French - B2 and beyond

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Amandine
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Amandine » Wed Dec 22, 2021 9:11 am

From Friday 24 to Jan 3rd I am off work with very few other commitments so here is my list of things I want to do in that time. Keeping it deliberately light but hoping to overshoot a bit:

- Kwiziq every day and get my A1 score to 100%. 85% of the subjects are very easy but the 15% that trips me up (mostly irregular conjugations and COD/COI) are annoying.
- Finish writing up the Kwiziq grammar for anything I get wrong, I'm a little behind on this.
- Try out the tools for dictation etc that jeffers mentioned above. I have them saved and have been meaning to.
- have a fiddle with Clozemaster, I think I might like it?
- watch Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, I bought a used DVD off eBay for a slightly silly price but its not available to rent/stream anywhere and it's such a big French cultural thing I thought I should see it. Unfortunately it only has English subs so I'll watch without trying to learn anything, might be a with-prawns-and-champagne on Christmas Day kind of exercise.
- finish Alice en Ecosse and go back and look at unknown vocab before I read the next one. We are halfway through the book and although someone tries to kill her every second page so I can't say its not eventful we still aren't at the reason she is in Scotland in the first place, a mysterious family heirloom gone mysteriously missing. Get a move on, Alice.
- whatever homework is from my iTalki teacher
- the usual quiz show regime and other listening/watching immersion opportunities that seem interesting
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zjones
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby zjones » Wed Dec 22, 2021 4:22 pm

Hi Amandine,

It's nice to see another French log here. I think your plan is solid and it seems like it will be a breeze for you to pass the B1.

For the exam itself, I used the Didier DELF textbook as preparation in the preceding months. It helped me get used to the format of the DELF B1 so I knew exactly what to expect when I took the exam. I highly recommend it.

Looking forward to keeping up with your log!
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Amandine
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Amandine » Thu Dec 23, 2021 3:40 am

zjones wrote:Hi Amandine,

It's nice to see another French log here. I think your plan is solid and it seems like it will be a breeze for you to pass the B1.

For the exam itself, I used the Didier DELF textbook as preparation in the preceding months. It helped me get used to the format of the DELF B1 so I knew exactly what to expect when I took the exam. I highly recommend it.

Looking forward to keeping up with your log!


Thank you zjones! I actually have the Didier B1 100% réussite book, put it aside until next year but I definitely intend to hammer it.
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Amandine
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Amandine » Sun Jan 02, 2022 9:36 am

I still have tomorrow off but I can probably update this now not much will change. My goals before the Christmas break:

- Kwiziq every day and get my A1 score to 100%. I did do at least one a day but sometimes it was only one on my phone to keep the streak. Only at 86% in A1, I've done 25 kwizzes in the first 2 days of this year so I'm not slacking but the percentage did not move much so I think that will go slower than I assumed.
- Finish writing up the Kwiziq grammar for anything I get wrong, I'm a little behind on this. Yes!
- Try out the tools for dictation etc that jeffers mentioned above. I did and they are good but I think I am going to stick with just the dictations within Kwiziq since I am there so much and they are well integrated and very easy to use. There are a couple of longer youtube videos I have in mind to write out for the purposes of learning for the delf (high frequency ways to talk about holidays, routines etc).
- have a fiddle with Clozemaster, I think I might like it? Hmmm it was OK but I don't think I need it in my routine.
- watch Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, Did not watch it yet.
- finish Alice en Ecosse and go back and look at unknown vocab before I read the next one. So I did finish and did do a vocab review. An unexpected thing happened which is that I impulse bought a Kindle Paperwhite in the post-xmas sales enticed by reading about the "Vocabulary Builder" function. Every word you tap to look up gets added to a master list, there are rudimentary flashcard features but the main thing is it can be exported via fluentcards.com to make an Anki deck. It was scarily easy to do. So now I'm a bit addicted to it. Alice/Nancy Drew is very silly but at a very good level for me. A friend won a photography prize for a photo of her so it ended up on the front cover of Photography International, an august journal obsessively read in Scotland apparently judging by the number of randoms who would be like"wait ... aren't you the jeune fille on the cover of Photography International magazine????????" These were my favourite unintentionally comic moments.
- whatever homework is from my iTalki teacher Well basically but he is very nice and let's me get away with not
- the usual quiz show regime and other listening/watching immersion opportunities that seem interesting Yes. A VERY funny thing happened on Tout Le Monde Veut Prendre Sa Place today. There was an answer that was "mother f***er" sans the asterisk. This is a quiz show that screens at midday during the week on France 2 and in which the strongest language you might hear is a disappointed "mince" or "zut". But m-fer is apparently fine :lol: :lol: :lol: Goes to show how if you don't have the 'taboo' associated with a swear word it just lands differently even if you theoretically know it is "bad". If your delicate constitutions can take it, voila. (should be at the right moment)

