Zelda's Language Log 2023

[zjones]

It's been 5 years since I started learning French. Crazy.

I've managed to maintain my French at about B1, but my production skills have really suffered since I started college. I'm two years from finishing my bachelor's degree in Genetics, and I plan on starting a French minor once I transfer to a 4-year-institution.

In spring, I'm taking French 3 at the recommendation of the wonderful French instructor at my college. He did a brief consultation with me a year ago and noticed that I always use le futur proche instead of le futur simple, and that I don't know how to use le subjonctif at all. That's what we'll be covering in French 3, and what will allow me to transfer directly into the junior French classes. I must say, he was extremely impressed that I was self-taught and that I can handle French so well. I credit that to a lot of hard work on my part, but also the resource recommendations from this forum.

Before the next quarter starts, I need to unrust my French. I have two months and I am using CLE Progressive Vocabulaire Avancé, Communication Avancé, and Grammaire Perfectionnement (thank you Caseva). The grammar book is a bit beyond my level; I would do better with either the intermediate or advanced version, but I'm torn on which one to buy, which has left me in analysis paralysis. (They aren't expensive, but they aren't cheap either.) I have Didier's Édito B2 as well, but the shiny, brightly-colored pages of the book are a bit distracting for me so I really prefer the paper in the CLE books.

I'm also VERY slowly making my way through Bilbo Le Hobbit when I have time for it, but I am more interested in listening to podcasts as they really push me. The new InnerFrench podcast episodes are definitely a good fit for me. I can generally keep up, but there's always 10-15% that I miss.

Anyway, hello everyone.

[zjones]

I realized that I needed to order doggie bags from Amazon, so I threw in Progressive Grammaire Avancé (B1-B2) and the correction booklet. I'm hoping it has more on tenses and subjunctive than the B2-C2 book.

Either way, the Perfectionnement book seems more geared toward being a grammar resource rather than a workbook. I prefer workbooks because they're easier for me to use, and I really need a low barrier to entry right now.

[Le Baron]

With regard to the subjunctive I get the impression students avoid it because they think it's harder than other parts of French...because it is so often presented as hard. Most of the explanations of it are more complicated than just looking at lots of examples of it in use.

A couple of observations about the subjunctive is that it's most frequently used (in speech) in the je, tu and il/elle/on forms and in general revolves around a fairly small group of verbs being used over and over again. Also that the irregular forms are quite few and will probably end up memorised through usage: être, avoir, aller, faire, vouloir, savoir, pouvoir. These and others like prendre, venir really are the ones coming up the most. I'm not saying others don't, but once those are grasped in use learning the others flows from this.

I believe in learning grammar though I think it's also necessary to simply develop reflexes based upon common examples. It's one thing to know the official explanation that subjunctive mood is used in relation to conditional or hypothetical wish or preference, but really the practical acquisition of it in use involves the knack of hitting que/qui and instantly slotting in the subjunctive verb from rote example seen over and over again. So something like Il faut que j'aille... just becomes a rote everyday phrase. Which is really how we learned the more limited, but equally vague, English subjunctives : if I were you..., the so-called 'mandate sentences' e.g.: 'it is required that every member inform (not informs) himself beforehand..' And many fixed expressions: 'As it may be... were it so... God bless you...' Forgive the detour into English, but the point is that I think the French subjunctive is probably equally best acquired by a mixture of knowing a rule, but acquiring the common core usages. It's how I approached it in Spanish. You'll have your own approach though.

[galaxyrocker]

I realized that I needed to order doggie bags from Amazon, so I threw in Progressive Grammaire Avancé (B1-B2) and the correction booklet. I'm hoping it has more on tenses and subjunctive than the B2-C2 book.

Either way, the Perfectionnement book seems more geared toward being a grammar resource rather than a workbook. I prefer workbooks because they're easier for me to use, and I really need a low barrier to entry right now.

