el mono está en el árbol.

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DaveAgain
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Re: Le singe est dans l'arbre [EN->FR]

Postby DaveAgain » Tue Aug 13, 2019 7:36 pm

badger wrote:I can't imagine ever going above B2 - at least in exams - so B1 would be as practise for B2 as much as anything else, I don't think it's terribly useful in itself.
B1 is the level required for immigrants to France.
Since 1 January 2012, candidates for French nationality must prove that they have mastered French to a level of B1 "oral" (i.e. in activities such as "listening", "spoken interaction" , "spoken production") defined by the Common European Framework of Reference.

https://www.ciep.fr/en/tcf-anf/faq#t8n6273
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badger
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Re: Le singe est dans l'arbre [EN->FR]

Postby badger » Tue Aug 13, 2019 9:10 pm

DaveAgain wrote:B1 is the level required for immigrants to France.
Since 1 January 2012, candidates for French nationality must prove that they have mastered French to a level of B1 "oral" (i.e. in activities such as "listening", "spoken interaction" , "spoken production") defined by the Common European Framework of Reference.

https://www.ciep.fr/en/tcf-anf/faq#t8n6273
Thanks Dave. I stand corrected & pleasantly surprised. maybe I was thinking of B2 which I think is the pre-req for French Universities. I think this is the link you intended though:

https://www.ciep.fr/en/tcf-anf/faq#t8n6277

it was citizenship that I had in mind as a "useful" thing. not that there's anything on the horizon for the UK that's making me think that being French doesn't sound so bad or anything. :roll:
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MamaPata
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Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
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Re: Le singe est dans l'arbre [EN->FR]

Postby MamaPata » Wed Aug 14, 2019 6:28 am

badger wrote:it was citizenship that I had in mind as a "useful" thing. not that there's anything on the horizon for the UK that's making me think that being French doesn't sound so bad or anything. :roll:


Yeah... nothing at all.... :roll:
I’ll look forward to hearing how it all goes!
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badger
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Re: Le singe est dans l'arbre [EN->FR]

Postby badger » Tue Sep 03, 2019 9:27 am

I've been having a bit of a French holiday - a holiday from French that is. still doing some reading & watching, but no proper studying. I just finished seasons 2 & 3 of "Stranger Things" with not-very-good French subtitles, which I rathe enjoyed although it's not something I would have watched in English. I started "Engrenages" but I don't have subs for that & I'm pretty sure I've missed some major plot points already, so I might shelve it as it looks quite good & I'd like to understand it better. I have season 1 of "Homeland" in French - with subs - so I might give that a try instead.

I've still been playing a bit with Arabic - mostly the script rather than the actual language - but I don't think I'll go much further with that tbh.

I've been going a bit loco on Duolingo Spanish lately. I'm quite surprised how much I remember from my dabbling with the language ~20 years ago - but I'm still very much in beginner mode; I'm not even sure I qualify as "false beginner", but I'm having fun with it.

I'm still not sure about the City Lit French B1 course. They are interviewing next week, so I may make an appointment & go along, or not, we shall see. ;)
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badger
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Re: Le singe est dans l'arbre [EN->FR]

Postby badger » Tue Oct 29, 2019 6:25 pm

it's been a bit of a while since I posted on my blog. studying had mostly got pushed aside over the past few months until recently as I've been busy with work & suchlike, but I've been plugging away reading (rather than just buying books) & doing bits of Anki in French, plus playing with Spanish a little on DL.

since the nights have been drawing in lately it has felt like study time is back, so I've picked up the grammar books again. I'm planning to work through the Edito B1 book over the winter - I've started with the passé simple as I read quite a lot - I'm glad it's not used in everyday language as it is rather odd. :shock:

anyway, it's been a year since I picked up Camus after a 30-year layoff from learning French & I'm going to give myself a pat on the back for my progress. I have a looong way to go, particularly in my active skills, but I certainly didn't ever think I'd be reading 500-page novels in French for fun, which I'm now doing. :)
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badger
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Re: Le singe est dans l'arbre [EN->FR]

Postby badger » Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:16 am

The darker nigts seem to be having an affect, for the better, on my studying & I've just finished La Tour des Anges - the second of the Philip Pullman His Dark Materials books. the first one - Les Royaumes des Nord - took me about three months to read, but I've rattled through this one in a fortnight. :) I think I'm going to read something else before I get into the last book of the trilogy - maybe even something originally written in French! ;)

I've been watching Le Nom de la Rose - the TV series - in French without subtitles & getting most of the plot. I've seen the Sean Connery film & read the book before, so I know roughly what's going on, but I've been watching the English language version afterwards so as not to, literally, lose the plot.

I've also been watching Engrenages - aka Spiral - in the same way, which seems very good, even if I'm only two episodes in, with 76 to go. it should keep me going for a while. :shock: I can mostly follow what's going on, but since it's a police procedural, it's very easy to get lost if you miss some key point!