After umming and ahhing about reading I think that now I'm going all in on it. E-books are obviously easier because of the ability to look up words easily but I absolutely did not want to be tethered to my phone or computer so I was only going to do paper books and read extensively without worrying too much about vocab. But the kindle sort of solves that, electronic but also without all the distraction potential. The fluentcards Anki export is not perfect - I don't think there is a way to do reflexive verbs because you only look up one "word" at a time, so unless it starts with a vowel that excludes the reflexive particle. Having used it for two days I'm not too bothered though, it shows you the word in context on the front of the card so you can see its reflexive. Not ideal but I not enough to take away from the other advantages I don't think. So now I am reading Le Petit Nicolas. I also have a side project of collecting vocab I need to read/listen to more political stuff so I acquired e-books of some of the main candidates for the presidential election. These kind of books being written for the general public are generally a LOT easier than slogging through an article on Le Monde. I personally draw the line at devoting brain space to the extreme right but otherwise have got the spectrum - Mélenchon, Hidalgo, Macron, Pécresse. I am 30% through the Mélenchon and it is easier than the Nancy Drew, being a collection of policy prescriptions in plain language. I expect the others might be a step up in difficulty but I still hope I can get through them pretty efficiently this month and hoover up vocab I need for a seperate Anki deck of political stuff.
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Amandine
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Amandine » Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:53 pm

Kwiziq - slowing making progress towards 100% A1. The things that I have trouble with are all sort of preposition related really, I think of them as "little things" although probably I shouldn't. "The big things" like conjugations are by comparison easier to get a handle on than if its à, en , aux, du etc etc etc etc It seems to me the percentage climbs quicker if you choose the "Test A1" option than the "Test studyplan" option but it is entirely possible this is an illusion and I'm like the lab rat that got a pellet one time it pressed a lever and now furiously presses the lever even though the pellets come randomly.

Anki - I cannot make heads nor tails of the Anki stats system so I don't know how many days I've been doing it but its got to be a couple of weeks and in that time I have only missed one day, which I'm quite pleased with myself about. Even though I've got it on 20 new cards a day its still taking me less than 10 minutes to do my reps so I'll keep it at that level. I'm adding vocab from books I finish reading and one thing I'm thinking about is making a second deck and doing both so that I get exposure to that vocab straight away rather than waiting for it come up in a month. I know you can set it to show you random words but this way seems simpler?

Watching - watching Tout Le Monde Veut Prendre Sa Place very day and sometimes Questions pour un Champion, Slam and/or 8 Chances de Tout Gagner. Started watching Archive 81 on Netflix with French dub, without subtitles. I prefer having the French subs and I don't feel its a great disadvantage the way some people do but every so often I like to check it on my comprehension this way. I can basically follow the story although I know there are plot points I'm missing. Overall I'm happy with that - I take every phrase I understand immediately in its entirety as a win. Today working from home I'm going through my big YouTube list of French things and catching up on some book vloggers.

