French Written Section Question

Mr Rhode Island Red

Hi everybody,

I was doing some study for the French written section today. Anyone who does french will know the last question on the HL paper is a formal/informal letter.

The informal letter always comes up and the formal letter comes up as an option every second year, and is due again in 2014.

I was looking for opinions on this. Our French teacher has told us to learn notes for both the formal and informal letter, saying that she has this "feeling" that some year the formal letter will just come up on its own with no informal option and that we should be prepared for the worst.

Now I love the informal letter, but I despise the formal one. What do ye all think as regards learning notes for both letter formats? It's just the long winded French sentences with the formal one that annoys me a bit, and I find it hard to fill up the page(s), but the informal is second nature to me.

So what do ye think, should I learn both formats in detail or just the informal one and ignore the formal one?

Xgracie

Personally I'm ignoring the formal one, teacher said she'd do it at the end of the year but I'm not gonna bother learning it! Really don't think it would come up on its own there would be awful backlash

Bazinga_N

I doubt the formal letter would ever come up on its own. It's the Junior Cert, I don't think the SEC would like to see a large number of students fail an entire question!

It'd be no harm to learn the formal letter off though. It's really not that hard. Learn off the format which is something as follows:

Marking of Format (for formal letter):

Two full addresses = 2 marks (if in correct positions)
Town + date = 3 marks
Monsieur / Madame = 1 mark
Any reasonable attempt at a normally accepted formal ending = 1 mark
[minor spelling errors in the ending may be ignored ]

e.g.

Patrickswell, le 25 avril

Martin Doyle,
4 Summerfield Drive,
Patrickswell,
Co. Limerick
Irlande

M. Sibut,
Hôtel de la Paix,
rue du 14 juillet,
75000 Paris

France


Monsieur,

……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………

Je vous prie d’agréer, Monsieur, l’expression de mes sentiments distingués.

Martin Doyle

Obviously you'd have to take the information for the format (addresses, names, town, date, etc.) from the question, but if you follow that format you should be fine.

It's mostly the same stuff that comes up every year. Holidays, bookings, etc. Make a list of the topics that have came up in the formal letter questions. Write out vocab/phrases that relate to it (I'm sure they're in your textbooks/revision guides). Put them all onto a sheet and learn them off. You should be fine with that


But like I said. I doubt the formal letter will come up on its own! If you're good with the informal you should be set!