How to study for French?

**Timbuk2**

*Thanks to the mod that moved this.

Hi guys.

I do 8 subjects (all HL), at first I was thinking of concentrating only on 6 (and not really concentrate on French, and use Irish as a back-up, just in case). However, I don't think this is wise as sometimes a nasty paper can come up in particular subject.

I used to be good at French for the JC, but it has detiorated ever since, maybe due to the bad teacher I have (I'll blame everybody but myself :P).

I have made out Revision Lists for all my subjects, (e.g. Integration, Vectors in Maths, Mezzogiorno, Plate Tectonics in Geography, etc), with the idea that I tick it off when I revise it. But you can't really make one for French (ok, you could write Subjunctive and Conditional etc., but it doesn't really work).

The French paper is actually quite doable (a lot more so than HL Irish). At first I was concentrating on Irish, but all the Stair na Gaelige, poems, prós, An Triail etc is a lot to learn. With French it's just 2x Reading Comprehensions, 1x 90 words written, 2 x 75 words written. (and of course, the oral and listening).

How can I become good at French? Where do I start?

Thanks for reading (sorry for the essay!)

Alanstrainor

**Timbuk2** wrote: »

Hi guys.

I do 8 subjects (all HL), at first I was thinking of concentrating only on 6 (and not really concentrate on French, and use Irish as a back-up, just in case). However, I don't think this is wise as sometimes a nasty paper can come up in particular subject.

I used to be good at French for the JC, but it has detiorated ever since, maybe due to the bad teacher I have (I'll blame everybody but myself ).

I have made out Revision Lists for all my subjects, (e.g. Integration, Vectors in Maths, Mezzogiorno, Plate Tectonics in Geography, etc), with the idea that I tick it off when I revise it. But you can't really make one for French (ok, you could write Subjunctive and Conditional etc., but it doesn't really work).

The French paper is actually quite doable (a lot more so than HL Irish). At first I was concentrating on Irish, but all the Stair na Gaelige, poems, prós, An Triail etc is a lot to learn. With French it's just 2x Reading Comprehensions, 1x 90 words written, 2 x 75 words written. (and of course, the oral and listening).

How can I become good at French? Where do I start?

Thanks for reading (sorry for the essay!)

Moved! No worries.

Jessibelle

Learn to drive on the right

Aside from my feeble attempts at humour, I'm not much good for the written stuff, we had it drilled in nearly by rote by my teacher, but watching TV5, listening to French radio and downloading podcasts in French, both for language lessons and current topics really improved my aural and orals. The examiner even commented on how I was able to use french slang and colloquialisms fairly easily in the modern topic conversation, and that really was just from listening to the news and learning the key phrases. French modern cinema's great too, and sometimes it helps just to tune out, enjoy the film and then you kind of pick some of it up subconciously?
Hope that helps une petite peu? (yeah.... see what I mean about the sense of humour?? )

Finical

I suck at French. Had mock today and went a disaster for me. I'm even getting grinds. I think it's natural I just suck at languages. I try learn topics for the written bit of exam but anything at all can come up! Like I experienced today in mock.

I'm not too bad with the oral but tape I find very hard aswell.

I'd like a bit advice how to become good aswell lol.

djcervi

Well for the written, I suggest that you get on top of your grammar and verbs. One of the best ways (if not a key way) of learning grammar is to understand the concepts in your own language. A good book for this which I would definitely recommend is English Grammar for Students of French by Jacqueline Morton. You can buy this online http://www.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Students-French-Learning/dp/093403432X It's about €10

It's a very clear book. I'm doing French in college, but I'd say it would be brilliant for developing your writing skills. On top of that just try to write regularly (a small bit) in French.

Aural: TV5.org has a news item section under 'apprendre le francais'. It's called '7 jours sur la planete' you can look at news items with full French audio and a French transcription on what's been communicated.

Behind you Joey

**Timbuk2** wrote: »

*Thanks to the mod that moved this.
How can I become good at French? Where do I start?

Thanks for reading (sorry for the essay!)

Hey I'd advise having a look at "Bac Superieur", an honours level French book, it's great... Well got me an A1 in the mock!:rolleyes:

9wetfckx43j5rg

Well the first thing and basis to learn is all your verbs. First learn them in the present tense, then past, future, conditional ect ect. Remember to learn all the irregulars too.

Then learn off grammer rules, such as pronouns ect.

Then you need to learn specalist vocab to help you on the opinion questions. Any current or trending topics that are in the news such as recession, job loss, environment and sport (olympics) are always great jumping off points. Try scripting anwers in english to possible opinion questions and then look up all the words you didn't know.

H2student

djcervi wrote: »

Aural: TV5.org has a news item section under 'apprendre le francais'. It's called '7 jours sur la planete' you can look at news items with full French audio and a French transcription on what's been communicated.

Due to my weak french and terrible searching skills, I can't locate the transcription you speak of. Can someone guide me to the right direction?

djcervi

Ok, what you do is log onto tv5.org then > apprendre le francais> 7 jours sur la planete.
There you have 3 newsitems- click on one of them (you have to click under beginner, intermediate, advanced..you have to choose a level to start at)

Voir la séquence- lets you see the televised news report.
Transcription is under 'voir la séquence', click on that and the transcription of the televised news comes up.
Hope that helps.

OxfordComma

Hey, I had more or less the same problems as you last year. French is (in my opinion) the most difficult subject to study for - it's really hard to know how to improve.

For Listening, just practise these sections from previous years and correct your answers with the official marking scheme. You'll find yourself improving a lot with practise. Same strategy for Reading Comprehensions.

The Written section of the paper is without a doubt the most difficult. You really have to work hard to increase your vocabulary. Don't bother learning off essays on specific topics or whatever - it's inefficient, time-consuming and it's highly unlikely that anything you've learnt will actually come up.

What I did was take out my LC textbook, read through any sample essays/articles/whatever, and pick out really good phrases and verbs that were relatively versatile and useful. I'd write all of these down in a notebook and learn them. It's actually a good idea to write down any new words you come across like this in class or in the papers themselves. Just go through your list of words 'n' phrases regularly and you'll remember them.

The next thing you need to do is to practise improving your written French, and I did this by picking out essay questions from LC papers and writing them as well as I possibly could, using as many of my new words and phrases as possible. Your answers shouldn't just be a collection of generic phrases, however; you have to make sure you actually address the given topic properly and write something original. You'll be docked heavily if your paragraph is just a string of vague phrases like "Il me semble que..." and "Il faut que le gouvernement fasse quelquechose..." and you don't really deal with the given topic properly. You can use these, of course, but you have to make sure there's some real content in your answer that relates to the question asked. You'll find that, if you work really hard at written exercises, your standard of written French will improve quite quickly.

I never really had too much trouble getting the grammar side of things right, but if you find French grammar hard, you're just going to have to study the rules and practise. There's really no excuse for not knowing the grammar properly.