Learning French log (Road to DELF B1)

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jeffers
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Re: Learning French log (Road to DELF B1)

Postby jeffers » Wed May 25, 2022 10:44 am

Thank you for sharing these questions. I've not gotten to the point of actual exam prep, so I've never really done questions like these. I do think these were quite tricky. It's interesting that Cavesa found Question B straightforward and Question C more tricky, because I found them the other way round.

In extract 2 it says, "on voudrait connaître votre avis sur les « vrais » sportifs et sportives qui vivent avec passion de leur sport", so therefore, when Question C is asking "l'opinion des gens sur...", I'd be perking up when I hear/read "votre avis sur..." in the extract.

The clue to Question B, on the other hand, was trickier for me because it depended on paying attention to the gender of the noun in this phrase: "et surtout de ces nouvelles sportives". I am not as programmed to pay attention to the gender of a noun, so I hardly noticed the difference. I assume that for Cavesa, being at a much higher level in French, the gender jumped out at her. Obvciously, that's something I need to concentrate on more!
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Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien (roughly, the perfect is the enemy of the good)

French SC Books: 0 / 5000 (0/5000 pp)
French SC Films: 0 / 9000 (0/9000 mins)

Cavesa
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Re: Learning French log (Road to DELF B1)

Postby Cavesa » Wed May 25, 2022 5:22 pm

Even some natives would definitely find either 2 or 3 tricky. Really, it is not reasonable to expect perfect scores, this is not just about comprehension.

The gender may have jumped at me, or rather: It didn't even occur to me to think about it. It is automatic. Especially as I am a woman and a feminist, therefore used to processing gender information in texts all the time. For me, it was really a question on picking the hints on priority.

But looking at my last few posts here, I think I would now struggle even with an English exam :-D Those mistakes! I am worsening :-D
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LanguageLearner0007
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Re: Learning French log (Road to DELF B1)

Postby LanguageLearner0007 » Thu May 26, 2022 1:06 pm

Thank you for your responses, it appears that this Activity 10 is indeed an outlier. The previous 9 were easier, certainly I never had a situation where ALL responses were wrong.

True that perfect score is not required but even getting 5/25 in Listening is quite a threshold to overcome for me at the moment.

Also, the exam environment can be fairly stressful, so I'd aim for higher score in the comfort of own home, to leave some leeway for the actual exam...
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badger
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Re: Learning French log (Road to DELF B1)

Postby badger » Thu May 26, 2022 1:56 pm

LanguageLearner0007 wrote:True that perfect score is not required but even getting 5/25 in Listening is quite a threshold to overcome for me at the moment.

if you're still doing A1/A2-level stuff on kwiziq then taking B1-level mock tests is bound to be dispiriting. why make things difficult for yourself? I would save the DELF book tests for when you're closer to B1 level & then you can use them as a better judge of your preparedness (& also you won't have seen them before so you won't be answering them from memory).
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Super Challenge progress French (double):
reading: 5000 / 5000 reading: 5000 / 5000
watching: 150 / 150 watching: 150 / 150

LanguageLearner0007
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Re: Learning French log (Road to DELF B1)

Postby LanguageLearner0007 » Thu May 26, 2022 4:00 pm

I didn't face any difficulties with the B1 reading part whatsoever, scoring very close to the maximum score. It was very quick and seamless, in fact.

I can understand almost 100% of the material with an unfamiliar word here and there that usually doesn't block the overall comprehension.

If the exam was only on written comprehension, I am quite confident that I'm solid B1 on this.

It's the listening part that is discouraging and where I feel that I am around A1 still... So, there is a big gap between my listening and written comprehension.

Possibly I can go back to Kwiziq and do their listening exercises at A1... Not sure.
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badger
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Re: Learning French log (Road to DELF B1)

Postby badger » Thu May 26, 2022 5:29 pm

LanguageLearner0007 wrote:If the exam was only on written comprehension, I am quite confident that I'm solid B1 on this.

If the exam was only on written comprehension, I'd be booking my C2 for next week. :lol:

I'm doing the Super Challenge which is 100 films (& 100 "books") which might be helpful for you to get some French listening "immersion".
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Super Challenge progress French (double):
reading: 5000 / 5000 reading: 5000 / 5000
watching: 150 / 150 watching: 150 / 150

LanguageLearner0007
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Re: Learning French log (Road to DELF B1)

Postby LanguageLearner0007 » Fri May 27, 2022 12:00 am

I was trying to watch "Love, Death and Robots" in French with French subs and they don't match at all :D :D :D

They didn't bother to sync them, they are different almost in every sentence.
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Amandine
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Re: Learning French log (Road to DELF B1)

Postby Amandine » Fri May 27, 2022 12:32 am

Those books are very useful but they have to pump out so many new exercises, it's not a surprise there's the occasional skewiff one. Forget about it and move on.

It's quite feasible, if you are at a real B1 level, to get 25/25 on the reading comprehension almost every time. Not 100% because you can always misunderstand something on the day, even in your native language. But like 98% of the time. It's not however feasible, I think, to expect to get 25/25 on the listening part unless you are really way above an actual B1. It just goes by too fast, you only get 2 listens and also have to be thinking about/reading the questions while listening. It's a lot! I reckon if you're getting around 18+ out of 25 regularly on the listening, you're in a very good place. Of course, you can always hope for more on the day, but that's about the right zone imho.

