How to study French

CookieMonster.x

I was wondering how everyone studies French/German? I'm in 6th year and ideally looking for an A1 if possible but I always leave French to study say biology. I have a good enough standard already but I haven't had a French teacher since October so we haven't really been prepared for answering essay questions. We haven't done any essay questions and with the mocks in 3 weeks I don't feel in any way prepared.
So what's the best way to study for French? Just learn vocabulary or learn sample essays from books? I don't really know what to do.
I have podcasts etc on my iPod already. Also does anyone have a good list/website that has good phrases for anything? Or good sample answers/phrases for the oral. Our book isn't that good either.
Thanks for any help, I really appreciate it!

Canard

I've attached a file of useful phrases that I used last year. Some are more useful than others - the most useful, ever, is tant va la cruche à l'eau qu'à la fin elle se casse, meaning enough is enough. Can be used eeeeverywhere, and then you can add in "et il faut lutter contre ce problème avant qu'il ne soit trop tard", meaning "we must tackle this problem before it's too late". Both are really high standard French, and the latter has a subjunctive phrase. I was a little skeptical tbh, I found these on the internet and wasn't sure how well they'd serve me and my teacher wasn't great for telling me what I needed to do, but I never sat down and learned off topics like they tell you to and used these a lot, got 98/100 in that part - seriously, they work wonders, you can't make mistakes with set phrases!

So, set phrases over essays, always. But know your grammar inside out, and that will make the phrases make more sense if you get me. Learn the special vocab that you need to know (e.g. etre en surpoids, if you were writing about obesity) and just sprinkle them into your preset structures.

Don't worry, I had done 0 reaction pieces by this time too, they're so easy to do once you realize there's no real criteria - you just need to be on the point and accurate in your French. I got 5/30 on one on sport because I decided to try answering it for the craic and had no idea what I was saying; it was good French but irrelevant. The idea, I feel, is to get relevance marks with the vocabulary and language marks with useful phrases and varied tenses.

Also, rather than podcasts, what about French music? It's a great and effortless way to learn so much French. Coeur de Pirate is great, just poke around Youtube and find someone you like, look up the words you don't know and bam, instant brainwashing. :P

Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions, et bonne chance!

iLikePiano99

Patchy~ wrote: »

I've attached a file of useful phrases that I used last year. Some are more useful than others - the most useful, ever, is tant va la cruche à l'eau qu'à la fin elle se casse, meaning enough is enough. Can be used eeeeverywhere, and then you can add in "et il faut lutter contre ce problème avant qu'il ne soit trop tard", meaning "we must tackle this problem before it's too late". Both are really high standard French, and the latter has a subjunctive phrase. I was a little skeptical tbh, I found these on the internet and wasn't sure how well they'd serve me and my teacher wasn't great for telling me what I needed to do, but I never sat down and learned off topics like they tell you to and used these a lot, got 98/100 in that part - seriously, they work wonders, you can't make mistakes with set phrases!

So, set phrases over essays, always. But know your grammar inside out, and that will make the phrases make more sense if you get me. Learn the special vocab that you need to know (e.g. etre en surpoids, if you were writing about obesity) and just sprinkle them into your preset structures.

Don't worry, I had done 0 reaction pieces by this time too, they're so easy to do once you realize there's no real criteria - you just need to be on the point and accurate in your French. I got 5/30 on one on sport because I decided to try answering it for the craic and had no idea what I was saying; it was good French but irrelevant. The idea, I feel, is to get relevance marks with the vocabulary and language marks with useful phrases and varied tenses.

Also, rather than podcasts, what about French music? It's a great and effortless way to learn so much French. Coeur de Pirate is great, just poke around Youtube and find someone you like, look up the words you don't know and bam, instant brainwashing. :P

Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions, et bonne chance!

Really great advice! I've always wondered the same thing on how to study french. Can I ask you a question? For the essays, when you weren't using fancy phrases like the ones you attached were you using simple enough french or really complicated french? Basically what I'm asking is do you need to have really, really good french in order to do well? I'd love an A but I haven't a great teacher, so I'll take any advice I can get!

Canard

iLikePiano99 wrote: »

Really great advice! I've always wondered the same thing on how to study french. Can I ask you a question? For the essays, when you weren't using fancy phrases like the ones you attached were you using simple enough french or really complicated french? Basically what I'm asking is do you need to have really, really good french in order to do well? I'd love an A but I haven't a great teacher, so I'll take any advice I can get!

