French help

Kingkumar

what topic are you guys preparing for french opinion pieces? and for the journal intime could some1 give some nice idioms or french slang that i could get in there no matter what the q is?

Plus how do u prepare for the listening?..apart from practice is there any list of vocab that i should know?. I'm generally good at listening but going through the papers i find that they get much harder as u go back through the years. Is this true? has the standard of the listening gone down or is it just me. Kindof worried about it now

Tommyrawr

Kingkumar wrote: »

what topic are you guys preparing for french opinion pieces? and for the journal intime could some1 give some nice idioms or french slang that i could get in there no matter what the q is?

Plus how do u prepare for the listening?..apart from practice is there any list of vocab that i should know?. I'm generally good at listening but going through the papers i find that they get much harder as u go back through the years. Is this true? has the standard of the listening gone down or is it just me. Kindof worried about it now

For aural prepare by listening to French music( coeur de pirate,bb brunes,maitre gims, shy'm, keen V ) or radio ( NRJ Paris,95FM I find good) and past aural tapes and yeah they have made it a bit easier in my opinion.

And for French slang leave it out, I got slaughtered in the pre for slang because the examiner didn't recognise it.

TheChosenOne

Tommyrawr wrote: »

For aural prepare by listening to French music( coeur de pirate,bb brunes,maitre gims, shy'm, keen V ) or radio ( NRJ Paris,95FM I find good) and past aural tapes and yeah they have made it a bit easier in my opinion.

And for French slang leave it out, I got slaughtered in the pre for slang because the examiner didn't recognise it.

It's kind of late for the likes of them, to be honest. I listened to learnfrenchbypodcast from Christmas on, that really helped. But now, the best bet is going through the aural papers and try to understand as much as possible and get used to their accents - they're the same people on the tapes.

As for the written pieces, prepare vocab and phrases on each topic - apparently everyone's hinting doping, racism, technology and the Internet and cyber-bullying.

In the diary, use a lot of expressive phrases like "Je n'arrive pas a y croire!" and others. Google common French sayings, it adds to your diary entry. And in the reaction pieces, they're looking at the reactions such as "Je pense que c'est terrible". Also, to get top marks, they actually specify what they want: "si" clauses and the subjunctive. But don't overuse them either

Kingkumar

Tommyrawr wrote: »

For aural prepare by listening to French music( coeur de pirate,bb brunes,maitre gims, shy'm, keen V ) or radio ( NRJ Paris,95FM I find good) and past aural tapes and yeah they have made it a bit easier in my opinion.

And for French slang leave it out, I got slaughtered in the pre for slang because the examiner didn't recognise it.

ok thanks i do listnen to some french music but most of the time i only like understand 2-3 words lol. and about french slang i dont mean like something just french people would use...just common expressions like tant pis - to express disappointment

ray2012

Some phrases I use in my diary entries are :

Me revoilà - Me again
Devine? - Guess what
Quelle bonne journée! - What a great day
Quelle mauvaise journée! - What a bad day
Je suis aux anges! - I'm with the angels (really happy)
Je suis ravi! - I'm really happy
J'ai le cafard - I'm down in the dumps
Qui vivra verra - Time will tell
Mes parents me traitent comme un enfant - My parents treat me like a child
Quel cauchemar/Quelle barbe! - What a horror
Je le déteste - I hate it

You will find a lot more online, if you search 'French expressions' !

YoursSincerely

For the journal intime, I end my journal with this... Pour l'instant, je suis epuisée, il fault que j'aille me coucher- im exhausted and must go to sleep, It's a subjunctive so you will get language marks, other nice journal bits are...
Je ne sais pas quoi faire- I don't know what to do, j'ai envie de pleurer- I feel like crying, que dieu soit loué- thanks be to god, c'est une vrai cauchemar- it's a real nightmare, c'etait le coup de foudre- it was love at first sight, c'etait l'un des clous de ma vie- one of the highlights of my life,
Hope they help somewhat

TheChosenOne

May I just add that you must make sure that all of your phrases and expressions are relevant to the question being asked. The examiners really hate when you just write down learnt-off phrases for the sake of writing them down. Like the example in the Chief Examiners Report was writing "La nuit porte conseil" at the end even though there was no dilemma in the situation.

11Charlie11

YoursSincerely wrote: »

For the journal intime, I end my journal with this... Pour l'instant, je suis epuisée, il fault / que j'aille me coucher- im exhausted and must go to sleep, It's a subjunctive so you will get language marks, other nice journal bits are...
Je ne sais pas quoi faire- I don't know what to do, j'ai envie de pleurer- I feel like crying, que dieu soit loué- thanks be to god, c'est une vrai cauchemar- it's a real nightmare, c'etait le coup de foudre- it was love at first sight, c'etait l'un des clous de ma vie- one of the highlights of my life,
Hope they help somewhat

Is that ment to be il faut? Just incase anyone learns it wrong!

ray2012

YoursSincerely wrote: »

For the journal intime, I end my journal with this... Pour l'instant, je suis epuisée, il faut que j'aille me coucher- im exhausted and must go to sleep, It's a subjunctive so you will get language marks, other nice journal bits are...
Je ne sais pas quoi faire- I don't know what to do, j'ai envie de pleurer- I feel like crying, que dieu soit loué- thanks be to god, c'est un vrai cauchemar- it's a real nightmare, c'etait le coup de foudre- it was love at first sight, c'etait l'un des clous de ma vie- one of the highlights of my life,
Hope they help somewhat

Just one or two mistakes I spotted because someone may be taking them down from here.

