The French C1/C2 Group

[PeterMollenburg]

J'ai dû aller au centre-ville de la grande ville aujourd'hui pour un rendez-vous et après qu'il a été terminé, je me suis décidé d'aller à un magasin à une...

I might be totally wrong here but to me this phrase seems unnatural. Saying it out loud 'feels' weird. To me, it should be d'aller au magasin or d'aller dans un magasin.

Again, i could be totally wrong so don't mind being corrected. I'm relying solely on my 'feeling' here.

Still feels ok to me. I didn't want to say 'the' shop, even though it is a specific shop. I had not yet identified it fully, so it still feels right to me

I can't resist adding these nice shiny 'Progressive' books to my handy little wish list.

So, ummm, yeah, my wish list has exponentially expanded, but I'm just not ready to click the 'buy' button. Just don't encourage me, I really don't need it!

J'ai dû aller au centre-ville de la grande ville aujourd'hui pour un rendez-vous et après qu'il a été terminé, je me suis décidé d'aller à un magasin à une demi-heure en plus en voiture de l'endroit où j'ai eu le rendez-vous. Quelle sorte de magasin est-ce que je vous ai entendu me demander ? Quelle sorte !! Quelle sorte !! Pfft, celui avec des livres et des manuels POUR APPRENDRE DES LANGUES ÉTRANGÈRES !!! Vous êtes des zozos ou quoi ?! Alors, j'y suis allé à toute allure (d'accord au niveau de la limite de vitesse puisque de nos jours il y des radars et des caméras partout !) avec deux choses en tête... acheter plus de manuels de CLE, et acheter un livre pour ma fille. Donc, mission accomplie ! J'ai acheté le reste des deux séries Grammaire Progressive du Français et Vocabulaire Progressif du Français.

Pendant que j'étais là, j'ai remarqué qu'ils avaient aussi les livres qu'aravinda avait mentionnés de CLE aussi Difficultés explquées.... Non je ne les ai pas achetés. Ce ne sont pas pour moi... Alors, en vrai, c'est que j'ai déjà beaucoup trop de manuels. Je n'ai pas besoin d'eux, ni de ceux que j'ai achetés non plus... mais vous me connaissez trop bien, hein

Maintentant, les Phonétique Progressive du Français et Conjugaison Progressive du Français Du coup, je me trouve en train de me demander... d'y réfléchir... de calculer... si le magasin est toujours ouvert, si je dois y retourner tout de suite !!! C'est très très très important ! Si je n'y vais pas dès maintenant, je... je... je mourirais !!

What's the Phonétique book like ? Like the Conjugaison book but with phonetics i guess ? Listen and repeat stuff or something ? I would definitely be interested in something like that if you or anyone else has used it.

Sorry, I don't own it (yet?) nor have I used it.

[tastyonions]

"Aller dans un magasin" me semble mieux, en effet, mais ce sont mes "instincts" qui parlent.

[PeterMollenburg]

"Aller dans un magasin" me semble mieux, en effet, mais ce sont mes "instincts" qui parlent.

Perhaps I would say that if I was close by and about to enter the shop, but I was 30 min away by car, so entering the shop was not yet the objective, rather getting there was.

[Arnaud]

I might be totally wrong here but to me this phrase seems unnatural.

You're wrong, the whole text is unnatural. But that's normal, Peter isn't yet C2. The text is too heavy, the grammar must be at the service of the text, and not the contrary. Let's take the first sentence:

J'ai dû aller au centre-ville de la grande ville aujourd'hui pour un rendez-vous et après qu'il a été terminé, je me suis décidé d'aller à un magasin à une demi-heure en plus en voiture de l'endroit où j'ai eu le rendez-vous.

Aujourd'hui, j'ai dû aller au centre-ville pour un rendez-vous et j'ai ensuite décidé d'aller dans un magasin à une demi-heure de voiture de l'endroit où j'étais. (it's a proposition of improvement, someone else could have written something else, of course)

Repetition of "ville" and "rendez-vous": good style=no repetition (it's a rule of thumb, so that means that you have to structure your text in a way that the repetitions aren't necessary, by using a good word order or implying some things (here I imply that as you go to the city center, you live in the suburbs or in a little town in the back country: no precision is necessary: I can remove "la grande ville"), après que + indicatif (congrats, you know your grammar, but too heavy here), se décider à/décider de, une 1/2 heure en plus en voiture (not correct).
I myself repeat the verb "aller", I could have written "se rendre" to avoid that, but "aller" is super frequent, so it's not a big problem.

[LesRonces]

Still feels ok to me. I didn't want to say 'the' shop, even though it is a specific shop. I had not yet identified it fully, so it still feels right to me

I definitely could be wrong. Google brings up more results for your version than mine so i definitely maybe wrong ! Yours just sounds unnatural to me when i say it. Maybe because of the '[all]er à un' part.

[aravinda]

What's the Phonétique book like? Like the Conjugaison book but with phonetics i guess ? Listen and repeat stuff or something ? I would definitely be interested in something like that if you or anyone else has used it.

I have the intermediate Phonétique book (and the answer book that accompanies it). For me, it's one of the most useful books in the whole series of Progessive du Français. (You really don't need the beginner book: intermediate book covers all the basics well).
Like other books in the series, in this book, the explanations on the left are immediately followed by exercises on the right. After an introductory section (8 chapters) that deals with characteristics of spoken French, there are sections on vowels (some 20 chapters), consonants (14), semivowels (2), and finally a section dealing with communicative activities. The book comes with audio but you need to buy the answer key separately.

