Le groupe français 2016 - 2023 Les Voyageurs

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Carmody
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby Carmody » Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:15 pm

Would be very interested what our Forum members from France think of this:

"A row over mocking non-standard French accents"

https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/10/25/a-row-over-mocking-non-standard-french-accents
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Speakeasy
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby Speakeasy » Sun Nov 11, 2018 11:14 pm

Carmody wrote:Would be very interested what our Forum members from France think of this: "A row over mocking non-standard French accents" …
My first reaction was one of surprise that, for once, the Québécois accent was not the target of derision.

My second reaction was that, despite what many students of French on this forum appear to believe, there exist distinctive regional accents throughout the Hexagone, not to mention a few dialects, and that some French citizens -- like their worldwide counterparts in every linguistic, cultural, racial, and however-you-wish-to-cluster-them group -- are prone to making disparaging remarks directed towards their fellow citizens based on what-they-believe-to-be are markers of social status, one of these being speech habits. Nothing to see here, please move along, folks!
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DaveAgain
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby DaveAgain » Fri Nov 16, 2018 2:10 pm

Just come across a new expression in Un si grand soleil S01E09

faire porter le chapeau > Faire porter la responsabilité d’une erreur à une autre personne, pour éviter d’avoir à la prendre soi-même.

https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/faire_porter_le_chapeau

----------
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Klara
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby Klara » Sun Nov 18, 2018 11:59 am

Ça y est ! Yesterday I sat the A1 exam at the Institute Français in Berlin and I am quite sure, that I passed it.

We were 5 candidates, two young ladies in their early twenties, a fortyish woman with her 14 year old teenage daughter and me, the old one. The teenager already had four years (!) of French at school, but hated it. Her mother wanted to encourage her and took a course together with her at the Institute Français. The rest of us had learned French via self study only.

At 9 in the morning, the first part started - listening. There were two speakers on the wall and the sound quality was excellent. Twenty minutes later, the next part - written comprehension, which is always the easiest part for me. And then writing production, first we had to fill out a work visa form for Belgium. I used a canadian personality because workers from France or Germany would not need a visa. Next we had to write an email to a friend in Canada, telling him in at least 40 words that we will visit Montréal. We had also to describe our planned activities. Two of us left at 10, the others used the whole hour for writing.

For me, the oral exam was two hours later. I used the time to do some shopping and got back on time. There were three rooms, one for getting instructions, one for preparation and one for the exam. In the instructions room a nice young man informed me about the procedures. In the first part I will have to present myself by answering the questions of the examiner. For the second part, I will be given six words. For each word I will have to prepare a question - my words were: ville, bus, réunion, voyage d'affaire, cousin, profession. For the third part I could choose between two situations for a role play - my options were inscribing to a cooking course or buying a book for my mother. I took the latter one.

So after I had been instructed, I was lead to the next room and had 10 minutes time to prepare the questions. It was allowed to write them down. Then the examiner, a nice young lady, picked me up. And with that, the oral exam started. We really had a nice conversation - it was by the way the first time I spoke French to another person. She asked me the usual questions about my name, where I live and so on. Then it was my turn to ask questions and to respond to her answers. Finally the role play, she was the vendor and I was the customer. And then suddenly the oral exam was done - I was so happy!

Next week I will get the results and in about five months the certificate from France. All in all it was a great experience and I am really glad that I took the exam, although I had second thoughts the day before ...

And to give myself a treat, I went afterwards to my favorite bookshop Dussmann which has the largest language learning books department in Berlin and bought the book "Madame Bonnet est son champ de lavande" - 20 short stories for level A1-A2 with audio files.

Finally, to round off the day, I visited the expolingua - a yearly language fair in Berlin and then I went home in a very good mood.
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DaveAgain
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby DaveAgain » Sun Nov 18, 2018 12:26 pm

Klara wrote:Ça y est ! Yesterday I sat the A1 exam at the Institute Français in Berlin and I am quite sure, that I passed it.

At 9 in the morning, the first part started - listening. There were two speakers on the wall and the sound quality was excellent. Twenty minutes later, the next part - written comprehension, which is always the easiest part for me. And then writing production, first we had to fill out a work visa form for Belgium. I used a canadian personality because workers from France or Germany would not need a visa. Next we had to write an email to a friend in Canada, telling him in at least 40 words that we will visit Montréal. We had also to describe our planned activities. Two of us left at 10, the others used the whole hour for writing.

For me, the oral exam was two hours later. I used the time to do some shopping and got back on time. There were three rooms, one for getting instructions, one for preparation and one for the exam. In the instructions room a nice young man informed me about the procedures. In the first part I will have to present myself by answering the questions of the examiner. For the second part, I will be given six words. For each word I will have to prepare a question - my words were: ville, bus, réunion, voyage d'affaire, cousin, profession. For the third part I could choose between two situations for a role play - my options were inscribing to a cooking course or buying a book for my mother. I took the latter one.

