French Orals

DessieMG

How tough is the French oral exam, i got an A in my mock HL but it was an easy paper, i have 2 weeks to prepare, any tips?

plein de force

Throw in sunbjunctives when you can and use many other verb tenses. have a good solid document and just revise every topic you've done in class over and over until you're blue in the face. Practice with someone too!

NotExactly

plein de force wrote: »

Throw in sunbjunctives when you can !

By any chance could you pass on some useful subjunctive sentences please?

Coeurdepirate

plein de force wrote: »

Throw in sunbjunctives when you can and use many other verb tenses. have a good solid document and just revise every topic you've done in class over and over until you're blue in the face. Practice with someone too!

NotExactly wrote: »

By any chance could you pass on some useful subjunctive sentences please?

That'd actually be fantastic, I'm only in 5th year but we're getting proper orals at the end of the year, with a teacher from another school.

Smeefa

I would really recommend eating a few squares of dairy milk chocolate just before going into your exam cause it gives you a real phlegm-y voice, perfect for the french accent! Seriously!

I also found it really hard learning sentences out of notes, like when I was doing mock orals I would always be trying to remember WHAT the sentence i learnt off was in english was, and then id have to try and remember what the french was for it! In the end i found it much easier to as myself the questions that were likely to come up, answer them the way i would in english, and then translate that sentence!

For example if asked fave book: instead of learning a boring description of harry potter i said something along the lines of "I really loved harry potter, i felt like i grew up with the characters, because it came out when i was 11 and so was harry! I was super excited for my letter from hogwarts but it never arrived - i was so disappointed!

-sounds stupid but it sounded so much more natural and impressed the examiner AND it was so much easier to to learn because they were my own words

confusticated

NotExactly wrote: »

By any chance could you pass on some useful subjunctive sentences please?

Since the subjunctive is often used for sentences expressing necessity, it's probably easiest to work it into discussion about school, the Leaving etc. You'd use it a lot in conversation normally, but I was helping my brother who's in 6th year recently and the oral isn't a normal conversation so we found that was the easiest way to use it.

e.g. Il faut que je fasse de mon mieux cette année pour entrer à la fac. (I have to do my best this year to get to college.)

J'étudie les sciences pour que je puisse devenir médecin plus tard. (I study sciences so that I can be a doctor some day.)

Bien que je sois très occupé avec le bac, il faut que je fasse du sport le soir pour me détendre. (Even though I'm really busy with the LC, I have to do sport in the evenings to relax).

It's a good idea to pick verbs that change noticeably in the subjunctive as opposed to the present (etre, pouvoir, faire, aller, dire, lire) so that it's evident to the examiner that you know they change. If you just use ones like donner etc that sound the same, you pretty much might as well not use it.

Bonne chance:)

plein de force

NotExactly wrote: »

By any chance could you pass on some useful subjunctive sentences please?

bien sur

Il faut qu'on fasse beacoup pour éviter le probèlme de...... - we have to do a lot to avoid the problem of......

Il faut que je fasse de mon mieux pour m'améliorer..... i have to do my best to improve ( could be used for when you're talking about a subject you're not good at)

Je ne crois pas que ce soit- i don't believe that it is....


other ones you can throw in anywhere:

Pour autant que je puisse en juger... as i understand it
Pour autant que je me souvienne.... as far as i remember
Pour autant que je sache.... as far as i know


bonne chance

Salty

plein de force wrote: »

bien sur

Il faut qu'on fasse beacoup pour éviter le probèlme de...... - we have to do a lot to avoid the problem of......

It should be que l'on. The French don't say qu'on because it sounds like con which is a really really rude word!!
Don't go into your oral saying qu'on because more than likely, the examiner will know the bad meaning of it!:p And you would lose marks in pronunciation.

plein de force

_meehan_ wrote: »

It should be que l'on. The French don't say qu'on because it sounds like con which is a really really rude word!!
Don't go into your oral saying qu'on because more than likely, the examiner will know the bad meaning of it!:p And you would lose marks in pronunciation.

Yeah for an oral exam use that, sounds more formal too

but really any french person i've ever known says qu'on, and my teacher never repremands me for using it, the confusion for qu'on and con would never happen in an oral though would it? there'd be something seriously up if it did :pac:

Bottleopener

A nice useful subjunctive phrase is "Il faut que j'obtienne XXX points" when talking about college courses.

Salty

plein de force wrote: »

Yeah for an oral exam use that, sounds more formal too

but really any french person i've ever known says qu'on, and my teacher never repremands me for using it, the confusion for qu'on and con would never happen in an oral though would it? there'd be something seriously up if it did :pac:

Yeah just my teacher was really emphasising it to us in class last week, and she's a supervising examiner for the orals who spent years and years in France.

But yes, the examiner would be fairly poor if they were to confuse the meanings in an oral:P

plein de force

_meehan_ wrote: »

Yeah just my teacher was really emphasising it to us in class last week, and she's a supervising examiner for the orals who spent years and years in France.

But yes, the examiner would be fairly poor if they were to confuse the meanings in an oral:P

Oh well i bow to your teachers superior experience and knowledge. if she's a supervising examiner she knows what they expect