DELF - didn't do anything specific

Reading - I finished my second Nancy Drew - Alice au Manoir Hanté and despite the great scoffing of my iTalki teacher that I would read something his little sister would've when she was 10 (oui j'ai dix ans en français voila) I read a Fantômette book - a super-heroine from the 1960s. It was basically the same level as the Nancy Drews but actually much more amusing.
fantomette.jpeg


I'm also reading Notes Sur L'Affaire Dominici by Jean Giono, which I wrote about in the French Reading Resources thread so won't repeat myself.

I'm also reading the first La Quête d'Ewilan book by Pierre Bottero. I read the first 5 chapters and then switched to listening to the audiobook while reading. I thought this might go too quickly for me but it didn't and I think I'll do the rest of the book this way. Of course its harder to stop and lookup words and phrases but I didn't find that a problem.

Going there? I have an idea of going to France (first time, unless you count a week in New Caledonia) in Oct/Nov. Obviously any such plans come with a massive question mark des nos jours but better to plan for it and then it not happen than the reverse. Procrastinating, I was looking at theatres in Paris and saw that Fabrice Luchini would be doing one of his one man shows based on the fables of Fontaine at the time I have been thinking about going. It was basically sold out but there were some cheap 20 Euro tickets left. So .... I bought one. I wouldn't have paid 60 Euros but for 20 Eur/30 AUD ... less than the price of one iTalki lesson ... I can wear that loss if I don't go and if I do I would really love to see the show. I'll get more than 30 AUD worth of pleasure thinking about it for the next few months anyway. I actually have a book of Fontaine on order so I now have extra motivation to get stuck into them.
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Carmody
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Carmody » Wed Jan 19, 2022 1:54 am

Congratulations on all your great work!

Three cheers for Nancy Drew - Alice au Manoir Hanté it sounds great!!!
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Amandine
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Amandine » Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:38 am

Carmody wrote:Congratulations on all your great work!

Three cheers for Nancy Drew - Alice au Manoir Hanté it sounds great!!!


Thank you Carmody! I hop that your listening project is going well too.
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby DaveAgain » Wed Jan 19, 2022 7:49 am

Amandine wrote: I also have a side project of collecting vocab I need to read/listen to more political stuff so I acquired e-books of some of the main candidates for the presidential election. These kind of books being written for the general public are generally a LOT easier than slogging through an article on Le Monde. I personally draw the line at devoting brain space to the extreme right but otherwise have got the spectrum - Mélenchon, Hidalgo, Macron, Pécresse. I am 30% through the Mélenchon and it is easier than the Nancy Drew, being a collection of policy prescriptions in plain language. I expect the others might be a step up in difficulty but I still hope I can get through them pretty efficiently this month and hoover up vocab I need for a seperate Anki deck of political stuff.
I vaguely remember a TV show where one of the guests said something along the lines that Mr Zemmour's book seemed a bit disjointed, and in reponse Mr Zemmour said it was modeled after Victor Hugo's Choses Vues, so you could substitute that one instead if you like! :-)
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Amandine
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Amandine » Wed Jan 19, 2022 10:23 pm

Hard pass on that thank you DaveAgain :evil: unless you mean the Victor Hugo which maybe, Victor and I have the same birthday in February so I feel a bit of loyalty to the old fella (Victor, me and Johnny Cash - quite a team). Actually I think I will put a pin in that political project for now - I just have discovered so much else I want to read more. Not that there being lots of books in French is a sudden revelation, but I had intended to go slowly and modestly with reading and now it seems I'm going all in with abandon.
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Aloyse » Thu Jan 20, 2022 11:47 am

Amandine wrote:I read a Fantômette book - a super-heroine from the 1960s. It was basically the same level as the Nancy Drews but actually much more amusing.

:mrgreen: J'approuve! Pour info les bibliothèques de quartier avaient toute la collection des fantômettes dans les années 80.
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