Prelim Season!

Prelim season is round the corner, and the class of 07 is about to start using the links to the right. There are really good and useful listening, reading and vocabulary exercises in the links on the left. Have a look through. Leave a message or comment if you are so inclined.

Almost there...!

Not much revision time left for Standard Grade French...the clock at the bottom is counting down the final hours! Final comments from me...you know what to do, you've done it often enough before - go and show the examiner what you know.
Don't rely too heavily on the dictionary in the reading and make sure that you use it sensibly!
Does the word you've looked up make sense - if not, look further down the definition or check the English word you're given in the other side of the dictionary.
When you open the reading papers, check how many questions there are; this will give you an idea of how long you should spend on each one.
Don't be caught out by false friends! TRAVAIL = WORK!! RESTER = TO STAY!!
Check through your English - do all your answers make sense? are they in standard English? are they all easy to read? if you've scored out an answer, is the new answer clearly written?
Have you given enough information to get the points? If it says 2 points, make sure you have enough information to get 2 marks. Remember though, don't try and hedge your bets by giving too much information - examiners, as you know, will take off some of your hard-earned points for that!
Have you answered all the questions? - you get as many points for a wrong answer as for no answer, so guess if you are really stuck.

Don't forget your dictionary on Tuesday for the reading!

Bonne chance à tous et à toutes!

Not strictly revision but...

have a listen to the fantastic podcast made by my 2nd year French class. This audio guide to Edinburgh, in French, has been entirely planned, scripted, recorded, produced and edited by class 2T9. Click here to have a listen. Leave a message for them on the site. They'd love to hear your feedback.

Vocabulary!!

Vocabulary is the key to doing well in a listening and reading paper. For reading, the more words you know, the fewer words you will have to look up in the dictionary and the more time you will have to make sure you answer all the questions properly. In a listening, the more vocabulary you know, the less you will have to guess at answers.

There are sometimes little words you overlook which are really important when it coems to the marking scheme. For example, if you hear or read "il est assez grand" - and you write as your answer 'he is tall', the chances are you won't get the mark as the examiner is looking for you to understand the word 'assez' aswell. So don't forget to translate words like 'très' (very), 'assez' (quite) and 'trop' (too). The same goes for quantity words like 'beaucoup de' or 'plein de' (a lot of/ many), 'assez de' (enough of), 'pas assez de' (not enough of), 'trop de' (too much/ too many), 'peu de' (a little of, few), tant de (so much of/ so many of) and 'autant de' (as many of/ as much of). Missing out these words in your answers can throw away a lot of marks.

Make sure you know your numbers well, especially the more difficult numbers from 70-99. Also be sure that you can understand the time in French and you know the words for day (un jour), week (une semaine), month (un mois) and year (un an/ une année). Some of this feels like S1/2 stuff, but it also needs revision to make sure you don't throw away valuable marks. Don't forget the two meanings of 'il y a' - we all know it means 'there is' or 'there are' but don't forget its meaning when used with time - 'ago': il y a une semaine - a week ago, il y a cinq ans - five years ago, il y a six mois - six months ago, il y a peu de temps - a short time ago.

Dictionary Skills 2 - verbs

When you come across a verb in a reading passage, it's unlikely to be in the same form you'd find in the dictionary. Remember, the verb endings change depending on the person doing the action and tense so there too many possibilities to list them all. In English, to find the meaning of 'thought', you'd have to look up 'think'. For 'went' you'd need to look up 'go' - In other words you need to know the infinitive of the verb you're looking for.
ALL French verb infinitives end in one of three ways -ER, -RE or -IR. When you try to find your verb in the dictionary, you need to look for a word that starts in the same way, but ends in -ER, -RE or -IR.
Obviously, you should know the main irregular verbs throroughly (and in different tenses) as they are more difficult to trace back to their original infinitives forms. You need to know être, avoir, aller, faire, pouvoir, vouloir, savoir, devoir and venir in all their present tense forms. Knowledge of the perfect tense (le passé composé) is also vital and you should have an idea of the endings for imperfect, future and conditional tenses for important verbs.

Listening Skills 1

You are staying with your French pen-friend, Jean-Luc, in Marseille.
Tu restes chez ton corréspondant, Jean-Luc, à Marseille.

Yes, it's always the same scenario and it's tedious, but no matter what the name of your pen-pal is, the same topics come up time and again...family relationships, pocket money, part-time jobs, school, future work, my town, town vs countryside, holidays, freetime activities, environment etc etc...funnily enough the very topics you've been studying throughout S3 and S4. Go through vocabulary lists - the nice ordered lists at the back of your carnets, write down the words you're not sure of and work on them until you know them. You can buy index cards from any stationery shop - write the French on one side and the English on the other, or even better, get the little keyring cards, that way you can practice your vocabulary while sitting on the bus.

Start posting comments and questions - blogging feels lonely when the comment counter sits at zero!

Dictionary Skills 1

When using the dictionary in your reading exam, be sure you know what you are looking up.

Is it a noun? (it will have un/une, le/la/l'/les, du/de la/de l'/des in front of it)

Is it a verb? (there will be a pronoun je/tu/il/elle/on/nous/vous/ils/elles or a name in front of it)

Is it an adjective? (it will be next to a noun)

Is it an adverb? (it will usually end in ~ment and be next to a verb)

Don't always take the first definition - many words have more than one meaning. If you're not sure, look up the word in both sides of the dictionary to check you have the right meaning. You can work out lots of words you don't know from the context or because they are similar to English words.

Bienvenue!

Use this site to post comments and questions for me or your colleagues to answer to help you revise for your French exams. Bonne chance.