French - B2 and beyond

[Amandine]

The cafe was the Cafe Marie Something and their house version of the Croque Monsieur was called the Croque Marie. That’s what it was labelled so that’s what I said (I thought!)

Once I got it, it was lovely - don’t know what the cheese was but it was delicious.

[badger]

hope you are enjoying Rouen better than I did - I got stuck in a traffic jam there after taking a wrong turn on my way home from Brittany this year. I got a good look at the Pont Gustave-Flaubert though.

[Amandine]

It’s been a month!! Currently in Marseille, which I absolutely adore.

Recap of French low/high lights:

Lady at a cafe at Mont Saint Michel said « treize euros » and my brain would only hear « tres heureuse » which seemed a weird thing to say. This one is too stupid to even feel bad about really.

OTOH, had a good convo with the lady who drive my tour group from Bayeux to MSM. this is a pattern - much better at the “conversational” than the “transactional”, but being a tourist 95% of interactions are the latter. Tant pis.

Did a walking tour of Bellville in Paris in French on my first day. I was the only one on the tour (this is also a pattern) which meant I couldn’t hide and had to concentrate on the French the whole time. I don’t think the guy was moderating his language too much for me, maybe a bit but not too much. Again, this is much easier than ordering in a cafe!

Have seen two movies in the cinema so far - at Bayeux, the second in the Three Musketeers series “Milady” which I kinda followed but was also baffled by the plot at certain points. Last night in Marseille I saw the new Laure Calamy film “Iris et les hommes”. I’m a big Laure Calamy stan. This film is part of that venerable sub-genre of French cinema: “having an affair is good for your marriage, actually”. I was happy with how much of the dialogue in this one I got on the spot - is my ear adjusting or just a fluke of this one film? Probably the latter.

I watched the start of the classic “Le Pete Noel est un ordure” which was on tv Christmas Day. And understood literally nothing. To be fair to me, it’s particularly difficult since it’s all eccentric, exaggerated characters screaming at each other. But still, literally nowt. I decided it might be a good challenge to watch it on Christmas Day again after in 2024 with the goal of having improved comprehension some.

In general, I want to make 2024 a year I really improve in understanding movies and series. I drifted in 2023, French was part of my everyday life a lot but I didn’t do much focused work on my weaknesses. I won’t bore you with what I’m thinking about doing, since it’s all stuff I’ve says previously in this thread I wanted to do but then never did.

The two compliments I have received on my French were in Dijon and Marseille. No surprise it would be outside Paris and also no surprise it was people I was able to have a little chat with which is as i said much more successful for me than purely transactional exchanges in shops etc. (The other person has more time/motivation to slow down for me too in those circumstances, I realise which is part of it)

[jeffers]

I spent 5 days in Marseille several years ago and absolutely loved it! My one regret is that I didn't visit the archaeological museum, which is built alongside the relatively recently discovered remains of the port of Massalia, which means you can walk on paving stones placed 2500 years ago! I say recently discovered because Marseille used to have the reputation of being the "oldest city in France without any history" since there were no archaelogical remains until these were discovered in 1967. (All this I learned from Hexagone,sur les routes de l'histoire de France by Lorànt Deutsch.)

[DaveAgain]

I watched the start of the classic “Le Pete Noel est un ordure” which was on tv Christmas Day. And understood literally nothing. To be fair to me, it’s particularly difficult since it’s all eccentric, exaggerated characters screaming at each other. But still, literally nowt. I decided it might be a good challenge to watch it on Christmas Day again after in 2024 with the goal of having improved comprehension some.

In general, I want to make 2024 a year I really improve in understanding movies and series. I drifted in 2023, French was part of my everyday life a lot but I didn’t do much focused work on my weaknesses. I won’t bore you with what I’m thinking about doing, since it’s all stuff I’ve says previously in this thread I wanted to do but then never did.

Actes Sud have the text of a stage play version, you might like to read that.
------

I wonder if there is a French dub of Prisoner somewhere?

There's a Canadian prison soap called Unité 9.

[frenchfish55]

In general, I want to make 2024 a year I really improve in understanding movies and series. I drifted in 2023, French was part of my everyday life a lot but I didn’t do much focused work on my weaknesses. I won’t bore you with what I’m thinking about doing, since it’s all stuff I’ve says previously in this thread I wanted to do but then never did. )

Hello/ Which tv series do you plan to watch in 2024?

