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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Aaronlee Newbie United States Joined 4711 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 9 06 May 2012 at 6:56pm | IP Logged |
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Hi everyone,
I currently have a lot of French resources, but I want to get some more. Right now I have Fluenz 1-5 French (which is excellent by the way), Assimil French with Ease, an Easy French Reader and after finishing those, now I'm in the middle of Assimil Using French. I'm a solid B1 at least and I skype in French and read the news too. However, I also like to have a structured course to keep me on track. Anyone have any reccomendations for an advanced French course to go with my Assimil Using French? Thanks in advance! Edited by Aaronlee on 06 May 2012 at 6:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| freakyaye Senior Member Australia Joined 4839 days ago 107 posts - 152 votes  | Message 2 of 9 12 May 2012 at 1:30pm | IP Logged |
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Wow good level advancement, do you mean you'be finished all those materials? Good job!
mind if I ask some questions? 1) what do you like about fluenz? 2) Of the ability you have now, how much would you attribute to fluenz? 3) After finishing fluenz how reliable did you feel your french was? 4( How much does assimil contribute towards your ability to read newspapers? 1 person has 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 3 of 9 12 May 2012 at 3:29pm | IP Logged |
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My two cents:
"Advanced" courses for self-teaching students usually end at B1/low B2. Class aimed courses are few but there are some. Édito leads to B2. Alter Ego 4 to B2 and Alter Ego 5 claims to get you to C1 but they all have some bugs. If I may, I'd advice you this substitution: 1.A good grammar book with exercises will serve you much better than most intermediate/advanced courses. I love L'Exercisier which is aimed at level B1-B2 and Grammaire Progressive (avancée). There are more on the market. My favourite one is focused on translation exercises, which are more challenging than the other kinds, but it is Czech based. 2.Read a lot to gain vocabulary. You are ready for easier books and soon can get to normal ones. A great place to start are BD's (French comic books). There are plenty. Persepolis is one of my favourites :-) . For more specific vocabulary, wikipedia is a wonder. If you still want a structured vocabulary course, there is English based Using French Vocabulary and several French based ones. Thematic dictionaries are nice just as verb handbooks etc. 3.Listening. The truth is that listening exercises in advanced courses (such as Edito- B2 course for classes) are usually too simple for real progress. Listen to the radio and movies. TV series are wonderful and often offer more realistic language than the movies. 4.Keep skyping and write somewhere, for exemple to italki. For ideas on topics and theory of writing specific genres, get a preparatory textbook for the DELF/DALF exams. Think in the language as often as possible to get used to it and to find your gaps. 10 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Aaronlee Newbie United States Joined 4711 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* | Message 4 of 9 12 May 2012 at 8:14pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Frekyaye. For Fluenz, I liked everything about it. It is very strong in teaching you grammar and constructing everything. Fluenz claims that you should be a B1 in vocab and B2 level in everything else when you finish it. Program wise, its the best thing I've used, as I also have Living Language and Berlitz for French as well.
Assimil has helped quite a bit, and the fact that its fairly funny and interesting has helped greatly too. Berlitz is average at best and Living Language I found a little on the boring side, though still decent. But Fluenz was worth the money, as its strong suit is teaching you how to formulate your own senences. Cavesa, thanks for the excellent response. I just signed up for Yabla, and I have loved it so far. The fact that its native stuff at native speed has already helped I think. Also, the fact that its just normal people talking in a normal enviroment is more real, in a sense. I do realize that programs can probably only take you to a max of B2 I would guess. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6086 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 5 of 9 12 May 2012 at 11:24pm | IP Logged |
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I did Yabla for about 6 months. It's certainly good because everything is transcripted, you can click on words, it has a slow function and a loop function. They also have a build in flashcard function -- for every word you click you start building a deck. My problem with it was that the videos were too short. I needed more input and I found the 10/month was expensive after I'd watched all of them.
I know you're looking for a structured program but I don't think there's any program (not even Using French) which can advance a person from one level to the next. I'd say "quantity" is the key and the only way to get that is lots and lots of French TV, podcasts -- and lang-8 for writing. It's important to know how to write and speak about the stuff you hear: general themes revolving around technology, lifestyle, basic government, the environment, education, globalisation, relationships between students/men/women/society etc. It's also helpful to start building separate vocabularies. Reading: Le Nouvel Observateur, Le Figaro, Le Monde are great and have free online news GEO, Libération, Santé Magazine, Télérama, Science&Vie, France Soir, Maison&Travaux, L'Express should have sites, but I haven't checked them. Listening: B2 requires that you unterstand most spoken French. B2-level is fast but it's clear and understandable (no jargon, no dialect, few idioms, no subtle meanings.) RFI is the best test for B2 listening comprehension that I've found online. It matches the speed of my DELF prep CD very well. For what it's worth, I have a book from CLE International . It's very detailed and thorough and I'm having a hard time getting through it (lol). It starts getting into "analyse" which is pretty challenging, but it's a sure way towards advancement. Edited by Sunja on 12 May 2012 at 11:26pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 6 of 9 13 May 2012 at 1:45am | IP Logged |
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It seems to me some of the workbooks in the Practice Make Perfect series might be just what you need. I haven't used one yet, but they get good reviews. However, I'm not sure what level they are geared towards. They have books on specific topics, such as verbs, pronouns, sentence building, etc. And they have one on "Advanced Grammar", which might be the best for you. The Amazon.com link is here.
An advanced French grammar I have my eye on, for use in a couple of years, is French Grammar in Context, which looks exciting because it uses extracts from literature and journalism at the beginning of each chapter. The grammatical points to be discussed in the chapter are in bold text in the extracts. It seems like it would be much more practical and interesting than your standard grammar. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ungoo Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Taiwan Joined 5465 days ago 22 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English, Mandarin*, Taiwanese*, Cantonese, French Studies: German | Message 7 of 9 15 May 2012 at 6:46am | IP Logged |
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Lots of listening... that's what I'm doing right now.
I recommend http://www.fluentfrench.com/ which has a lot of unscripted conversational french. good stuff. 1 person has 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 8 of 9 15 May 2012 at 3:45pm | IP Logged |
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Practice makes perfect is a good series but I think the level is too low. And even if it
isn't as low as I thought from the our brief meeting, using monolingual material of this kind brings more benefits, in my opinion. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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