The Cambridge French-English Thesaurus

It's not your grandfather's Thesaurus so don't expect synonyms to follow the word you may want to substitute for. What the author's deliver is a reasonably comprehensive series of themes, (e.g. Control, authority and the law) with nouns, adjectives, and verbs commonly used in expressing that theme. I've actually found it a great source to simply read and discover the French language. If you want to write authentic French phrases, this is a wonderful tool.

You are a committed student of French and already have a bilingual dictionary and a French-French equivalent. What can and should be added next to your arsenal of reference books? A most outstanding choice is "The Cambridge French-English Thesaurus." This hardback volume is easy to use and a handy guide to all manner of things other than just synonyms. Many of the bonuses come at the end of the book, where there are tutorials on polite language, letter-writing, and verb conjugations. Of course, the main part of the volume (the first 207 pages) is devoted to providing words that relate to a given subject, and it is this part of the thesaurus that i find so compelling for pleasurable grazing, so to speak.Take, for example, words related to weather, which figure prominently in the writing of several favorite authors of mine. These are broken down into the subsets of weather and climate, weather conditions, rain, wind, fog and clouds, unusual phenomena, cold, and heat. In most instances there are literal English one-word equivalents, but as appropriate the Cambridge thesaurus presents full sentences and indications of which choices equal informal speech. Idiomatic uses are also presented at the end of subsections and are labeled as "locutions", i.e., "idioms." Thus, we have the following: "un coup de tonnerre dans un ciel serein," the French version of a 'bolt out of the blue." Even more figurative is "qu'il pleuve ou qu'il vente," which equates to "come hell or high water."

A thesaurus for English-speaking learners of French, organizing words by subject rather than by alphabet, is a great idea.This one is pretty good, but weak in several areas (see below). I don't know of anything better, but it's only really useful in conjunction with both a good bilingual dictionary -- I highly recommend the Collins-Robert -- and a French dictionary of synonyms -- I've found Henri Benac, Dictionnaire des Synonymes, helpful.-- It's not at all clear how its French vocabulary is chosen. Common words like "collegue", "essuie-tout", and "pote" are missing, while uncommon words like "branchage", "velleitaire", and "buraliste" are included. Also, common usages of words, e.g. "(c'est) exact" to mean "just so" are missing.-- There are occasional articles contrasting near-synonyms, but in a work like this, there should be many more. This is where Benac is very useful.-- The indexes are incomplete. For instance, "towel" only shows up under "bath towel".-- Although it tries to show both American and British usage, it is clearly British-based, and is often missing the American term, or gives an unidiomatic one.

The topical organization often leads to items the searcher had not thought of, so it is heuristic in that way.There are inevitable gaps in coverage and there were some that made me wonder why they did not get into those. On the whole, it is worth having by your side if you are exploring how to express yourself in French in a variety of areas of conversation or composition.

This should prove to be a useful language resource. I made the mistake of purchasing a used book, however, which didn't turn out to be in "very good" condition - including pink and green highlighting as well as some handwriting. All in all, still glad to have it.

The layout is fantastically easy to use and very intuitive. The "usage " notes throughout really help to understand the words in context of the language, not just alternative words for a word, but colloquial use of a word in examples.

An excellent resource for building vocabulary and an aid to speaking more naturally.

I very much like the set-up so easy to understand, instead of just using basic grammar to writein French I use this Thesaurus, my friends and teacher cannot believe how many verbs I know !!!!!I would recommend this book to anyone interested in French.

Useful book which I used for classes at University of birmingham. Not like a conventional thesaurus as this builds on prior knowledge e.g. you already know the verb Manger but this gives you dozens of nuanced verbs like devour, gobble etc and explains their exact meanings in context. Great for expanding vocabulary from intermediate - advanced.

I love this book. Words ordered by category, contains idioms and quotes as well to see the vocab in context. Perfect for students

Handy reference book. Delivered to France and it is in mint condition. Seller was helpful.

Once again good delivery time and well packed.Now the book.Over the moon with the way it is laid out, very easy to use, and will improve my French no-end, only problem is, that I never found it sooner.If you buy one; you will never regret it, well done to Amazon for having the sense to have it on their site.