French - B2 and beyond

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Le Baron
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Le Baron » Thu Mar 17, 2022 11:44 pm

The translation of the film itself 'Hear Me Out', makes little sense to me. What was wrong with: we are meant for each other?
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Amandine
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Amandine » Fri Apr 08, 2022 12:41 am

I did a mock exam of the B1 reading and listening sections last night at Alliance Francaise. The first thing I did was misspell "Amanda" on the first page of the exam and didn't notice until the hardest part of the listening section which threw me right off. :roll: :roll: :roll: So that's a good exam tip and trick: Get off on the right foot by spelling your own name correctly in exam material!

I think the reading was OK. A standard feature of the exam is a section where you have a list of criteria for a holiday or a project or whatever and descriptions of four options and you have to say whether each fits the criteria or not. Generally not that tough. I was booking a hotel and one of the criteria was "endroit calme". One of them was in the middle of the city (not an endroit calme) BUT had an eight floor terrasse which they promised was quiet and peaceful and away from the bruit. Is that an endroit calme or not? I think I have mainly used endroit to mean a geographical location but I suppose it is just "place" in general. I really overthought this! Does the calmness of the peaceful terrasse cancel out the non-calmness of being in the middle of the city and make it an endroit calm overall??? This is the sort of knots my brain unnecessarily ties itself in during exams. I went with yes it is/has a calm place on the assumption it was just a straightforward question not a trick one but I will always wonder about it. :P

The listening went WAY FASTER than I expected. I have tried to do practice ones under exam conditions but the time allocated to answering really flew by. I was a bit shocked by it, so doing the mock was worth it for that alone I guess. I generally feel decently confident about this section but the third recording always poses problems and I end up with a few answers I'm not super sure of. It would be interesting to know if the third is deliberately pitched a bit high to test your ability to pick out keywords and synonyms or whether I'm just at a too low level actually.

Halfway through my AF exam prep course and have a few mixed feelings. I'm actually confused about whether there are formal letters in the B1 and if you have to have the whole formal format - expediteur, objet etc etc. We've been given homework on these and I got scolded about losing points for not having this whole rigmarole but other sources I have consulted, the Didier B1 100% reussite book notably and also various youtube FLE teachers, make no mention of these formal letters and even the sender address/date/place on lettres amicals are not obligatory. I think these formal letter rules are for B2? Its important because I did spend time trying to learn it all which I now think was wasted. Either way, I sort of feel like if you have paid $300 and are half way through the course there probably shouldn't be any confusion about basic facts of the exam.

Finally got back into daily Kwiziq and it feels GOOD.
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Cavesa » Sat Apr 09, 2022 5:48 pm

Amandine wrote:So that's a good exam tip and trick: Get off on the right foot by spelling your own name correctly in exam material


Happens. :-D Years ago, when I took my DELF B2 (my first language exam ever, what a nostalgia!), I was so nervous I even asked the examiner whether prénom was the first name or family name... Such brain farts happen.

This is the sort of knots my brain unnecessarily ties itself in during exams. I went with yes it is/has a calm place on the assumption it was just a straightforward question not a trick one but I will always wonder about it. :P


Yup, there is some telepathy part in all exams like this. I faced a similar problem in my recent German exam. Guessing whether you are supposed to really think, or just read and be as straightforward as possible, that is not easy. And it is definitely not just about reading comprehension at all. That's what I really liked about the DALF C2 format. While I still insist that the writing is hard as hell (and hard to prepare for), you show off your reading comprehension by using the information and discussing it in the writing. No weird answer checking :-D So, if you hate the B1 format, you'll love the C2 in a few years ;-)

The listening went WAY FASTER than I expected

Keep listening. It will be ok. And you are not supposed to be perfect, don't stress yourself too much, it doesn't help comprehension :-)


Halfway through my AF exam prep course and have a few mixed feelings. I'm actually confused about whether there are formal letters in the B1 and if you have to have the whole formal format - expediteur, objet etc etc. We've been given homework on these and I got scolded about losing points for not having this whole rigmarole but other sources I have consulted, the Didier B1 100% reussite book notably and also various youtube FLE teachers, make no mention of these formal letters and even the sender address/date/place on lettres amicals are not obligatory. I think these formal letter rules are for B2? Its important because I did spend time trying to learn it all which I now think was wasted. Either way, I sort of feel like if you have paid $300 and are half way through the course there probably shouldn't be any confusion about basic facts of the exam.

Aaaaand this goes on my huge list of "why I don't pay for language exam preparatory classes". It is still unclearl half way through. Ask the question directly, hopefully they'll answer.

Can't speak from my own experience, as I haven't taken the B1. But even the B2 had a formal email, if I remember correctly. Which already shifts some of the norms. If you remember during the exam, put the object and other such stuff there, ça mange pas de pain, but again, don't stress too much about it. It won't cost you the passing grade, I am pretty sure. The politesse forms are more important than this (no need to memorise fifty. I use French in normal life, have sent tons of letters already, and I keep reusing like three or four of these. Learn a couple and use them correctly), and general cohesion of the text, passable grammar and vocab, and of course including everything they want you to include. That's more important, especially the last point. Leaving out some of the required content is a very unnecessary way to lose points.

Finally got back into daily Kwiziq and it feels GOOD.

Enjoy, you've earned it. I will soon pay for the Spanish one again. It is so unfortunate they haven't added more languages yet, they've been promising them since forever.
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Amandine
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Amandine » Tue Apr 12, 2022 2:12 am

Cavesa wrote:Happens. :-D Years ago, when I took my DELF B2 (my first language exam ever, what a nostalgia!), I was so nervous I even asked the examiner whether prénom was the first name or family name... Such brain farts happen.


