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Tags: Brushing up a language | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 1 of 11 08 May 2013 at 5:28am | IP Logged |
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As some of you, who follow my log, know, I have started my huge French grammar review.
And I am not enjoying it much because I can see I had waited for too long. I make basic mistakes while I have little trouble with more advanced structures. I have gaps in my vocab which shine the brighter in comparison with my English. My passive skills are good, I have even moved forward during the last 3 years (since the DELF B2) but the active ones have suffered greatly. I did have occassional opportunities to speak (such as last summer) but I am not where I would like to be. Yes, I am still basically fluent when it comes to speaking but I am not content with myself. I realize I tend to be very critical of myself but this time, it could serve me well. I'm still better than vast majority of French learners around (and the positive surprise of French speakers hearing me confirmed that I am in the higher layers of learners) but I think this tells more about the overall rate of success among learners than myself. So, I need advice on a few points I have decided to do. 1. To treat myself as an intermediate again and, in addition to the Advanced Super Challenge which I intend to complete, get back to systematic studying. I have some very good B1/B2 material and I consider buying Nouvel Édito which is newer and even better version of textbook I ended my systematic studies with years ago. I expect this to force me to cover my gaps. And it is basically just widening my "review project". Do you think it does make sense? Or am I just trying to needlessly force myself to perfection instead of slowly progressing by output? 2. I plan to work intensively on my active skills as they are the weakness. Someone on another thread pointed me to the awesome list of writing topics by Sprachprofi. I am going to use it extensively as the lack of such ideas ruined my previous attempts on italki. And it even inspired me to a few ideas of my own. But I want to do more. Do you know of any good French forums? I need something addictive, perhaps about popular literature, movies, pc games, travelling,.... something that would make me react to other people and add a bit every day. I suppose I have already asked this question. It is hard to google these, as I often get irrelevant links or they lead to now dead places. 3. Speaking. This is a huuuuge trouble because it is quite impossible to find someone for a language exchange! I can offer only native Czech, I don't feel confident offering English while there are many native English speakers on the "market". Conversation classes aren't that good and most individual teachers specialize in beginners or don't seem too trustworthy to me. And I have limited budget I can put into my languages. A wild idea:would people around here be willing to correct short audios of spontaneous speaking? (perhaps on topics like the ones from Sprachprofi's list) Not too long, I wouldn't want to scare away any volunteer :-) It would be just something like audio- italki. 4. My other languages. I am not going to postpone my German. It is going nicely. It is my weakest language but I am doing progress, it brings me pleasure. But I have barely time for two languages. I thought of bringing Spanish out of the limbo this year as well. And seriously beginning the Swedish dream. I think I can forget about both, at least until the second half of the year. What do you think? 5. A language exam. Three years ago (nearly precisely), I barely passed DELF B2. By barely, I mean I had 50 points out of the 100, which is the limit. I think I should aim for an exam. As a motivation, as a goal. Do you think I should try the B2 again or should I aim for DALF? Thanks in advance for reading and your views. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| catullus_roar Quadrilingual Octoglot Groupie Australia Joined 4569 days ago 89 posts - 184 votes Speaks: Malay, Hokkien*, English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese*, French, German, Spanish Studies: Italian, Latin, Armenian, Afrikaans, Russian | Message 2 of 11 08 May 2013 at 7:49am | IP Logged |
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I've been learning French since I was four, and I've taken the DALF, so I hope my advice is useful to you. I'm going to answer your points in the order that you've stated them.
