Le groupe français 2016 - 2023 Les Voyageurs

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
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zjones
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Languages: English (N), French (B1-certified), Spanish and Greek (abandoned)
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby zjones » Tue Oct 16, 2018 2:25 pm

Speakeasy wrote:
zjones wrote:Are there any other drill-based French courses apart from FSI? ...
The audio-lingual method (drill, drill, drill) was so pervasive in American high school and university language courses in the 1970's that virtually all publishers of French courses destined for classroom instruction published their own versions. In many cases, copies of the course books can still be found on the internet and, quite possibly, in the archives of some of the larger universities. The difficulty is locating the corresponding audio files. As the "language laboratory method" declined in popularity, and as audio recording technology continued to evolve, much of the equipment was trashed, the reel-to-reel tapes as well.

Coming back to the FSI French drills, I have a fairly large collection of audio-lingual textbooks for the teaching of German and, having familiarised myself with their contents, I must admit that the method's reputation for mind-numbing drills was well-deserved. Although I have not completed either the FSI French Basic OR the DLI French Basic courses, I have skimmed through the materials and I found that the latter's drills were a little more engaging. You can locate the files on the Yojik.eu website. You might also try the "updated" version of the FSI French Basic course which is available via Audible as "Mastering French" but which, unfortunately, is an incomplete work-in-progress.

DLI French Basic
https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/DLI/DLI-French.html

FSI Basic Courses: Updated
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=6400

Vas-y, t'es capable!

EDITED:
Tinkering.


Thank you, you are such a wealth of information. :D I will try DLI French Basic this week to see if it suits me better than FSI. Otherwise I might try writing some of my own drills if I find the motivation...

As far as the Mastering French course on Audible, do you know if only the audio is remastered (keeping the same drills and vocabulary as the original) or if they have also changed the course material?

Merci beaucoup!
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Speakeasy
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby Speakeasy » Tue Oct 16, 2018 3:29 pm

zjones wrote: … you are such a wealth of information.… As far as the Mastering French course on Audible, do you know if only the audio is remastered (keeping the same drills and vocabulary as the original) or if they have also changed the course material? Merci beaucoup!
Rebonjour, zjones! Information is a well-arranged summary of useful facts, details, particulars, data, et cetera. I have a wealth of data, but information??? :ugeek: In the discussion thread "FSI Basic Courses: Updated, I posted an extract from a series of Emails that Scott Brians and I exchanged, one which suggests that the "nouvelle mouture" of FSI French is a mixture of the old and the new ...
Speakeasy wrote:
Scott Brians to Speakeasy, 2017-07-26
"• The original FSI French Course manuscript was almost prefect as it was - no teacher needed. We’ve kept a lot of it. A comparison between the original and our version will bear witness to that. We have modernized some of the phrases as the spoken language has changed some. To be thorough, we have kept some of the old, for it still exists, if not used much. We have added “in-between” drills to avoid a massive jump from easy to difficult drills. The student would be cruising at level 2 and suddenly was faced with difficulty 8. We added a level 4 and 6 in-between to ease the student into the more difficult material.

•Differences in German and French:
o We’ve deleted translation drills to keep the student completely immersed in the target language. May add this in the future, but for “purity” reasons, may not.
o We’ve incorporated lots of travel related vocabulary so our students can visit the country and use their new skills right off the bat. Oddly enough, the original FSI was very weak in this aspect: they were geared for bureaucrats working at the embassy, not college students, travelers or professional sales people.
o As you noted, in the beginning modules, we have added slow and (near) native speed of the same text to get the true beginner started.
o Annette speaks a little slower in the earlier modules than in the latter, again, to help the true beginner.
o As stated before, the CD quality recording and longer pauses make the learning process much easier, again, to help the true beginner."
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Speakeasy
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby Speakeasy » Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:04 pm

For those who are interested in following zjones' question concerning "drill-based French courses", I have posted an addendum to my initial reply, above, wherein I have made mention of two Linguaphone courses. :geek:
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DaveAgain
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby DaveAgain » Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:32 pm

MamaPata wrote:It turns out that I am very briefly going to be in Paris this week. Does anyone have any cheap and central bookshop recommendations? I appreciate cheap and central is asking for the world, but I am there for a stupidly short time (and all in the very centre) and have little money.
I think you should have a secondary goal of photographing berets in the wild. 'Beret + stripy jersey + onions' being the most sought after combination.
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Adrianslont
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby Adrianslont » Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:48 pm

I will second the suggestion of the second hand book sellers song the river. The variety and quality of titles is good. Exact locations I can’t remember but should be easy to find out.
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James.A.
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby James.A. » Tue Oct 30, 2018 5:41 am

Bonjour, tout le monde!

May I please join your group? I consider myself at a level of about B2, but I haven't had the chance to speak the language yet, so my level is more or less imaginary :roll: I mainly read literature and at the moment I am trying to increase my understanding of the spoken language.

À bientôt, les voyageurs!
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Super Challenge: Spanish
9000 minutes (films/audiobooks) : 9000 / 9000 (100/100)
5000 pages (books) : 5000 / 5000 (100/100)

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Carmody
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby Carmody » Tue Oct 30, 2018 2:53 pm

James.A.
Bienvenu et bon courage!
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MamaPata
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Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby MamaPata » Tue Oct 30, 2018 9:09 pm

Well I didn't manage to get any berets on camera, but I did get several books! (As a kid I used to go to cheese festivals complete with an accordion player, so maybe I used up my share of French stereotypes).

In case anyone else ends up looking for bookshops in Paris, I can absolutely confirm Ogrim's suggestion of Gilbert Joseph. So much non-fiction (I made myself put about five books back and I'm slightly sorry I didn't get some language coursebooks), loads of discounted books, generally excellent. A few doors down, there are also some second hand bookshops. I didn't get anything there but looked promising.

I also went to Librairie du Québec, which unsurprisingly is a Québécois bookshop. They didn't have many discounts but an excellent selection.

Finally, I'd recommend Les Mots à la Bouche, which is an LGBT bookshop. They had quite a few things in English and a lot in translation, but a brilliant collection of titles and also lots of Francophone content. Plus, they were very friendly and nice. It's slightly further away from the others, but I walked between all of them so it can be done.
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DaveAgain
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby DaveAgain » Tue Nov 06, 2018 6:26 pm

Do you have a favourite french language radio station?

Recently I've been trying to include more french language radio in my day. Europe 1 and TSF Jazz are the ones I most often choose.
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Deinonysus
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby Deinonysus » Tue Nov 06, 2018 9:38 pm

DaveAgain wrote:Do you have a favourite french language radio station?

Recently I've been trying to include more french language radio in my day. Europe 1 and TSF Jazz are the ones I most often choose.

My wife and I love Chante France!

I believe it's a Paris station. In addition to their main station which plays a mix of classic and current French pop music, they also have separate channels for the '80s, '70s, '60s, "Emotion", and "Comptines" for children. You can stream all of these from their website or app.
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