First section (which I find really nice) deals with things such as l'enchaînement, la liaison, l'intonation etc. The next two sections take French sounds (that are similar or difficult to differentiate but important) in groups of two or three. In every chapter, a description of how each sound is produced is shown with pictures of the tongue position, the shape of lips etc. This is followed by some notes on how these sounds are represented in spelling. As you guessed, some exercises are Listen and Repeat but there are other types that require you to produce oral responses according to a given pattern/questions.

Publishers website used to have a Look Inside function for some/most of these books but after the recent revamp of the website,
it's gone. Here is the link to the relevant page:
https://www.cle-international.com/reche ... gories/699

Overall, I find it to be very useful. Having said that there are several alternatives as good as this one. For example:

These two from Hachette
http://www.hachettefle.com/ouvrages_Exe ... 56984.html
http://www.hachettefle.com/ouvrages_Exe ... 57545.html

These two from Didier
https://www.editionsdidier.com/fr/sous- ... ncais-a1a2
https://www.editionsdidier.com/fr/sous- ... u-trancais

These two again from Didier
https://www.editionsdidier.com/fr/sous- ... phonetique

Or this book (Typical of CENGAGE, this is quite expensive and you can't get the answer key unless you are a lecturer. Copies of the previous edition can be bought at a much lower price)
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/1305652592/ref ... 4P3V75NZ7F

If you prefer a book in English, there's one from Pronounce it Perfectly series. As far as I know all other language books (except the English one) in the series are out of print. Unlike other books in the series which, in my opinion, are not very useful, this French book is different and quite good. (However, I prefer the French books).

https://www.amazon.com/Pronounce-Perfec ... +in+french

Hope this helps.

Edited for typos.

[schlaraffenland]

First section (which I find really nice) deals with things l'enchaînement, la liaison, l'intonation etc.

Please tell me it deals with plus and tous under changing circumstances ! That alone would be worth the price of the book to me.

[LesRonces]

What's the Phonétique book like ? Like the Conjugaison book but with phonetics i guess ? Listen and repeat stuff or something ? I would definitely be interested in something like that if you or anyone else has used it.

I have the intermediate Phonétique book (and the answer book that accompanies it). For me, it's one of the most useful books in the whole Progessive du Français series. (You really don't need the beginner book: intermediate book covers all the basics well).
Like other books in the series, in this book the explanations on the left are immediately folllowed by exercises on the right. After an introductory section (8 chapters) that deals with characteristics of spoken French, there are sections on vowels (some 20 chapters), consoants (14), semivowels (2), and finally a section dealing with communicative activities. The book comes with audio but you need to buy the answer key separately.

First section (which I find really nice) deals with things l'enchaînement, la liaison, l'intonation etc. The next two sections take French sounds (that are similar or difficult to differentiate but important) in groups of two or three. In every chapter a description of how each sound is produced is shown with pictires of the tongue position, the shape of lips etc. This is followed by some notes on how these sounds are represented in spelling. As you guessed, some excercises are Listen and Repeat but there are other types that require you to produce oral responses according to a given pattern/questions.

Publishers website used to have a Look Inside function for some/most of these books but after the recent revamp of the website
it's gone. Here is the link to the relevant page:
https://www.cle-international.com/reche ... gories/699

Overall, I find it to be very useful. Having said that there are several alternatives as good as this one. For example:

These two from Hachette
http://www.hachettefle.com/ouvrages_Exe ... 56984.html
http://www.hachettefle.com/ouvrages_Exe ... 57545.html

These two from Didier
https://www.editionsdidier.com/fr/sous- ... ncais-a1a2
https://www.editionsdidier.com/fr/sous- ... u-trancais

These two again from Didier
https://www.editionsdidier.com/fr/sous- ... phonetique

Or this book (Typical of CENGAGE, this is quite expensive and you can't get the the answer key unless you are a lecturer. Copies of the previous edition can be bought at a much lower price)
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/1305652592/ref ... 4P3V75NZ7F

If you prefer a book in English, there's one from Pronounce it Perfectly series. As far as I know all other language books (except the English one) in the series are out of print. Unlike other books in the series which in my opinion are not very useful, this French book is different and quite good. (However, I prefer the French books).

https://www.amazon.com/Pronounce-Perfec ... +in+french

Hope this helps.

Edited fot typos.

Wow great stuff thanks. I may just check that out then.

[aravinda]

First section (which I find really nice) deals with things l'enchaînement, la liaison, l'intonation etc.

Please tell me it deals with plus and tous under changing circumstances ! That alone would be worth the price of the book to me.

I checked my book. It has few scattered exercises covering plus and tous but it's definitely NOT worth buying the book for them alone. However, I am glad you asked. It reminded me of a booklet on French phonetics which I forgot to mention in the above post. It doesn't have audio (author never intended so) but it's great.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0875632157/_e ... G4L434FYVR

I don't have my copy at hand but I found the part you need from a Preview (hope this is not a copyright violation):

[PeterMollenburg]

. Tomorrow the big mission starts... and now I feel unwell Nothing however will stop me, not even death!!

I wouldn't tempt the Grim Reaper, that guy has no sense of humour!