker by birth). It also has hundreds, if not thousands, of text files for further reference and the whole lot comes in at around $100. If I was looking to learn French at home, that's exactly the sort of thing I'd be investing in.