I've not looked at the Perfectionnement workbook, but I have mixed feelings about the Avancé one from what little I've done. It's more in-depth than the intermediate, but I still feel a lot of times the exercises in it aren't all that enlightening. Mostly just "Put this in the right tense/mood", when you already know which one to expect. Not a lot on figuring out when to use each thing if it doesn't match with English, just lots of practice doing it. I found that a bit frustrating, though there is at least a page on explaining when to use subjunctive versus indicative, and at least one page's worth of exercises for it. But it might not be the best to treat it as a workbook as much as a reference with some practice exercises with it.

[Iversen]

I didn't want to fill up your log with one of my own interminably long rants so I put it in my own log instead - but my general advice concerning grammar is to cut it down to bitsized palatable pieces, even if that means that you can't include all the details here and now. And here I suggest that you write the main things which you want to remember down on a piece of paper - the process of formulating something in a more concise form is in itself one way of making sure that you remember it. And in my opinion using a marker in the grammar of textbook is not enough - you have to formulate your own summary with your own words, else it won't stick.

In the case of mode in French you have to be able to distinguish different kinds of subordinate clauses, but after that, the main thing to do is to separate things that are obligatory from things that depend on semantics. And that's what I started to do, but then the description became too long to put here.

[zjones]

With regard to the subjunctive I get the impression students avoid it because they think it's harder than other parts of French...because it is so often presented as hard. Most of the explanations of it are more complicated than just looking at lots of examples of it in use[...]

Thank you for the notes. It does seem like a matter of exposure as well as understanding the situations in which it is used. I am struggling with the fact that I barely know how subjunctive works at this point. I am starting from the absolute basics with this tense, since I barely scratched the surface of subjunctive when I was at my most advanced (~B2). After some book-learning, I hope that exposure will help me round out my ability to use it.

I've not looked at the Perfectionnement workbook, but I have mixed feelings about the Avancé one from what little I've done. It's more in-depth than the intermediate, but I still feel a lot of times the exercises in it aren't all that enlightening. Mostly just "Put this in the write tense/mood", when you already know which one to expect. Not a lot on figuring out when to use each thing if it doesn't match with English, just lots of practice doing it. I found that a bit frustrating, though there is at least a page on explaining when to use subjunctive versus indicative, and at least one page's worth of exercises for it. But it might not be the best to treat it as a workbook as much as a reference with some practice exercises with it.

It's always good to hear from someone else who uses the CLE books. I'm a little disappointed to hear your thoughts on it, but I still think it's going to be useful for me. I have a beginning grammar book, which is far below my level and is more of a frustration than anything else, because I have to weed through all the beginner material. Perfectionnement has the opposite problem and is incredibly dense. Regardless of Avancé's usefulness for subjunctive and tenses, it will be useful for me to have something in between those two levels. Again, thanks for sharing your thoughts and I'm curious to see if I feel the same way when it arrives.

I didn't want to fill up your log with one of my own interminably long rants so I put it in my own log instead - but my general advice concerning grammar is to cut it down to bitsized palatable pieces, even if that means that you can't include all the details here and now. And here I suggest that you write the main things which you want to remember down on a piece of paper - the process of formulating something in a more concise form is in itself one way of making sure that you remember it. And in my opinion using a marker in the grammar of textbook is not enough - you have to formulate your own summary with your own words, else it won't stick.

Thank you for stopping by, Iverson. I read through your post and found myself rather confused by the different kinds of clauses you mentioned. I wasn't entirely clear on what a lot of them were. Maybe this is something I should brush up on while I'm working on subjunctive and return to your post at that point. However, I really like your idea of putting grammatical ideas into one's own words as a learning exercise, and I plan on following your advice as I'm learning the more difficult parts of French grammar.

[Cavesa]

I realized that I needed to order doggie bags from Amazon, so I threw in Progressive Grammaire Avancé (B1-B2) and the correction booklet. I'm hoping it has more on tenses and subjunctive than the B2-C2 book.

Either way, the Perfectionnement book seems more geared toward being a grammar resource rather than a workbook. I prefer workbooks because they're easier for me to use, and I really need a low barrier to entry right now.