I hadn't written to my exchange partners in months & have been doing zero production, but one of them popped up yesterday, so I'm going to reply to her & start writing to some of the others again.
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badger
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Re: Le singe est dans l'arbre [EN->FR]

Postby badger » Mon Dec 02, 2019 3:35 am

Alors, the dark nights are definitely here & I'm getting more studying done. I have been doing some grammar from Le Nouvel Édito B1 & Santa is bringing me Grammaire progressive du francais - A2-B1, so I think I'm ok for grammar resources for a while ...

I watched each epsiode of Le Nom de la Rose in French (no subs) & then in English, which was a obviously a bit repetitive, but I enjoyed it & could mostly follow it on French, which I was quite pleased with. there was a thread recently (can't find it now) where Cavesa & someone else were talking about dubbed TV/films being easier to understand while learning, & I found that to be the case here, so I think I'm going to look for dubbed stuff in future, rather than native French. there were a couple of the charachters who spoke Occitan which was quite interesting, although it mostly sounded like Romance-language soup to me.

I'm three seasons into Engrenages which I'm liking a lot. I haven't been able to get French subs for it & following the native-speakers' 'street' French is bit beyond me, so I have English subs, but I'm trying to make the effort to follow as much of the French as I can. it's cheating a bit, but I think that watching 28 hours of something I enjoy is still better than 10 minutes of Peppa Pig, which is about as much as I can bear in one go. ;)

I've started reading L'Élégance du Hérisson again which I struggled with a bit a few months back & had only got a few chapters into, but I'm finding it rather easier now. Santa is bringing me Camus's Le mythe de Sisyphe which I've never managed to get through in English, so maybe I'll make more of an effort in French. :shock:
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Iversen
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Re: Le singe est dans l'arbre [EN->FR]

Postby Iversen » Wed Dec 04, 2019 8:40 pm

badger wrote:Santa is bringing me Camus's Le mythe de Sisyphe which I've never managed to get through in English


Isn't that the whole point of the Sisyphos myth - never reaching the final destination?

BTW: I read L'Engrenage by Sartre during my studies - not because I wanted to, but because I had to. And that was a depressing piece of prose indeed. On the other hand I enjoyed reading Il Nome della Rosa because of the weird monastery - but that's many years ago. I also read two of Eco's books about semiotics back in the olden days, but when I tried to reread La struttura assente a few years ago I found it utterly boring.
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badger
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Re: Le singe est dans l'arbre [EN->FR]

Postby badger » Wed Dec 04, 2019 8:44 pm

Iversen wrote:
badger wrote:Santa is bringing me Camus's Le mythe de Sisyphe which I've never managed to get through in English

Isn't that the whole point of the Sisyphos myth?

I know, I keep forgetting where I'd got to, or the bookmark falls out & I have to start over. ;)
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badger
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Re: Le singe est dans l'arbre [EN->FR]

Postby badger » Thu Jan 02, 2020 6:25 pm

alors, some aims for the year:

1. keep Anki'ing
2. keep reading
3. learn some grammar
4. PRODUCTION
5. go somewhere Francophone & speak French
6. learn some Linguistics
7. DELF B1 test?

1. I'm still working my way through my "5,000 common French words" deck & I have a verb conjugation deck that should keep me going for a while. it's a method that works for me - when I remember to do it - so I'm going to keep going with it.

2. I'm at ~2,500 words on my reading at the moment & want to get up to at least 10k by the end of the year. I have lots of books that I want to read, so I don't think this should be any hardship

3. I know lots of words but I'm not terribly good at putting them together to be able to experss myself, so some grammar would probably be useful. I have the B1 & B2 Nouvel Edito & the A2/B1 & B1/B2 Grammaire progressive books, so I have plenty of material!

4. I think I really need to grasp the nettle & do some iTalki (or similar) lessons this year as I have done zero speaking to a native French speaker for a decade or more. I should really write to my exchange partners too as I ahven't done that for a while.

5. I didn't make it to anywhere Francophone last year, but I really want to this year.

6. just for fun really, & because I like that sort of thing, I'd like to learn some Linguistics. I have some good book recommendations (https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=12248) so I'm good to go on that.

7. not really as an aim in itself, but I'm toying with booking a DELF B1 exam for later in the year. & who knows, the urgency to become French might ramp up after Jan 31st. :shock:

oh, & I took the Dialang test again, previous scores in brackets:

Listening: B1 (B1)
Writing: B1 (A2)
Reading: C2 (B2)
Vocab: B1 (B2)
Structures: B1 (B1)

I'm not quite sure how I've gone backwards in vocab & C2 in reading doesn't seem terribly likely, but such are the vagueries of online tests I suppose.
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