I'm not sure when you're doing the exam and everyone's needs are different - if you need the piece of paper for citizenship or study or other official purpose, that's different. But if you're doing the exam as a challenge and as a way to motivate/force yourself to improve (like I did), I would structure my preparation this way:

Reading and Writing Comprehension: Improve these skills until they are where I said above, towards 25/25 on reading and towards 20/25 on listening on practice exercises. Do this in the normal language learning way not in an exam preparation way. Just listen, read, watch, study the way you normally would, that brings you pleasure and makes you look forward to it.

When you are at that point, and closer to the exam date, pivot to mostly concentrating on the speaking and writing. These are by far the harder skills but they are also the skills you can quickly polish up - "hack" if you like - by knowing what the exam wants from you and giving it to them. Reading and listening you can improve but there's a limit to how quickly you can improve and you can't 'game' them in the way you can writing and speaking.

I learnt a lot of set phrases from various model answers. This stood me a great stead for the writing which I am very confident about despite it being my weakest skill, less so with the speaking just because it is so much much more nerve wracking to actually talk to people under those exam conditions. My brain emptied of everything I had prepared and I just winged it by instinct. Before doing the exam I would've said writing was by far more difficult than the speaking. I would amend that now to say that writing is by far more difficult than speaking in normal conditions, but under exam conditions, speaking is the hardest. At least with the writing you have time to reflect, consider, correct yourself and you're left alone to do it. Speaking, your judges are right there in front of you, and its a totally different kind of pressure. So, when I do the B2 sometime next year, I will take this into account more in my prep.

Of course everyone is different but those are just some of my general thoughts about the exam having done it recently.

If you don't know them, I highly recommend French School Tv and Le French Club on YouTube, both have specific B1 Delf resources and I found them very helpful.
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Amandine
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Re: Learning French log (Road to DELF B1)

Postby Amandine » Fri May 27, 2022 12:41 am

LanguageLearner0007 wrote:I was trying to watch "Love, Death and Robots" in French with French subs and they don't match at all :D :D :D

They didn't bother to sync them, they are different almost in every sentence.


They translate the script for the dubbing and the script for the subtitles separately, by different people at different times without consultation so you will find this is the case with originally non-French material. The voices have to vaguely match the lip movements so usually have to be pretty different to fit. If you watch something originally French with French [CC] they should be very close. Not 100% but close enough not to be annoying.
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LanguageLearner0007
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Re: Learning French log (Road to DELF B1)

Postby LanguageLearner0007 » Fri May 27, 2022 12:55 am

Amandine wrote:Those books are very useful but they have to pump out so many new exercises, it's not a surprise there's the occasional skewiff one. Forget about it and move on.

It's quite feasible, if you are at a real B1 level, to get 25/25 on the reading comprehension almost every time. Not 100% because you can always misunderstand something on the day, even in your native language. But like 98% of the time. It's not however feasible, I think, to expect to get 25/25 on the listening part unless you are really way above an actual B1. It just goes by too fast, you only get 2 listens and also have to be thinking about/reading the questions while listening. It's a lot! I reckon if you're getting around 18+ out of 25 regularly on the listening, you're in a very good place. Of course, you can always hope for more on the day, but that's about the right zone imho.

I'm not sure when you're doing the exam and everyone's needs are different - if you need the piece of paper for citizenship or study or other official purpose, that's different. But if you're doing the exam as a challenge and as a way to motivate/force yourself to improve (like I did), I would structure my preparation this way:

Reading and Writing Comprehension: Improve these skills until they are where I said above, towards 25/25 on reading and towards 20/25 on listening on practice exercises. Do this in the normal language learning way not in an exam preparation way. Just listen, read, watch, study the way you normally would, that brings you pleasure and makes you look forward to it.

When you are at that point, and closer to the exam date, pivot to mostly concentrating on the speaking and writing. These are by far the harder skills but they are also the skills you can quickly polish up - "hack" if you like - by knowing what the exam wants from you and giving it to them. Reading and listening you can improve but there's a limit to how quickly you can improve and you can't 'game' them in the way you can writing and speaking.

I learnt a lot of set phrases from various model answers. This stood me a great stead for the writing which I am very confident about despite it being my weakest skill, less so with the speaking just because it is so much much more nerve wracking to actually talk to people under those exam conditions. My brain emptied of everything I had prepared and I just winged it by instinct. Before doing the exam I would've said writing was by far more difficult than the speaking. I would amend that now to say that writing is by far more difficult than speaking in normal conditions, but under exam conditions, speaking is the hardest. At least with the writing you have time to reflect, consider, correct yourself and you're left alone to do it. Speaking, your judges are right there in front of you, and its a totally different kind of pressure. So, when I do the B2 sometime next year, I will take this into account more in my prep.

Of course everyone is different but those are just some of my general thoughts about the exam having done it recently.

If you don't know them, I highly recommend French School Tv and Le French Club on YouTube, both have specific B1 Delf resources and I found them very helpful.


Hi Amandine, I assume you completed the same book that I'm currently going through. Do you remember that specific Activity 10 and how did you respond at the time? It would be interesting if everyone stumbled upon it or it's just me.

I aim for 5/25 on listening, 25/25 on reading, 15/25 on writing and 5/25 on speaking.

I may need the B1 exam in about 2.5 years for an official purpose, so I'm not in a rush and just studying at my own (slow-ish) pace.

I think I'm already close to the 25/25 on reading, as I said before, the only way I miss something if it's tricky and confusing on purpose, haven't seen that yet.

With listening, I couldn't find anything that is both interesting and easy enough for me to understand. Even the "easy" podcasts and audios are still incomprehensible for me. Only slowing down to 0.5x works sometimes. I am hoping one day the modern French culture produces something that can compete with the overwhelming English force and I can finally use that for my learning. Until then, I am confined to the dialogues like "À la boulangerie"... :?
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