1. This plan sounds good but I do think that you should only review the B2 level portions and not the B1, because you seem to be far above B1 right now and reviewing B1 material would only set you back. I would advise you not to make this reviewing your main project as it should just be like a short-term thing in the next few weeks for you to bridge the gaps between where you were and where you are now. 2. I don't really know about French forums, but you can always talk to people (albeit of questionable intentions) on sites like Omegle (put your interests as 'French' etc) and pen pals are a great way to improve your language skills. I've met many pen pals on this forum and you can of course just PM me if you wish to begin a correspondence in French. You might also want to try watching French Youtube channels, where you can comment in French, but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for. 3. I would be happy to correct your French, if you're willing to trust me! :) It doesn't matter how long it is, always happy to help someone out. And of course Czech is very interesting to me! I agree with you on the subject of classes. Perhaps you could look into French expat groups or some other sort of French community in your country? There's an Alliance Francaise almost everywhere. 4. I learn German and Spanish as well, and I agree with you about the German - it does seem to be difficult for some people. I think that you should hold off the Swedish for sure until you've confidently gotten your French, German and Spanish up to an acceptable level. You have a lot on your plate now :) I would advise you to start French immediately with German as well, and bring Spanish out a few months later. Maybe you can do Swedish next year, after French is at a C1 or C2 level. 5. I did the DELF B2 six months before I did my C1, and 50 points out of 100 isn't bad! At least you passed :) I would be more interested to know what you got for each individual component. I do not think you should try the B2 again, but I think your scores for each section would affect how soon you should try the C1. If your listening was poor, you definitely need to put in more work (but I felt C1 listening was easier than B2). C2 is very heavily listening-based so I guess starting on your listening wouldn't be a bad idea either way. If your speaking was poor, the C1 speaking is about the same as the B2 so it wouldn't be hard to adjust your goals. If your reading comprehension was poor, you definitely need to start reading novels and even technical texts etc as C1 reading is far more complex than the B2. If your writing was poor, you will have a problem with the Synthese in C1, and I would say that this Synthese is the most difficult part of the exam as you need to have strong reading skills as well :) ciep.fr should give you some examples. Hope this helps! :) Feel free to ask more questions! 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5208 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 11 08 May 2013 at 11:38am | IP Logged |
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I can't offer too much advice since my own French is still a work in progress, but I can very much relate to your first paragraph and I completely agree about systematic studying. After I got to around B2 level, I thought to myself "I'm advanced now, so I don't need to study any more, I just need lots of exposure and practice". BIG mistake: I ended up on a plateau for quite a while, not to mention getting very frustrated at the difficulty of finding practice opportunities since I was placing so much importance on them. Things really got moving again once I added proper study back into my routine last year, and these days I still seem to be progressing fairly well. I think that active study doesn't only help you with the particular aspects you study like grammar, it also makes you more aware of the details of the language, which then in turn makes your passive work and conversation practice more effective.
In terms of materials I recommend Grammaire Progressive du Français niveau perfectionnement (great for ironing out all the little grammatical mistakes!), and I've found cloze-deletion cards with Anki to be quite effective for grammar and vocabulary. I also have a copy of Alter Ego 5 but I've not started on it yet. Even as a native English speaker I've had very little success finding language exchanges. However, I'm lucky that my city has a very active French group on meetup.com as well as a couple of other language meetup events, so thanks to these I get to converse at least once a week and often more. Most attendees are intermediate-level learners but there are also a few fluent or native speakers who go. It's not perfect but it's much better than nothing! I don't know if there's anything similar where you live. Edited by garyb on 08 May 2013 at 11:57am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Michel1020 Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5018 days ago 365 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch | Message 4 of 11 08 May 2013 at 7:46pm | IP Logged |
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About forums - the trouble is most people write so poorly that it will not help you to write better. Here is a message I got on the English server of an online game.
"Iv Reserved this Ghost City Airborne Rangers 2 --5933 points aneone wonts it just tall me" Trust me when I tell you the level on the french server is as bad. Maybe you could get better quality in more intelectual games - trying chess or bridge - however even a forum around Scrabble don't garanty quality in language posts. To win in Scrabble you have to be able to put the words on the board not into sentences. In my opinion the best way to get better in output is more input. The best way to get your outputs corrected is to do it yourself. Record what you say or write in french and come back to it later - the next day, week or month. If people correct you - you don't know how perfect are their corrections. However if you prefer a second opinion - message me your email address and I will email you so that you could reply with some mp3. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 11 08 May 2013 at 8:17pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks a lot!