Thank you! Nope, not at all. I remember one diary entry I did, it was about going to Paris, and I think you had to say you were disappointed with your stay for some reason. All I put in was things like "j'ai trop bu et j'ai tout perdu...j'ai peur qu'on m'ait volé? je ne m'en souviens pas!". My teacher said it was fine, and as I said I didn't change my strategy for the real thing - I'd say they'd take things like that because if it's accurate and not learned off (who learns something that random off? :P) they like it. You do need a bit of variety though I think like conditionals etc, and maybe a subjunctive or two for an A, but it'd almost be hard not to include them I think. No tenses are any harder than the others like.

Though in saying that, in my relatively "vanilla" diary entries I had staple things like when putting in the time, rather than just say 22h, I always wrote 22h sonnantes just because why not? That means sounding, the -ing of sonner, i.e. on the dot. I always finished with things like "un clou chasse l'autre...oui? Je ne sais plus. Qui vivra verra! Mais maintenant il faut que j'aille, je suis fatigué. Bonne nuit!"; you only do one diary entry so there's no risk of overdoing that one. (In case you're not sure, that means "Life goes on...right? I don't know anymore. Time will tell! But know I must go, I'm tired. Goodnight!")

Sorry for the essay haha, I hope I made myself somewhat clear but to summarise, it's best to find a nice middleground where you can be somewhat impressive but without tripping over yourself and making mistakes.

iLikePiano99

Patchy~ wrote: »

Thank you! Nope, not at all. I remember one diary entry I did, it was about going to Paris, and I think you had to say you were disappointed with your stay for some reason. All I put in was things like "j'ai trop bu et j'ai tout perdu...j'ai peur qu'on m'a volé? je ne m'en souviens pas!". My teacher said it was fine, and as I said I didn't change my strategy for the real thing - I'd say they'd take things like that because if it's accurate and not learned off (who learns something that random off? :P) they like it. You do need a bit of variety though I think like conditionals etc, and maybe a subjunctive or two for an A, but it'd almost be hard not to include them I think. No tenses are any harder than the others like.

Though in saying that, in my relatively "vanilla" diary entries I had staple things like when putting in the time, rather than just say 22h, I always wrote 22h sonnantes just because why not? That means sounding, the -ing of sonner, i.e. on the dot. I always finished with things like "un clou chasse l'autre...oui? Je ne sais plus. Qui vivra verra! Mais maintenant il faut que j'aille, je suis fatigué. Bonne nuit!"; you only do one diary entry so there's no risk of overdoing that one. (In case you're not sure, that means "Life goes on...right? I don't know anymore. Time will tell! But know I must go, I'm tired. Goodnight!")

Sorry for the essay haha, I hope I made myself somewhat clear but to summarise, it's best to find a nice middleground where you can be somewhat impressive but without tripping over yourself and making mistakes.

Thank you so much for the help! It's good to know you don't need to be fluent to get an A! I'll definitely take your advice on hand and especially those phrases, they're great! Merci!

11Charlie11

Patchy~ wrote: »

Thank you! Nope, not at all. I remember one diary entry I did, it was about going to Paris, and I think you had to say you were disappointed with your stay for some reason. All I put in was things like "j'ai trop bu et j'ai tout perdu...j'ai peur qu'on m'a volé? je ne m'en souviens pas!". My teacher said it was fine, and as I said I didn't change my strategy for the real thing - I'd say they'd take things like that because if it's accurate and not learned off (who learns something that random off? :P) they like it. You do need a bit of variety though I think like conditionals etc, and maybe a subjunctive or two for an A, but it'd almost be hard not to include them I think. No tenses are any harder than the others like.

Though in saying that, in my relatively "vanilla" diary entries I had staple things like when putting in the time, rather than just say 22h, I always wrote 22h sonnantes just because why not? That means sounding, the -ing of sonner, i.e. on the dot. I always finished with things like "un clou chasse l'autre...oui? Je ne sais plus. Qui vivra verra! Mais maintenant il faut que j'aille, je suis fatigué. Bonne nuit!"; you only do one diary entry so there's no risk of overdoing that one. (In case you're not sure, that means "Life goes on...right? I don't know anymore. Time will tell! But know I must go, I'm tired. Goodnight!")

