Advice on my next steps on french

[kgoedert]

Hi,

I just took the https://dialangweb.lancaster.ac.uk/ tests, and my scores in french were these:
Placement test: 700
Vocabulary: B1
Structures: B1
Reading: C1
Writing: B1
Listening: B2

I also just finished a super challenge. Now, I would like to improve these skills. Apart from keep reading books and watching tv series and movies, reviewing my anki decks for vocabulary, I was considering creating anki cards with sentences from tv series or movies, with the objective of listening and writing complete sentences that I could verify fast. Instead of using subs2srs, I am considering doing them myself, so I will also be forced to listen and compare the subtitle I have with what is being said.

Do you think this will help improve my skills? Or is this just more of the same? Would you suggest any other activities?

Thanks
Kelly

[rdearman]

Instead of using subs2srs, I am considering doing them myself, so I will also be forced to listen and compare the subtitle I have with what is being said.

I would caution here that not all (in fact very few, I think) subtitles are word for word translations of the dialogue. So although you can compare, just be aware that it probably isn't exact. For this exercise you might be better off finding a podcast with a word-for-word transcription.

Vocabulary: B1
Structures: B1
Writing: B1

Given these scores I would be inclined to work on vocabulary, specifically vocabulary you're not likely to encounter in whatever books got you to C1. Personally I would look at using a frequency list, although I know a lot of people don't like this idea.

I would also start to load your ANKI deck with grammar cards to help with sentence structures. You can pull a lot out of a grammar book.

Finally I personally have set a goal of writing more in French and to do this I'm trying to do the same thing I'd need to do on a DELF exam, which is write an essay. I have found a lot of essay topics on the Internet, but I can give you a few examples here:

• Pick an experience from your own life and explain how it has influenced your development.
• Who in your life has been your biggest influence and why?
• How has your family background affected the way you see the world?
• Choose a person or persons you admire and explain why.
• Choose a book or books and that have affected you deeply and explain why.
• Should smoking be allowed at parks and other outdoor public venues?
• Should cities offer free public Wi-Fi?
• Should the government place a tax on junk food and fatty snacks?

Or

Prompt: The price of greatness is responsibility. -- Winston Churchill
Assignment: Do we expect too much from our public figures? Plan your response, and then write an essay...

Prompt: A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation. -- C.E.Ayers
Assignment: Is it always essential to tell the truth, or are there circumstances in which it is better to lie? Plan your response, and then write an essay...

There a loads more on the Internet as sample essay questions, but these would certainly give you output practice. You completed the Super Challenge, now complete the Output Challenge.

Output will help your vocabulary & structure, because you'll need to look up words and structure in order to generate correct sentences.

[kgoedert]

First of all, thanks for the suggestions.

About the grammar cards on anki, I was expecting that the cards with the sentences from the series/movies would do that. Since I was planning to add the sound corresponding to the phrase, I write each one after listening. I thought that forcing me to pay attention to every word to write them would make me pay more attention to structure, prepositions and when they are used etc..

About writing, yeah... I am very guilty of not write at all. I am very lazy to write and I avoid it even on my native language. But, I guess you are right. I will have to write. I even have a bookmark on my browser called 365 days of writing. An idea for each day of the year.

I haven't thought about the frequency lists. I will try one to see how it goes.

[Cavesa]

I would recommend two things:

1.Grammaire Progressive and Vocabulaire Progressif workbooks. I am not sure whether you should start with intermediaire, but the books are awesome. and work your way up to Perfectionnement, that will equip you for the C1 or even C2 level well. Don't underestimate the importance of grammar. Fewer mistakes are being expected from a C1 speaker, that is one of the huge differences between B2 and C1. At B2, you can talk about quite everything. At the C levels, your precision and nuances grow. Most grammar mistakes (because you will be making some even at C2) should be an accident, not a systematically showing sign of a gap in the knowledge. And while I totally agree that you need more than grammar to speak well, I don't agree with the modern tendencies to "not focus on grammar, just speak and speak" because mistake fossilization is easy, and grammar mistakes simply make a bad impression.

2.Lots of listening. Lots. Super Challenge is a good start, I suppose you began at a low level and had to use appropriate and not so hard stuff, didn't you? Tons of listening become even more important now. Input by natives for natives. Lots of it. Time for a new SC
That should help a lot with every aspect of learning but reading and writing.

3.There are very good quality +French courses by Eunoia based on the Lexique frequency database, and I've made a big course on conjugations. You can have a look at all these together in this group: https://www.memrise.com/group/143603/

4.I recommend making notes during the day about stuff you are talking or thinking about. Write it down and later look it up, don't lie to yourself: "I will remember that". It is a good way to discover your personal gaps ("how would I say this sentence naturally?" "would this example be indicative or subjonctif in French?" "How do I say shoelaces?") and your personal needs that no frequency list or coursebook in the world can accurately cover.