I've not looked at the Perfectionnement workbook, but I have mixed feelings about the Avancé one from what little I've done. It's more in-depth than the intermediate, but I still feel a lot of times the exercises in it aren't all that enlightening. Mostly just "Put this in the write tense/mood", when you already know which one to expect. Not a lot on figuring out when to use each thing if it doesn't match with English, just lots of practice doing it. I found that a bit frustrating, though there is at least a page on explaining when to use subjunctive versus indicative, and at least one page's worth of exercises for it. But it might not be the best to treat it as a workbook as much as a reference with some practice exercises with it.

-even the exercises with expected outcome (you know what tense to use) have value, as they make people practice forming the correct tense and they are good for automatisation. But you can also use them differently, you can always enrich tehm by some vocab substitutions, using more tenses, practicing a different grammar feature on the sentences, and so on. Most people can do with lots of "just doing it" drills.
-some pages are on figuring out "which tense", some are not. It depends. But I would just like to point out that these books are not for anglophones only, you are not the only target audience. What you find useless may be priceless for a learner, who happens to be a native Czech, German, or Turkish speaker. It is always a compromise. Also, a lot of the "which tense" stuff is covered also in the intermediaire and the perfectionnement books, so perhaps the authors just didn't find it necessary to put every topic in the same length in every level.
-the best part is, that you can treat it any way you want. reference and/or workbook, supplement to a different resource or main resource, you can use the exercises in various ways, and so on.

[zjones]

I've not looked at the Perfectionnement workbook, but I have mixed feelings about the Avancé one from what little I've done. It's more in-depth than the intermediate, but I still feel a lot of times the exercises in it aren't all that enlightening. Mostly just "Put this in the write tense/mood", when you already know which one to expect. Not a lot on figuring out when to use each thing if it doesn't match with English, just lots of practice doing it. I found that a bit frustrating, though there is at least a page on explaining when to use subjunctive versus indicative, and at least one page's worth of exercises for it. But it might not be the best to treat it as a workbook as much as a reference with some practice exercises with it.

-even the exercises with expected outcome (you know what tense to use) have value, as they make people practice forming the correct tense and they are good for automatisation. But you can also use them differently, you can always enrich tehm by some vocab substitutions, using more tenses, practicing a different grammar feature on the sentences, and so on. Most people can do with lots of "just doing it" drills.
-some pages are on figuring out "which tense", some are not. It depends. But I would just like to point out that these books are not for anglophones only, you are not the only target audience. What you find useless may be priceless for a learner, who happens to be a native Czech, German, or Turkish speaker. It is always a compromise. Also, a lot of the "which tense" stuff is covered also in the intermediaire and the perfectionnement books, so perhaps the authors just didn't find it necessary to put every topic in the same length in every level.
-the best part is, that you can treat it any way you want. reference and/or workbook, supplement to a different resource or main resource, you can use the exercises in various ways, and so on.

I received Grammaire Progressive du Français Avancé (B1-B2) a few days ago and I really like it. It doesn't get lost in beginner material such as conjugations for each verb type or how to determine feminine/masculine nouns. (But there is a handy conjugation chart in the back in case I need a refresher.) Yet it does go over how to use le passé simple, le futur, le conditionnel and all of their variations, such as l'antériorité, which I struggle with.

Compared to the Perfectionnement, I think this Avancé book is much more like a workbook. It's less dense and more colorful, without being distracting. Common mistakes or exceptions are indicated with a red warning sign, which I appreciate. This is a true B1-B2 grammar that I would recommend to the full range of B1-B2 learners. I probably wouldn't recommend Perfectionnement (B2-C2) unless you just want a reference or you're starting to crest the B2-C1 divide.

Despite the limited time I've spent with the Avancé grammar, I already like it more than any of the other CLE books I have -- although all of them are good. I'm looking forward to seeing how useful it is for understanding the subjunctive and other advanced tenses.

I will continue to proselytize for CLE, especially if they keep improving their books and adding online material (they're a bit behind on that). Their books are a really good fit for my learning style.

