This course is designed to familiarize you with the situations you are likely to encounter abroad, and to provide you with the language skills you need to cope effectively with those situations. The Metropolitan French FAST course is ideal for the long term visitor, student, or permanent resident of France. Forty lessons include finding an apartment; an automobile crisis; calling a doctor; taking the Metro, train and taxi; and ordering in a restaurant. Cultural notes on contemporary French personalities, driving laws, price comparisons for clothes, important telephone numbers for the American visitor, and a glossary of useful words and expressions are included.

The Sub-Saharan French FAST course presents cultural and functional information useful to you in French-speaking areas south of the Sahara desert. The course provides background information, samples of language that you may hear and reproduce, exploration of relevant grammar, supplementary vocabulary, and communicative uses of language for real or simulated purposes. You learn vocabulary and structures for everyday usage. The course is recommended for those seeking a functional knowledge of the language.

The course presents topics including ordering a meal, registering at a hotel, meeting neighbors, asking directions, hiring staff, and getting one's car repaired.