FRENCH ORAL

XboxHero

Any good vocab, conversational fillers and stuff that would be nice to learn for higher level?

What are you guys studying?

I'm learning all chapters in my Oral Book, intense vocab on topics such as food, clothes, weather, sports and stuff. And, revising verbs as well as preparing vocab on my document (A holiday picture- we had a hurricane) and vocab on topics such as racism, pollution, obesity, manners, celeb culture, and so on.

MeetReality

Ya the usual stuff family,hobbies,school,job,summer. I would pay a lot of attention to my verbs as they do like to test all the tenses....conditional is very popular (easy though). Also make sure when you bring up a topic that you can discuss it thoroughly.. A few people in my class mentioned unemployment as a problem in Ireland during the mock oral and then were asked about the recession and didn't have a clue.

djcervi

I'm studying pretty much the usual topics. I'm also preparing Paddys day and our Rugby match. Also I'm trying to put a bit of subjunctive into my oral.

Par exemple: Mes parents veulent que je fasse de mon mieux- My parents want me to do my best.

Il faut que j'obtienne... points- I need to obtain ... points.

I'm trying to organise a few mock orals, just to deal with my nerves, with my french teacher.

QueenOfLeon

is this amount enough to know: family, area, school, future, pastimes, sport, job, holidays, daily life, travel, health and education system, recession, drugs, alcohol, crime, road accidents.
Is there any other big topics we should be covering? Were really rushing everything cos my french teacher is pregnant and will be leaving straight after the orals...so hoping we havnt left anything big out

MeetReality

Ya that's basically everything you need to know and you wont need the hald of it, the recession will only be asked if you bring it up...just revise the conditional for stuff like what would you do if you were principal, minister for education, if you won the lotto.

MeetReality

MeetReality wrote: »

Ya that's basically everything you need to know and you wont need the hald of it, the recession will only be asked if you bring it up...just revise the conditional for stuff like what would you do if you were principal, minister for education, if you won the lotto.

Isn't that the "mochonilach" in Irish?

*fonetical Spelling.
**isn't it ironic that "phonetical" isn't spelled phonetically

Heggy

The Módh Coinníolach, I think that's right, is the Irish conditional tense yes.

*fonetical Spelling.
**isn't it ironic that "phonetical" isn't spelled phonetically

It's not really ironic because the majority of 'ph's have an f sound anyway so it's essentially pronounced as it's written.
Also, phonetical is not a word, just phonetic.
There's a science teacher in my school who keeps saying 'hydrochlorical acid', really gets on my nerves. She also misspelt vagina so it's to be expected I suppose.

crime, road accidents.

We haven't done anything of that sort for the oral.

MeetReality

You will only be asked about topics like crime and road accidents if YOU mention them.

QueenOfLeon

Heggy wrote: »

We haven't done anything of that sort for the oral.

We only did crime in relation to social problems in the area...but most people choose to talk about drugs instead. Then we did road accidents in relation to the bad effects of people taking drugs and alcohol...so youd really have to be the one to bring it up in the first place

We havnt done any conditional in french, only in irish...

Heggy

We havnt done any conditional in french, only in irish

Well, if you can stick to the first person singular, it sounds identical to the future tense.
The endings aren't that hard for the rest though, future stem + imparfait endings, no exceptions.

If you haven't done the conditional, what are the chances you've done the subjunctive?

bythewoods

The book "Shortcuts to Success- The French Oral" is realllllllllllly good.

Covers LOADS and has all the phonetics written in, and the english translation. It's a complete and utter lifesaver.

QueenOfLeon

Heggy wrote: »

Well, if you can stick to the first person singular, it sounds identical to the future tense.
The endings aren't that hard for the rest though, future stem + imparfait endings, no exceptions.

If you haven't done the conditional, what are the chances you've done the subjunctive?

Weve done the conditional but not as part of the oral...like we havnt prepared anything on if i won the lotto, that sorta stuff.
Ya weve done subjunctive!! Il faut que je fasse les economises pour aller a la fac, il faut que j'obtienne...points....:)

bythewoods

It's important to get the subjunctive in at least once. The easiest being:

Il faut que j'aie ___ points.
(aie is pronounced "eye")

Kournikova

I used all nessecary tenses in the Mock Oral, I used the subjuncive twice and still only got 45 out of 100 .

The first question I was asked was about the economy and what would I do if I was the Taoiseach .