[galaxyrocker]

I'm glad you enjoy it and it's working for you, but it's not what I was looking for and I still think it fails on several of things I'd consider "true" workbook material, namely pages and pages of practice problems (as opposed to the CLE method of page of explanations, then maybe 20 problems), with answers, as well as more of a focus on distinguishing between tenses, to try to help internalise that. I'll still finish it cause, well, I've bought it, but from my experience with both this one and the intermediate one (and one of the vocabulary books), I'm of the opinion the books are a bit overrated.

As said, it's probably what I'm looking for in a book is different than what CLE provides, and that's no means an overall value judgement (I also think the Office is the most overrated TV show to ever air), but a statement of what I'm looking for. That said, I'm glad they're working for you and what you needed at this point of learning and for your learning style.

One thing I do like is that they're not heavily online focused. I hate having to rely on the internet to do exercises, especially for physical books I bought. The only exception is for audio downloads, only because it's almost impossible to buy a computer with a CD-drive these days. But, again, I'm glad you found something that works, and I hope you don't mind me airing of my frustrations with it here! I'll likely finish it cause, well, I have it, but I need to look for something else to complement it for what I want to focus on and how I want to do it. Shows the importance of catering towards all types!

[Iversen]

-even the exercises with expected outcome (you know what tense to use) have value, as they make people practice forming the correct tense and they are good for automatisation. But you can also use them differently, you can always enrich them by some vocab substitutions, using more tenses, practicing a different grammar feature on the sentences, and so on. Most people can do with lots of "just doing it" drills.
-some pages are on figuring out "which tense", some are not. It depends. But I would just like to point out that these books are not for anglophones only, you are not the only target audience. What you find useless may be priceless for a learner, who happens to be a native Czech, German, or Turkish speaker. It is always a compromise.

It's definitely possible and often a good idea to use exercises differently from what was intended - actually it's exactly the same thing we do when we use native texts or speech written/spoken for other native speakers as our study materials. As for the importance of the language of the learner, things are more complicated, and it can't be reduced to a question of Anglophone versus something else (the same of course applies to learners who use materials in other 'big' languages like German, French or Russian because they can't find enough materials in their own language).

There may be a problem with English words for tenses, cases etc., but then you just have to learn them (yes, it's a hard and unforgiving world!) - I should know because I don't think in Anglophone grammatical terms, but rather in French or Latin ones (or Danish ones in a pinch), and that hasn't stopped me from using Wikipedia or Anglophone grammars from Routledge. As for recognizing forms in the target languages it all depends on the native language of the learner, and for instance an Italian or Spanish learner may be better suited to regognize French forms than an Anglophone even though they use the same Anglophone learning materials. It may be a problem if there are no materials at all in a budding learner's native language because it is hard to start a totally new language up from scratch using materials in a foreign language, but once you have climbed the first steps of the ladder the advantage should be minimized. At that point you should know the quirks of the system and enough af the target language to do your own thing with it.

And we probably all experience that some elements in a pedagogical system don't appeal to us so we skip them. For me that's definitely all exercises where you just have to pick one form from a list and everything where there isn't a solution somewhere in the book. I can see the point in translation exercises, and I have in some cases also used the texts of a textbook because they are the easiest ones you can find. But that's where my interest in textbook systems ends.

I'm glad you enjoy it and it's working for you, but it's not what I was looking for and I still think it fails on several of things I'd consider "true" workbook material, namely pages and pages of practice problems (as opposed to the CLE method of page of explanations, then maybe 20 problems), with answers,

One thing that bothers me is when there is just one example of each phenomenon, or when the examples are long quotes from famous authors. I would prefer a concise explanation followed by three or four examples with carefully planned differences so that you can see the wheels turning. As for problems and exercises: their main purpose is to lure you into peeking in the solutions. And again: the exercises should be planned to illustrate important phenomena from several sides. An exercise that says "put the 1.person of verbum X in the past tense here" is not nearly as efficient as trying it out with all 6 past forms or all six forms of the future tense would be.