5.Don't resign on further reading. It is an important skill, that helps with all the other parts too. And one where you can always find something more challenging, the ladder is endless even for natives, I'd think

And most importantly: Congratulations, you got to the next level! The one where you can have more and more fun!

[tarvos]

"not focus on grammar, just speak and speak" because mistake fossilization is easy, and grammar mistakes simply make a bad impression.

I say this to students who lack confidence, not to everybody. That advice works up to about B1, when you have to change approach (and if you check Benny Lewis' advice, he actually often mentions this!). However, grammar mistakes only make a bad impression to grammar nazis. The thing is that we should be aware that perfection is a utopia.

However, Cavesa is right that at B1 reading becomes VERY important for vocabulary. At B1, forget about Proust and co. though - get yourself some nice Amélie Nothomb or Fred Vargas and read that instead. Stuff that's easy to read and hard to put down like detective novels and so on always work a charm.

Writing is more important at B1 as well. Speaking is important to practice in order to get complex elements like the subjunctive right, and especially figure out when Portuguese uses the subjunctive but French doesn't.

And don't think that one book gets you there. It's more like ten, twenty. I have a bookcase that is composed almost entirely of fiction in foreign languages, and my best languages also contain the most fiction.

Modern methods focus on communication because it's usually the FIRST thing you need to learn, but they often don't go beyond that (or teach the wrong thing). Once you get to B1 textbooks become generally useless.

I like grammar books, but I would pick out only the exercises for the grammar issues that give me a hard time. Don't bother with declining adjectives if you know how to do that already, it's a waste of time. Focus on the things that give YOU a hard time. I did Czech word order exercises precisely because the word order was different from Russian and giving me a headache. I didn't really do verb conjugations because they work more or less the same with a few small differences.

[Cavesa]

A lot of good advice in Tarvos' post, as always. Yes, one book is not gonna make a difference. 10000 pages will Jean-Christophe Grangé is another good choice, if you are into thrillers. Marc Levy usually gets recommended at the same time as Nothomb and I really like his books (I haven't read Nothomb yet). Well, at C1 quite anything is accessible, there just needs to be a lot of it and of various kinds.

I recommend going through that systematic grammarbook because sometimes we don't know we have a problem until we see the solution. Of course you don't need to do these books from the first unit to the last and with all the exercises, they leave you a lot of freedom. Pick whatever you need at the moment, but don't forget that the "not urgently needed" pages contain a lot of value too.

However, grammar mistakes only make a bad impression to grammar nazis. The thing is that we should be aware that perfection is a utopia.

Not only grammar nazis. Of course there are various registers and various situations, that is what grammar nazis usually don't see, they expect perfection at any time. Perfection doesn't exist, true, but as I wrote, the progress to higher levels is also about making fewer mistakes.

Mistakes often make a bad impression in our native languages too, why should it be different for language learners that strive for more than just touristy level? People who make lots of mistakes are often perceived (and treated) as dumber than they are. Strong accents have a similar effect. Grammar mistakes and weaknesses often are a limiting factor in our productive skills and in the "perceived quality" of our speaking and writing.

I am not saying that people who make grammar mistakes are dumb. No, I am not a grammar nazi. We just look dumber than necessary with them It's like delivering a present. Nice content that either gets wrapped in a colourful paper or in a dirty rag.

[kgoedert]

Lots of useful advice once again. Now, I will have to sit down and organize myself to look for the material and make use of them.
Grammar and the writing part will be the hardest no doubt about it. I decided to start today my output challenge to write 50,000 words in a year. I got to write a little bit more than 200 today. Let's see if I can go through with them.

Reading is something I will never stop doing, because I think it is what got me interested in languages, after reading a magazine article explaining something about how translation processes can get the meaning of a sentence completely different from the original. At that point I remember thinking that maybe I wasn't reading what the author expected me too, so I was wasting my time. If I can read the original I can make my on mistakes on interpretation or translation or whatever...

For the listening part, I plan to go through the simpsons, since there are transcriptions in french available on the internet, so I can easily check what I just heard.

[reineke]

Tread lightly.

[DaveBee]

3.There are very good quality +French courses by Eunoia based on the Lexique frequency database, and I've made a big course on conjugations. You can have a look at all these together in this group: https://www.memrise.com/group/143603/

That link sends me to a login page.

The one below should not.

https://www.memrise.com/user/Eunoia/courses/teaching/

EDIT
https://www.memrise.com/user/Thawrea/courses/teaching/

[tarvos]

Tread lightly.

For you tread on my dreams.