Firstly, there is an Alliance Francaise (it's called l'Institut because of it's history but it is the same thing) but it doesn't make any such opportunities, like a meet up for the French expats with the czechs wanting to practice the language, or helping to find an exchange partner. I noticed the Goethe Institut does have a place for penpal finding on their website. Why can't the French do something like that? It is harder to find interested expats as well. They don't tend to suffer from lack of human communication :-) I have got the Grammaire Progressive Perfectionnement and I plan to dive in very soon. Catullus, you are most probably right the review part shouldn't take too long but right now, due to a huge exam coming in a month, everything else suffers from a kind of "time dilatation", so a few weeks is not a realistic estimate. But I will continue with systematic studying after the review part is over. Yes, Gary, we had underestimated the value of systematic studying at higher levels. But it is no wonder. Not only many successful learners on the forum but as well many teachers and textbook publishers and well known polyglots or ajatt etc keep telling people "you need to leave the textbook and go to the real use of the language." Sure, it is needed, but the systematic study is still a useful, if not necessary, component for at least some of us. Thanks a lot about the C1 and B2 differences, Catullus. I found my certificate so I know my precise results and I remember a lot about the exam. I had 16/25 on Copréhension écrite and 14/25 on Compréhension orale. In both cases, the trouble wasn't in these skills by themselves but in the vocabulary. The topics were some economics or socioeconomics and that has never been my cup of tea. Active skills were worse. 11/25 on production écrite. I remember struggling with one of the topics as I would have hard time completing the task even in Czech. 250 words long claim for replacement of a DVD. Who the hell woud write such a novel about that in real life? And the trouble was the speaking part. Only 9 out of 25. But had this part of the exam gone properly, I would have probably had more (or perhaps less, who knows). One of the two examinators left the room at the beginning and came back before the end. And instead of the described shorter instroduction to the topic and my views on the article followed by longer discussion, it was the opposite. Again, I wouldn't be likely to have a lecture over 10 minutes about such a short article even in Czech, not with such an unresponsive (even non-verbally) partner. I think C1 might help with those troubles as I would be unlikely to find some topics in the scientifique variant. If the speaking level required is approximately the same as for the B2, it is a realistic goal to get there. But the writing might be an issue. I have always hated writing essays in high school and this reminds me of those quite a lot. But learning this might be a nice opportunity for my personal development :-) Edited by Cavesa on 08 May 2013 at 8:18pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 6 of 11 08 May 2013 at 10:51pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks, Michel.
You are right about most forums. It really takes some effort and/or luck to find a jewel. And the idea about listening to myself later is a nice one as well, even thouhg I will be glad for any second opinion. Thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| catullus_roar Quadrilingual Octoglot Groupie Australia Joined 4569 days ago 89 posts - 184 votes Speaks: Malay, Hokkien*, English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese*, French, German, Spanish Studies: Italian, Latin, Armenian, Afrikaans, Russian | Message 7 of 11 09 May 2013 at 4:22am | IP Logged |
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Don't worry about the 14/25 for listening. I got that too. :3 As for the essay writing, have you considered getting your essays corrected by a French speaker? Content aside, your score does indicate that you may have made some grammatical/vocab mistakes in your writing. Would be happy to help you.
However, I am shocked by the fact that your examiner left the room during your exam. That can be unnerving for some people and is very unprofessional. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5346 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 8 of 11 09 May 2013 at 5:00am | IP Logged |
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If you're at an upper intermediate, early advanced stage, the best use you can make of your time is to read and listen to the language. For a language learner rather than someone already fluent and proficient in a language looking to perfect or clear the fine points, the dedicated study of grammar is a waste of time. You'll never make a language your own by reading about it, only by letting it speak to you directly and profusely.
In my case, I never studied English grammar but rather soaked in the language through books and solely in this fashion was able to eventually approach any text I wished and express myself passably. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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