What's french like in college?

EmmaH1997

Hi guys basically I'm taking a year out to work and deferred business studies in UL ? I want (and my parents want lol ) to keep on french at college and basically keep as many of my options open as possible hence the language.

So I'm working on not becoming rusty over the year but I'm wonder how much a jump it is up from secondary french ? In the LC I was v good with grammar and sentence structure but not great on pronunciation and average at listening and I got a HL B3.

Frigating

It can be a bit hard but if you pay attention, come to class and do the work you'll be sorted.

I don't know about UL, so this is just based on NUIG, but I don't imagine they're too different. We have weekly oral and listening classes (separate, as well as lots of grammar classes) and an exam on these at the year. In second year the classes are mostly done through French. Like you I struggle with listening but you can at least follow it and get the gist, even if you can't get every word. Obviously there's a lot of emphasis on talking and listening to prepare you for the Erasmus year. Even with being bad at listening and pronunciation I got an A last year so you should be fine.

EmmaH1997

Thanks ^^ can you also tell me what the assessments are like ? As in, is it like read a piece of french literature and write an essay about themes,metaphors or ?

Frigating

In first year it wasn't too bad. We did a bit of culture and history, which was the listening part of the course. We had to write an essay in class on one of the topics we studied (and had to listen and take down notes on, but the notes were uploaded to Blackboard, a Drop-box type-thing) and answer questions on another topic while listening to the lecturer, so like the listening for the LC. We also had to read a novel (in our case L'Etranger par Albert Camus. Je l'ai detesté!) and write a short essay on a theme, which was in English, so not too bad.

Second year was a bit worse, but mainly cause I'm bad at writing analysis of things. We've had to read two books so far, one a novel and the another a collection of short essays by some intellectual. In the exam we're given a passage from the book and have to analyse it in terms of style, theme etc. There's also a module on 19th century French poetry, which is just Victor Hugo. More writing analysis, but easier to study for. Then there's a module on either Jeux Linguistiques (word-play) or Intro to Linguistics ( I picked the latter), which was interesting. Next semester I think we're studying plays, more literature and autobiographies. All this is in addition to grammar tests, which are every two weeks.

Of course, this isn't for UL, but I hope it gives some idea. Basically a lot of analysing literature. If you're good at that sort of thing you'll be grand.

EmmaH1997

^Thank you ! that helps a lot !

CelticRambler

For others in a similar situation I've previously posted this link - https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/interception - which is a well-paced, weekly broadcast on a single current affairs topic for any given week, sometimes particular to France, sometimes more general. If you can discipline yourself to listen to such a programme for a couple of hours a week, it'll help you "keep your ear in" while taking time out from formal lessons.

EmmaH1997

Thanks CelticRambler!

Canard

As said, it's quite different to school and a lot more intense, but not impossible by any means! Listening in French is always the hardest thing anyway, but I have to admit that while it wasn't much of a problem for me in LC I got the shock of my life when I went to France after two years of college (and doing well in it) and couldn't understand much of what people were saying The French taught in classes and even on TV/in articles is worlds away from the way people actually speak in real life, so I'd really advise you to find a French person to practice with from time to time and ask them to use 'real' words, e.g. travail can be boulot or even taf, or to say a place is full of people they don't use the words gens/personnes as much as just 'du monde', so even in context all of those small things can add up and be really confusing!

I think the most frustrating thing about university French for me was the volume of literature though. I can only speak for UCD, but it's a 2:1 ratio in favour of literature which is invariably too difficult to read in the original for anyone who's just entered college, as in the first year stuff would be suitable by final year but by final year it's even more difficult and there's way more of it too :rolleyes:

In short: lots of literature, more intense and more independent, but if you enjoy it and it doesn't feel like a drag to study it, you should be fine!

shivpepper

Hi, I studied French in UCD and wrote a blog post on it- https://nouvelleprof.wordpress.com/2016/07/31/studying-french-in-university-whats-it-really-like/

EmmaH1997

Thanks ^^Canard +shivpepper