For conditional I always use Je Voudrais cause you can kinda say anything for that.

Fad

Kournikova wrote: »

I used all nessecary tenses in the Mock Oral, I used the subjuncive twice and still only got 45 out of 100 .

The first question I was asked was about the economy and what would I do if I was the Taoiseach .

For conditional I always use Je Voudrais cause you can kinda say anything for that.

You can use the subjunctive but have really awful basic grammar, like agreements and stuff.

My french teacher has said, people have gotten A's without knowing the subjunctive.

(Still trying to figure it out in Irish tbh)

Piste

...there's a subjunctive in Irish?

Heggy

Well, for French conditional, three vital ones I found, and they're perfectly regular.
J'achèterais
J'améliorerais - I would improve, a bit of mouthful, but good for pronunciation marks if you can get it.
Je supprimerais - I would get rid of, (suppress)

The subjunctive in Irish is used in things like prayers, Our Father etc.
To be honest I don't think it's really needed in for the LC, just maybe be able to recognise it.

Fad

Piste wrote: »

...there's a subjunctive in Irish?

Modh Foshuiteach, I think I've used it once..........

Might just avoid it :pac:

Signature

Mine is in a week and I haven't yet studied.

Will a week's study do? I have good sheets on everything.

Fringe

This is crap. I have my Applied Maths mock on Thursday so I've only been studying that for the past week. I won't be doing any work on Paddy's Day and probably very little on Wednesday so I'll only have less than a week to study for the oral. There's so much I need to go over.

PurpleFistMixer

Guys... your mocks mean NOTHING. Your oral counts towards your LC. Oral is WAY higher in priorities than mocks, or at least it should be!

The best study you can do is getting it on your ear, get happy with speaking it. Learning off phrases is all well and good but it's a communication exam, you want a degree of fluidity to your speech, you want to be thinking in the language, ideally! So talk, talk, talk. >.> (Then again, I pointedly didn't learn anything off for either of my orals, which possibly cost me an A1 in French but saved me so much time everyone else spent learning things. : p)

Heggy

No god damned people to talk French to though. And friends would scorn you off the planet for trying with them.

PurpleFistMixer

Heggy wrote: »

No god damned people to talk French to though. And friends would scorn you off the planet for trying with them.

Watch French films? That's what I did coming up to my oral...*


*may not get you grades... La Haine is a good film though!

Heggy

Well, I tried listening to a few podcasts from RTL (Les Grosses Tetes (cant' be bothered looking for a circonflex)) And every time I grasp the topic they say something quite fast which just happens to be the punchline and everyone starts laughing and I just feel left out. :rolleyes:
I looked up La Haine, not my usual sort of film, but maybe I'll give it a go.
I think I'll need to try and sort some sort of tandem thing maybe.

Swizz

Signature wrote: »

Mine is in a week and I haven't yet studied.

Will a week's study do? I have good sheets on everything.

What do ya mean by

I have good sheets on everything.

As in notes photocopied from a book?

Signature

I'm learning vocab (words, phrases, etc) now but I'm wondering if I should have a good look over my grammar (verbs, tenses, etc)?

Mine's on tomorrow. Thanks.

Gavin "shels"

Any chance of some ideas about what to say about the Grand Slam win and Bernard Dunne?

ironictoaster

Yeah this would help alot considering I was asked about both of these in the Irish oral :mad:

QueenOfLeon

Gavin shels wrote: »

Any chance of some ideas about what to say about the Grand Slam win and Bernard Dunne?

Samedi dernier, j'ai passe la plupart du jour devant le petit ecran, regardant le match de rugby entre l'Irlande et le Pays de Galles. C'etait inoubliable! L'Irlande a gagne le Tounoi des Six Nations mais, plus important, le Grand Slam pour la premiere fois depuis soixante et un ans. Quelle journee historique! Moi, je ne joue pas au rugby mais j'aime bien regarder les matchs a la tele. Je prefere de jouer au.....and then off into whatever sport you play etc

Ancee

Just passing on the best bit of advice I got for my orals - say what you can say not what you want to say.

QueenOfLeon

This was on skoool.ie:

"There is no set pattern to the questions asked. The first few are simple basic requests designed to put you at ease. The examiner decides, based on an indication of ability given by your teacher, the range and type of questions to be asked."

Does our teacher tell the examiner our standard of french? :eek::eek::eek: