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Homestay in Quebec in 3 weeks! What to do | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| jaguar8311 Groupie Canada Joined 6647 days ago 84 posts - 96 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 4 11 April 2014 at 7:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello everyone
I was just accepted into both Grad School(International Affairs), and Explore Canada. As such, I will likely be pursuing a job with the Canadian Federal Government that requires a working knowledge of French if one wants to work in the National Capital region. I digress though, on May 5 I will be living with a French family in Trois-Pistoles Quebec for 6 weeks(all expenses paid! thank you Fed. Government), with the possible option of remaining the rest of the summer. It is an immersion program whereby I will be attending french classes. From reading similar threads to this, the first advice usually given to people is to avoid using one's native language. However, this will not be a program in my case, as they are quite strict about its French-only policy (literally 3 strikes and you're out!). Thus, my questions are. Pre-Stay What would be the most efficient usage of my time? I have done Assimil, Michel Thomas, Living Language. I can get the jist and/or understand most of what is being said on the French News(Canadian). I am also currently reading Extension Du Domaine De La Lutte. Admittedly, my active knowledge of the language is quite poor. Thus what things could I do increase my knowledge in this area? I apologize if this post seems to have been made in a bit of haste. I just took my gym pre-workout and am starting to feel jittery. Off to the gym! Thanks everyone 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5000 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 4 11 April 2014 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey! That's awesome! Congratulations!
My two cents: Work on your listening comprehension. Not understanding a native speaker is more annoying for both sides than grammar mistakes or too basic vocabulary. Watch a few tv series, it works like a miracle. There is quite a lot of original canadian ones ;-) You might not notice it at first sight but this immersion at home will help with you speaking skills as well. I am not the only one who notices new pieces appearing in my mind having heard them a few times. The time spent listening makes a lot of difference, I think that might be the best way to spend the time you've got available. Of course, you may not understand enough to have fun at the beginning. There are two things that will help 1.get enjoyable content. Fun will keep you going. 2.don't give up. You should see a difference after just a few hours of listening and you'll on a whole new level after a season of a series. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5523 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 4 12 April 2014 at 2:16am | IP Logged | ||
What a cool opportunity!
If you can read French, and more or less understand the news, then your speaking should get better quickly once you're immersed. For me, when I was first immersed, I was a little below your current level. For about 2 weeks, it felt like my brain was melting, and I struggled a bit for maybe the next 4 weeks. But after that, I was a strong B1, and I only needed a couple of months of tutoring (and a month of writing 100 words/day on lang-8) before I passed a B2 exam with room to spare. If you do want to get in some speaking practice before you leave, you might have luck on iTalki. There's a lot of good conversational tutors there if you can afford $5–15/hour. But I would also agree with Cavesa: Lots of people in your position (solid enough reading comprehension to tackle Houellebecq, partial comprehension of the news) have been able to noticeably improve their listening comprehension in a month or so. Like Cavesa, I had some nice results from watching a couple seasons of an easy TV series. But in your case, it might also be worth listening to audio from Quebec. When I was at B1, I had a lot of trouble understanding the accent. (Later on, it got a lot easier.) Arrekusu has a fun book that covers the most colloquial forms of Quebec French, but I forget the title. microsnout used to have a pretty good list of Quebec TV, some of which can be found by going to his Super Challenge log and clicking on the notebook icons. And if you have any interest in science, Arrekusu also recommended Les Années lumière, a really great science podcast/radioshow out of Quebec, with wide range of accents. And Fluent French Now has some Quebec-specific listening exercises. That would give you a few options for buffing up your Quebecois listening comprehension, if you're interested. Good luck, and have a great summer! We'd be interested in hearing about your adventures and how things turn out. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5200 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 4 13 April 2014 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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What a wonderful opportunity, Jaguar8311!
Arrekusu's book/course is Le québécois en 10 lecons. It's available from Lulu, http://bit.ly./qc_10_lecons. Also from bookstores such as Librairie Michel Fortin, which, if you're passing through Montreal enroute to your course, I'd strongly recommend a visit to. If I may reference my own log, I have a short post on the bookstore too: post 182. There's also a list of other Quebec / Canadian French resources on our Team Deuxième thread, if you're interested: post 6. Best wishes for your course - let us know how it goes! Edited by songlines on 13 April 2014 at 3:48pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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