Guys, does anyone know if the examiners are aware of, as was said before, slang?
For example, our teacher gave us the verb planer (to get high) but it's apparently colloquial? Would examiners know this?
Also, we have a list of French proverbs too such as "Vouloir, c'est pouvoir" (Where there's a will there's a way) or "Cherchez la femme" (Find the problem; from an old French book, they're not sexist)
Do you think these would be acceptable to use?

TheChosenOne

Deleted User wrote: »

Guys, does anyone know if the examiners are aware of, as was said before, slang?
For example, our teacher gave us the verb planer (to get high) but it's apparently colloquial? Would examiners know this?
Also, we have a list of French proverbs too such as "Vouloir, c'est pouvoir" (Where there's a will there's a way) or "Cherchez la femme" (Find the problem; from an old French book, they're not sexist)
Do you think these would be acceptable to use?

It would definitely be acceptable to use slang in the journal intime - but not in the essays! The examiners are quite competent in their subject. And surely they won't mark you down for the stuff they don't know (but they would know it, same phrases are being used every year), but instead they'd look it up and then see if it's conjugated correctly.

aimzLc2

Deleted User wrote: »

Guys, does anyone know if the examiners are aware of, as was said before, slang?
For example, our teacher gave us the verb planer (to get high) but it's apparently colloquial? Would examiners know this?
Also, we have a list of French proverbs too such as "Vouloir, c'est pouvoir" (Where there's a will there's a way) or "Cherchez la femme" (Find the problem; from an old French book, they're not sexist)
Do you think these would be acceptable to use?

eh i mean they will know the slang but i don't really see why you would bother using it because even if they know it i don't think it would make your answer any stronger!

aimzLc2

aimzLc2 wrote: »

eh i mean they will know the slang but i don't really see why you would bother using it because even if they know it i don't think it would make your answer any stronger!

Well if for example you were doing an opinion piece on drugs and have already said "utilise la drogue" and want to use "planer" so that you're not repeating yourself?

ray2012

Don't use any slang in questions other than the journal intime anyways...!

decisions

Is there a way to say "as you know" in an informal way in French for the diary entry?

bluejay14

decisions wrote: »

Is there a way to say "as you know" in an informal way in French for the diary entry?

"Comme tu sais" is what I'd usually go with

decisions

bluejaymraz wrote: »

"Comme tu sais" is what I'd usually go with

Thank you

007driver

decisions wrote: »

Thank you

If you're not talking to a specific person there and its more general, to everybody use''comme on sait'' in english we use you but they use on.

suitcasepink

Not to totally hijack the thread but you kinda touched off it asking about topics people are covering..
Is there any sort of list I can look up to see what topics are expected to be covered for the written section? I know its very late in the day now but people are talking about racism, environment, unemployment and the role of women. Not only did we not touch these topics I wasnt even aware you could be asked about them!
Any other crazy topics I need to prepare or any tips/hints of where to get key vocab on them? Tried my book but its a mess and doesnt seem to have anything great..

Frenchteacher

Hi
I have a grid that sums up (by topic) what came for the past exams if that helps but I don't want to share it here. I can pm it to you if it's possible? Also, Bien dit (a book for the oral) has good sentences on some on the topics you mentioned (environnement, racisme etc..). www.mocks.ie has revision notes (you have to pay for them) but they have mistakes. Bac supérieur has some useful sentences for the oral again but you can use them for the written exam. Also, I have attached a list of vocabulary by topic. good luck!

Leaving Cert Student

y u no share?

Frenchteacher

for copyright reasons.

decisions

PM me then.

TheChosenOne

deise_girl wrote: »

Not to totally hijack the thread but you kinda touched off it asking about topics people are covering..
Is there any sort of list I can look up to see what topics are expected to be covered for the written section? I know its very late in the day now but people are talking about racism, environment, unemployment and the role of women. Not only did we not touch these topics I wasnt even aware you could be asked about them!
Any other crazy topics I need to prepare or any tips/hints of where to get key vocab on them? Tried my book but its a mess and doesnt seem to have anything great..

Hey girl, here's a thread for that: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056954185

work.inprocess

Tommyrawr wrote: »

For aural prepare by listening to French music( coeur de pirate,bb brunes,maitre gims, shy'm, keen V ) or radio ( NRJ Paris,95FM I find good) and past aural tapes and yeah they have made it a bit easier in my opinion.

And for French slang leave it out, I got slaughtered in the pre for slang because the examiner didn't recognise it.

Deleted User wrote: »

Guys, does anyone know if the examiners are aware of, as was said before, slang?
For example, our teacher gave us the verb planer (to get high) but it's apparently colloquial? Would examiners know this?
Also, we have a list of French proverbs too such as "Vouloir, c'est pouvoir" (Where there's a will there's a way) or "Cherchez la femme" (Find the problem; from an old French book, they're not sexist)
Do you think these would be acceptable to use?

I used it in mine and it was fine, like the other people said, only use it in the diary as too much slang in the other questions probably won't go down well. You just have to remember to be careful, the more abstract the slang, the less likely the examiner is to know it, especially if they're not a native, for example in mine, I used a some verlan and when I went in to have a look at my paper in August at the rechecks they had been given an underline, indicating I had made a mistake (of spelling/vocab/grammar or otherwise) but then it had been scribbled out (after I presume they had looked it up or asked somebody else) and replaced with a tick, indicating a good point, and this was done a couple of times, just something to keep in mind, but like once it's correct you shouldn't have a problem