arbigelow Tetraglot Groupie Canada Joined 5888 days ago 89 posts - 95 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchC1, German, Spanish
| Message 1 of 17 26 May 2009 at 10:42am | IP Logged |
So my year abroad in french-speaking Switzerland is almost over and in two months time I'll be back in Canada. In
a month I'll be taking the DALF C1 since I'm thinking about going to university in France and I'll need that
certificate. My question is: what can I do once I'm back in Canada so that I won't lose my French? A few years ago, I
learnt French pretty well and then didn't use it for a year and lost a lot of what I had learnt. I know reading books,
listening to podcasts and everything should help, but what else can I do?
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Meadowmeal Pentaglot Groupie Netherlands Joined 5717 days ago 43 posts - 57 votes Speaks: Dutch*, French, English, German, Polish Studies: Romanian
| Message 2 of 17 26 May 2009 at 11:28am | IP Logged |
Find a francophone internet forum about one of your hobbies and participate.
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ExtraLean Triglot Senior Member France languagelearners.myf Joined 6000 days ago 897 posts - 880 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German
| Message 3 of 17 26 May 2009 at 12:41pm | IP Logged |
Move to Quebec.
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arbigelow Tetraglot Groupie Canada Joined 5888 days ago 89 posts - 95 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchC1, German, Spanish
| Message 4 of 17 26 May 2009 at 1:29pm | IP Logged |
right... haha actually I'm also thinking about going to McGill in Montreal so that actually is an option.
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dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7017 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto
| Message 5 of 17 26 May 2009 at 1:36pm | IP Logged |
There are also lots of Francophones outside of Quebec. Hanging out with some of them probably wouldn't be too hard.
You didn't say _where_ in Canada you were going to be. Toronto or Vancouver is a lot different from Calgary or Thunder Bay.
McGill? Or why not UQAM or Laval or one of the other French universities?
Edited by dmg on 26 May 2009 at 1:38pm
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GuardianJY Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5691 days ago 74 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Swedish, French
| Message 6 of 17 26 May 2009 at 6:03pm | IP Logged |
Quebec has a different form of French than France does. It's a bit more profound than the difference between U.S. and British English. Still, the only thing that would hinder you would be the accent difference, but since you live in Canada you're likely used to it moreso than other people.
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LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5772 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian
| Message 7 of 17 27 May 2009 at 12:15am | IP Logged |
These are all old suggestions but they haven't been mentioned here unless I'm blind..
1. Listen to French music.
2. Watch French films - with and without subtitles.
3. If you really can't find the time for a study session (or however you do it now, it sounds like you're pretty advanced) it might just be worth finding 5 mins to read an article on the internet - I've set my homepage as yahoo.ru for instance.
If you're in the middle of something non-language related, just put French music or something French sound-related on in the background :)
Jack
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arbigelow Tetraglot Groupie Canada Joined 5888 days ago 89 posts - 95 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchC1, German, Spanish
| Message 8 of 17 27 May 2009 at 9:53am | IP Logged |
Thanks for the suggestions everbody :)
dmg wrote:
There are also lots of Francophones outside of Quebec. Hanging out with some of them probably wouldn't be
too hard.
You didn't say _where_ in Canada you were going to be. Toronto or Vancouver is a lot different from Calgary or
Thunder Bay.
McGill? Or why not UQAM or Laval or one of the other French universities?
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I thought about doing that, but the French universitites in Quebec aren't on the same level as McGill.
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