[Amandine]

Actes Sud have the text of a stage play version, you might like to read that.

Yes, I thought about this, great idea thanks. Not sure how different they are but I've also seen a filmed version of the original stage production on YouTube.

[Amandine]

Hello/ Which tv series do you plan to watch in 2024?

The other day, I got Migaku and am currently sentence mining "Tapie" ("Class Act" in English) on Netflix, basically because I only watched the first two episodes last year and I want to watch the rest so might as well kill two birds with one stone. The French CC is not exact to the script but I suppose that can be helpful too if you can spot it. We'll see., I haven't started using the cards yet.

After Tapie, I intend to do the same with "Represent", a French comedy on Netflix. I want to watch it too so might as well mine it while I do. I expect it will have more slang and current spoken French also.

[Amandine]

OK, a small update. To close the loop on the above post, I tried to Migaku an episode of Represent but didn't find it very amusing so stopped. I'm almost finishing Migakuing Tapie but I got distracted by the whole AI thing. I've on and off been doing the flashcards created by this but not as often as I should. And since the flashcards are, like, the whole point I should try and do it more regularly. Ideally every day. Still hard to get a consistent program going with work. Many weeks it's normal working hours but others it is 16 hour days and those periods make it hard to get an unbroken habit going.

So, I have lately been using AI transcription a lot. My goal this year is improving comprehension of series and films -- first of all the scripted kind which are easier and secondarily more reality type shows as a bridge to French as actually spoken -- and this seems like a game changer for that, despite the fact I fundamentally loathe the whole industry that has created it. Well, I am weak and I can't drag myself away from just spitting out almost perfect transcriptions of everything that interests me in French.

I've been watching Koh Lanta - the French version of "Survivor". I haven't been making transcripts of it yet, just watching with the French subs on but it's been useful. A small example, they use "compliqué" a lot to mean 'difficult' rather than 'complicated' (only having a bit of rice to eat for a week is not complicated, but it is difficult) After hearing this about 50 times, I looked it up and 'difficult/hard' is a definition of it but very far down the dictionary list - but in real life, apparently it's very a very common usage.

Koh Lanta is on TF1 and I saw there a series Master Crimes with Muriel Robin so I've watched all six episodes of that in the last week and made transcripts of two. The first transcript I'm half way through translating anything I don't know, I've also been listening to the audio of that episode on headphones at work, and I'll rewatch with the transcript when I have a chance.

It is a very basic police procedural with Muriel Robin playing the role of the eccentric investigator who can close her eyes at a crime scene divine all the little details the dumb flics miss. See Holmes obviously as the template, but Columbo, Monk, Elementary, The Mentalist, Poker Face and ten million more. Although, the main police officer is played by Muriel Robin's real-life wife so she gets to be a more sympathetic and evenly-matched character than a lot of the sidekicks in this genre. And luckily, I am a very basic person myself and am easily pleased by this formula, no matter how formulaic. Being pitched at the biggest possible audience, the language is not too difficult and I can follow along well with the French sub titles, and follow along OK without them.

I've forumalted a little plan to do the DELF B2 exam in December. The date the Alliance Francaise does it in Sydney is quite inconvenient for me with work. Not impossible, but not ideal and I'd be worried that I couldn't go at the last minute. I looked at Canberra, Melbourne, Wellington NZ even (my sister lives there) but would have the same issue. Then I hit on the idea of Noumea, New Caledonia and I could do it there in the first week of December which is perfect. I emailed the centre over there and they said most of the people who sit the exam there are from other countries so DELF Tourism is apparently a thing. It's less than three hours on the plane (which would get you from London to Bucharest in Europe I realise but here, that's a very reasonable distance) so I could go over Wednesday, do the exam Thursday and then have a couple of days relaxing on the beach before returning for work on Monday.

My speaking is still horrible compared to my other skills, and the only one I would be worried about for the exam but I have a fair bit of time to prepare and I'm hoping the deep dive into transcripts I'm doing will pay off at some point ....

[Le Baron]

That flight to Nouméa sounds like a nice adventure. What luck! I can see you're a serious learner, going above and beyond.

Now I want to go!