So after I had been instructed, I was lead to the next room and had 10 minutes time to prepare the questions. It was allowed to write them down. Then the examiner, a nice young lady, picked me up. And with that, the oral exam started. We really had a nice conversation - it was by the way the first time I spoke French to another person. She asked me the usual questions about my name, where I live and so on. Then it was my turn to ask questions and to respond to her answers. Finally the role play, she was the vendor and I was the customer. And then suddenly the oral exam was done - I was so happy!

Next week I will get the results and in about five months the certificate from France. All in all it was a great experience and I am really glad that I took the exam, although I had second thoughts the day before ...

And to give myself a treat, I went afterwards to my favorite bookshop Dussmann which has the largest language learning books department in Berlin and bought the book "Madame Bonnet est son champ de lavande" - 20 short stories for level A1-A2 with audio files.

Finally, to round off the day, I visited the expolingua - a yearly language fair in Berlin and then I went home in a very good mood.
That sounds like a very thorough exam, and a nice day out. :-)

---

The expolingua looks interesting.

https://expolingua.com/en/about.php

Did you see any of the speeches?
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Klara
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby Klara » Mon Nov 19, 2018 3:56 pm

That sounds like a very thorough exam, and a nice day out. :-)

The expolingua looks interesting.

https://expolingua.com/en/about.php

Did you see any of the speeches?

It was really a wonderful day out and thanks for the link, DaveAgain, I hadn't thought about it :oops:
There were really a lot of people at the language fair, especially at the events - music, dance, speeches - and crowds are not my thing, so I just strolled through the fair. At the booth of my favorite publisher (Buske-Verlag) I bought a book (not French, but Russian :roll: ) at a discount. Nothing more. Unfortunately, there was no special stand for the French language, just universities. But it was nevertheless interesting to hear so many different languages at one place.

Today I started with French level A2, but I set myself no time frame. Let's just see how far I will get in the next months.
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Cavesa
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby Cavesa » Mon Nov 19, 2018 5:06 pm

Speakeasy wrote:
Carmody wrote:Would be very interested what our Forum members from France think of this: "A row over mocking non-standard French accents" …
My first reaction was one of surprise that, for once, the Québécois accent was not the target of derision.

My second reaction was that, despite what many students of French on this forum appear to believe, there exist distinctive regional accents throughout the Hexagone, not to mention a few dialects, and that some French citizens -- like their worldwide counterparts in every linguistic, cultural, racial, and however-you-wish-to-cluster-them group -- are prone to making disparaging remarks directed towards their fellow citizens based on what-they-believe-to-be are markers of social status, one of these being speech habits. Nothing to see here, please move along, folks!


I agree (even though I was not asked, as I am not a native, sorry). French is not as homogenous as people think, even within France itself. This problem is much more known and noticed, when it comes to other francophone versions of the language, especially the african ones. And in some cases, such a problem is just a consequence of a few hundred years of town X disliking town Y and vice versa, which is masked behind an attempt to improve the language overall.

Also, I believe it universally true (in any language) that attacking one's dialect, grammar, or accent is a very cheap way to distract from the content and a common strategy of certain people. Not only the grammar nazis, one's accent can be just as targetted.

I don't think a new term based on Greek is needed, we've got plenty of perfectly suitable ones already, most of them not polite.

Klara wrote:Ça y est ! Yesterday I sat the A1 exam at the Institute Français in Berlin and I am quite sure, that I passed it.

We were 5 candidates, two young ladies in their early twenties, a fortyish woman with her 14 year old teenage daughter and me, the old one. The teenager already had four years (!) of French at school, but hated it. Her mother wanted to encourage her and took a course together with her at the Institute Français. The rest of us had learned French via self study only.

...

Finally, to round off the day, I visited the expolingua - a yearly language fair in Berlin and then I went home in a very good mood.

Congratulations!
And thanks for your report on this exam, I haven't met anyone taking it yet. The profile of the candidates is not surprising, but still nice to read, especially the story of the mother and daughter.
Expolingua sounds awesome. Too bad I didn't know about it earlier, I could have visited Berlin and enjoyed it immensely.
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Klara
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby Klara » Thu Nov 29, 2018 6:16 pm

Congratulations!
And thanks for your report on this exam, I haven't met anyone taking it yet. The profile of the candidates is not surprising, but still nice to read, especially the story of the mother and daughter.
Expolingua sounds awesome. Too bad I didn't know about it earlier, I could have visited Berlin and enjoyed it immensely.

You are welcome, Cavesa. I also haven't met anyone taking an A1 exam, but now I have first hand experience :lol:
Don't worry about the expolingua, it's every year in November...

Finally, I found two YT-channels which I will use for learning and entertaining:
Des Racines & des Ailes
Le Monument préféré des Français
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Carmody
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby Carmody » Sun Dec 09, 2018 1:56 pm

People of all skill levels may possibly enjoy the following short 10 minute episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20k2sKOBURU

Do you agree or disagree will all that is said?

Enjoy
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Carmody
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2018 Les Voyageurs

Postby Carmody » Thu Dec 13, 2018 12:47 am

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