Extralean: C2 Français et d'autres aventures.

[extralean]

E, I know that you're not going to translate all that French into English but can you throw in some info occasionally in English for us who want to know how you're going? Like, once a month or something, mate.

My soul was crushed by the literary masturbation undertaken by a member of the Acadamie Française and his usage of words that lay outside my current vocabulary (I enjoyed the book though). Some of the words are obtuse, some of them I had either forgotten/gotten confused over. Bucolique being an example - for some reason I thought it meant something agressive or warlike - when infact, it means pastoral.

I'm gonna take the vocabulary I don't understand from my reading, and work it into an anki deck. Maybe this weekend depending on what I get up to. There's the double bonus of when I translate a word, and don't know it in English. Such as the word 'Apologue' (from The myth of Sisyphus by Camus) which translates to Apolog / apologue in English - which means : a moral fable, especially one with animals as characters.

The vocab is all fun and games while I procrastinate about actually outputting and writing some serious French. I've ordered an exercise book following a recommendation in this log, and look forward to getting it.

I'm (and I think advanced learners in general) am struggling with the lack of actual resources for learners, and am scouring the net for 'academic level french' for French speakers, and have found a few.

I have been streaming BFMTV to my TV while I look for work, just to get my ear in, and I have been making a concerted effort with my accent when talking to my wife and kiddo. Unfortunately, those three things (Job hunt, wife, child) take up the majority of my time.

Consider yourself updated.

Edit: Oh, and for some reason I "counted" the words in L'amour est un plaisir: avg 8 per line, 40 lines a page, 221pages = 70,720 words, so lets just round it to 70K to make it feel like an accomplishment.

T

[zenmonkey]

Superbe liste de mots! Ils sont tous d'un niveau avancé. Avachissement peut aussi vouloir dire érosion, détérioration ou dégradation

Non, pas vraiment.
Seul les mots prosopopée, hobereau, ormeau, microcoulier et chanoine sont assez rares (je ne connaissais pas prosopopée et microcoulier, par exemple), les autres sont courants. ("Amarrage" est mal orthographié, on peut l'entendre dans la chanson de Renaud, C'est pas l'homme qui prend la mer.)

Courants pour toi et moi peut-être mais généralement pas dans la liste des 2000 mots les plus fréquents. C'est ça que j'ai pris pour "avancé".

En: Discussion on whether the word list is advanced or not - I consider the majority to not be part of the 2000 most frequent words and therefore would label as 'advanced'.

In any case, it's a good list! 5-6 words that I don't know and 1 that my ex doesn't (native French speaker and University professor in 18th C French Lit.).

[zenmonkey]

If you are struggling for advanced French material go look at project Gutenberg.

Their list is pretty large: https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Category:FR_Genre

Radio?
Voila: http://www.radiofrance.fr lots of stations.

[tomgosse]

If you are struggling for advanced French material go look at project Gutenberg.

Their list is pretty large: https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Category:FR_Genre

Radio?
Voila: http://www.radiofrance.fr lots of stations.

Merci pour cette liste.

[extralean]

After 'counting' the words in L'amour est un plaisir, I got to wondering whether goodreads.com would give me the stats for pages read in French. Unfortunately not exactly, but I'm going to blow you away with some rough estimations.

My current book, Le mythe de Sisyphe - Camus, is my 69th with the tag "Français". If we assume that each book is on average 300pages long (I don't like short stories). And assume that each 'page has only 250 words' (doubtful cos the French pack them in with little white space).

69x300x250 = 5,175,000 words read in French.

Now if we assume that it's more like 300 words.

69x300x300 = 6.2million.

I've also read 78 books in Spanish (I'll round down because most of those I gave 1&2 stars I didn't actually finish), mostly shorter than En or Fr because I started from the smaller file sizes when putting stuff onto my ereader:

70x200x250 = 3.5million words read in Spanish!

Now, and this is just for shits and giggles, I have reviewed 628 books on Goodreads, all languages combined:

628*300*300 = 56.52million words read.

Finally, since I read longer novels in English, and lets allow more white space.

628*400*250 = 62.8million!

I'm not sure what this means, besides that I read a bit. But it was a fun exercise.

[extralean]

For my 'other language' I racked up 4,548,654 words. That took me to a low advanced level.

You'll need to specify which language you took to low advanced level since I last touched base with you, in the time we've been exchanging text across the world and internet, I don't think there's a language out there you haven't flirted with.

[extralean]

Vocabulary from Le mythe de Sisyphe - Albert Camus.

1. apologue nm (parabole) apologue ---which I learnt is a moral fable, especially one with animals as characters.
2. gésir⇒ vi (être étendu; abandonné; se trouver; être caché) lie (as in lay down) vi
3. Succédané nm (ersatz) ersatz, succedaneum; substitute n
   On buvait du succédané de café durant la guerre.
   succédané nm figuré (pâle copie) (figurative) pale copy, second rate adj
   Ce succédané d'entraîneur ne les mènera pas à la victoire.
   
   I didn't know either ersatz or succedaneum in English; so.....
4. rugueux adj (rude au toucher) rough, rugged, coarse adj - in terms of treebark for the context
5. escamoter⇒ vtr (faire disparaître qch) make disappear, palm vtr
   Les prestidigitateurs escamotent cartes et autres objets.
   escamoter vtr (esquiver) evade, sidestep vtr (informal) dodge vtr
   s'escamoter⇒ v pron (dissimuler qch quelque part) disappear, vanish vtr
6. antinomie nf (Philosophie) antinomy- always helpful (opposition entre 2 principes) conflict, contradiction n
7. prolixité nf prolixity - again, helpful which means extended to great, unnecessary, or tedious length; long and wordy. (of a person) given to speaking or writing at great or tedious length.
8. déceler vtr soutenu (dénoter) reveal, indicate.... also detect and discover
9. fronton nm (façade, vitrine) (Architecture) pediment n
   Sur les frontons des mairies, sont inscrits : "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité"
   In France, the words "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" are inscribed on the pediments of town halls.
   
   But what the devil is a pediment? Answer: the triangular upper part of the front of a building in classical style, typically surmounting a portico of columns. Also; in Geology -- a broad, gently sloping expanse of rock debris extending outward from the foot of a mountain slope, especially in a desert
10. postulat nm (proposition acceptée sans démonstration) postulate; assumption; premise ---- not the same as the verb postuler - which means 'to apply for' and 'to suppose/imagine' which had me confused

As a whole I found the words used by Camus to be much simpler (half as many unknowns, and of those unknowns - many of them I didn't even know in English and are underlined) however the content/subject matter is an entirely different matter.

[Arnaud]

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[Cavesa]

As you were interested in vocabulary resources: I like and occassionally use a dictionary by Bordas: Synonymes, analogies et antonymes. There are many thesauri like this and surely free online versions as well. It is great to just look up synonymes to basic words like "bon" intéressant", "intelligant", "beau" and so on. Those are words that "fit" quite everywhere but there are often better suiting alternatives and you can avoid repeating yourself too much using those instead (and it looks clever in writen texts ). And I had been told a few times before my CAE (an English exam of C1 level) by reliable people, that using such basic words too often works like a red flag during the exam and shows too narrow vocabulary. I am not sure whether the French examinators take it the same, but knowing better than "bon" can be useful.

Btw I really like your wordlists.

[sctroyenne]

Gésir is rarely met at the infinitive, and the majority of french people don't know the infinitive when asked.
You can also ask what's the infinitive of "issu" (another defective verb like gésir) and win a lot of beers if you ask one beer per bad answer

I've seen it mostly used in talking about corpses - is that usually the context it's used in?