Sorry for the essay haha, I hope I made myself somewhat clear but to summarise, it's best to find a nice middleground where you can be somewhat impressive but without tripping over yourself and making mistakes.

Omg you have the most amazing words and French phrases ever! All I can say is thank you!!

Canard

iLikePiano99 wrote: »

Thank you so much for the help! It's good to know you don't need to be fluent to get an A! I'll definitely take your advice on hand and especially those phrases, they're great! Merci!

Of course not, sure it's LC! :P De rien!

11Charlie11 wrote: »

Omg you have the most amazing words and French phrases ever! All I can say is thank you!!

No problem!!

CookieMonster.x

Patchy~ wrote: »

I've attached a file of useful phrases that I used last year. Some are more useful than others - the most useful, ever, is tant va la cruche à l'eau qu'à la fin elle se casse, meaning enough is enough. Can be used eeeeverywhere, and then you can add in "et il faut lutter contre ce problème avant qu'il ne soit trop tard", meaning "we must tackle this problem before it's too late". Both are really high standard French, and the latter has a subjunctive phrase. I was a little skeptical tbh, I found these on the internet and wasn't sure how well they'd serve me and my teacher wasn't great for telling me what I needed to do, but I never sat down and learned off topics like they tell you to and used these a lot, got 98/100 in that part - seriously, they work wonders, you can't make mistakes with set phrases!

So, set phrases over essays, always. But know your grammar inside out, and that will make the phrases make more sense if you get me. Learn the special vocab that you need to know (e.g. etre en surpoids, if you were writing about obesity) and just sprinkle them into your preset structures.

Don't worry, I had done 0 reaction pieces by this time too, they're so easy to do once you realize there's no real criteria - you just need to be on the point and accurate in your French. I got 5/30 on one on sport because I decided to try answering it for the craic and had no idea what I was saying; it was good French but irrelevant. The idea, I feel, is to get relevance marks with the vocabulary and language marks with useful phrases and varied tenses.

Also, rather than podcasts, what about French music? It's a great and effortless way to learn so much French. Coeur de Pirate is great, just poke around Youtube and find someone you like, look up the words you don't know and bam, instant brainwashing. :P

Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions, et bonne chance!

Thank you so so much!! See we haven't had a proper French class in 3 months, have never done oral work and didn't have class in 5th year for 6-8 weeks. You can see why I'm worried!
Those phrases in your post are amazing, I don't have anything at all like that!
Thank you so much for the advice. I was wondering how much you usually wrote for the essay questions? I tried one today and wrote over an a4 page, it hard to condense! Although I doubt I'd write that in an exam.
Yeh I have some French music, I really love 2 songs, they're actually great! I don't really listen to the podcasts much but hope to listen to more and more music.
Thanks again!

Canard

CookieMonster.x wrote: »

Thank you so so much!! See we haven't had a proper French class in 3 months, have never done oral work and didn't have class in 5th year for 6-8 weeks. You can see why I'm worried!
Those phrases in your post are amazing, I don't have anything at all like that!
Thank you so much for the advice. I was wondering how much you usually wrote for the essay questions? I tried one today and wrote over an a4 page, it hard to condense! Although I doubt I'd write that in an exam.
Yeh I have some French music, I really love 2 songs, they're actually great! I don't really listen to the podcasts much but hope to listen to more and more music.
Thanks again!

No problem! Definitely, I know the feeling of panic when nothing's being done :eek: We hadn't even got a book - my (good) 5th year teacher didnt require one, so we were screwed when she left. I found this website, http://french.about.com, it absolutely saved my life when it came to grammar. :P I actually got a lot of the phrases there!

I usually wrote like, 200+ words. You're right, they are hard to condense, and there's no need to really - I think the 75 word limit is more a minimum tbh! I got worried they'd kill me for writing more, but I honestly wrote about 200 words for all 8 pieces in the exam and nothing really happened. (Though one thing that did happen was a cranky examiner marked me down loads in the extra ones before the supervisor fixed it; it didn't matter since the others were higher marked anyway but still! Makes you a bit paranoid :P)

It might be just me, but I found there was an awful lot of time in the exam and left an hour early. If you have that kind of time it's absolutely fine to go way over the limit and answer extra questions, like it can't hurt. Mika sings in French (Elle Me Dit is great) and Marie-Mai is a great French Canadian singer.

And no problem, if you ever have trouble between now and June feel free to PM me, I love to help people, especially with French. ^_^