Thank you Cavesa for all your wisdom!

I got the results back just now 25/25 for reading and 21/25 for listening. So apparently is WAS indeed an endroit calme after all :lol: I would love to get higher than that for listening in the actual exam, and on any given day I think I can. But given I know that third and to some extent second recording is always challenging I'll have to consider 21 a realistic outcome. When I was an undergraduate 85/100 was a 'high distinction" and I would love to get a HD in this exam. If I got the above marks again in reading/listening, I would need 20/25 in speaking and writing to get that. That's doable but will still require work.

Now we are just over a month away I'm going to focus in more sharply on exam-centric stuff.
- learning set phrases I can use in the speaking and writing
- starting on the exercises, notably the listening, in my Didier B1 Delf book

Probably like many of you I tend to buy a lot of language learning materials and completely forget about them. I was looking at an audio product on FrenchToday.com and when I logged into my long forgotten account I remembered I had a bunch of their stuff already. I downloaded their new desktop app and ... voila, I have about half a dozen programs in there already from years and years ago. There's a common phrases one that has a lot of good material I can drill for the exam.
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Amandine
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Amandine » Tue Apr 12, 2022 2:13 am

Le Baron wrote:The translation of the film itself 'Hear Me Out', makes little sense to me. What was wrong with: we are meant for each other?


Sorry I missed this Le Baron. The film plot concerns all sorts of comic misunderstandings caused by the main characters deafness so I thought maybe the original French had some kid of hearing related pun meaning too. but maybe not .
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Le Baron
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Le Baron » Tue Apr 12, 2022 2:13 pm

Amandine wrote:
Le Baron wrote:The translation of the film itself 'Hear Me Out', makes little sense to me. What was wrong with: we are meant for each other?


Sorry I missed this Le Baron. The film plot concerns all sorts of comic misunderstandings caused by the main characters deafness so I thought maybe the original French had some kid of hearing related pun meaning too. but maybe not .

Maybe it does have that and I missed it. I've not seen the film, so I can't judge.
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Amandine » Sun Apr 17, 2022 11:16 am

Pleased to say this long weekend I knocked over some of my outstanding tasks

- kickstarted my reading again for the first time since I started my new job in early Feb by finishing the first La Quête d'Ewilan book by Pierre Bottero and making progress on Central Park by Guillaume Musso. The best word I learned (in the Eliwan) was "apostropher" - to bark at someone. I think the English punctuation which is best for an insulting verb would be to oxfordcomma someone I guess. :lol:

- got to 30% in A2 Kwiziq and went through everything I had added to my notebook to review. I've stopped setting goals but obviously I want to get as far into reviewing B1 as poss before the exam

- watched quite a lot in the last week without subtitles. The first 6 episodes of X Files French dub (Disney) and first 3 episodes of Star Trek Original Series (Netflix) French dub. Understanding very variable scene to scene obviously but getting enough out of it to continue. Two episodes of Science Grand Format, one on the megaliths of Carnac and one on the Titanic with French subtitles. Some other bits and pieces on YouTube, mostly my game shows.

- some drilling on verbs and phrases on Frenchtoday.com app that I discovered I had

Had a nap this arvo and had a dream where I forgot the exam was on and had to rush there. A real live DELF nightmare!
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Amandine » Thu Apr 28, 2022 1:21 am

I was travelling for work Wed/Thurs/Fri last week so did basically nothing and then when I got home was down with a cold for several days. Not covid but I just felt like bludging anyway. I did however watch several more episodes of X Files dubbed in French no subs, the Netflix Johnny Hallyday docoseries with French subtitles and another Netflix series Drôle (Standing Up in English) with English subs and bits and pieces of the French quiz show Tout le Monde Veut Prendre Sa Place. I also read a lot of my current French book, Central Park by Guilliame Musso. So I actually did a fair bit "of French" but nothing specifically for the exam. However since its two and half weeks away its less about my anything specific now and more just learning x number of set phrases and formulas I can recycle for the writing and speaking parts. Whether I give myself 18 days or 15 days to do this I don't think really matters so I was content to just bludge in bed all weekend and Monday/Tuesday.

Drôle is the new series from Fanny Herrero who is the co-creator/showrunner of Dix Pour Cent. It follows some young stand up comedians trying to make it in Paris. It's absolutely not in that universe, Dix Pour Cent being a god tier show for me, however the young actors are really charming and I found it an easy watch. Only 6 episodes. I watched with English subs because being sick and feeling sorry for myself I thought the combination of young people slang plus the specific difficulties of stand up would make it too much of an effort so I took the easy way. Forgive me, gods of input. I did learn "vanne" is the word they use most often for their stand up jokes, rather than 'blague' so I gather it feels more like 'gag' or 'bit'.
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby Amandine » Fri Apr 29, 2022 6:08 am

I have my schedule ... I'm grateful to see they accommodated my request to do the production orale on the same day, the website says most people will do it on a later date which is advised a week before. It's a bit hard for me to get time off work at short notice and I prefer to just have it done. I requested that when I enrolled but not since as I didn't want to be a bother. The B1 is the most popular to do because of the French citizenship requirements so some people in my preparation class are even having to go to Canberra to do the actual exam because it was booked out here. Glad I got in early, no way would I be schlepping down to Canberra for it :P
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Re: French - towards B1 and beyond

Postby LanguageLearner0007 » Sat Apr 30, 2022 9:48 pm

Hey good luck on your upcoming exam on the 17 May, rooting for you :!:
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