Sophisticated french (help each other) (1 Viewer)

[LaCe]

I was wondering if everyone here has any tips to write sophisticated or at least sound sophisticated when writing in french or speaking??
Subjunctive is very good, also the conditional and future tenses.

Has anyone written a response to the 2004 part B question in the exam? (the one on technology and DVDs)?

Ive got an 80 minute long reading and responding assessment on wednesday? can anyone help me out?

Also we can help each other by writing some Sophisticated french sentences.

I'll go first... use the subjuntive

Il faut que je fasse mes deviors.
Pourque nous allons au cinemas, on ...
etc..

 

[LaCe]

ok let's not help each other...??
where is everyone?
its been a couple of days and no one has posted yet here?
what is going on?

 

[malkin86]

Sometimes it takes a while... Maybe everyone's forgotten how to be sophisticated. I know I've lapsed.

 

[chepas]

Hey illin.

Well, the next generation of BOSers I've found are still yet to trickle down and discover the French forum. That said though, there have been quite a few new people in the past week, to whom I wish a very warm welcome, so le Forum Français sera bientôt plein de gens!

Re: Subjunctive. It is not used as overzealously as one may think. I myself remember going through a slight phase where every 'que' was followed by the subjunctive! So - for Beginners and even mayber Continuers do not have to explicitly use it, but just be able to recognise it in texts to which you need to respond.

french.about.com has a rather comprehensive lesson on the subjunctive, as well as ways to avoid it entirely.

One fact about the subjunctive is that it's used to express actions that are subjective, ie, not set in concrete. Two instances that always use the subj. are "Il faut que" and "Je veux que, tu veux que" etc...

Like LaCe's/your example: Il faut que je fasse mes devoirs
and another: Je veux qu'il soit heureux.

The 'subject + vouloir + que + object' is immediately followed by the subjunctive. It could be "Ils voulaient que", "Tu voudrais que" etc, all take the subjunctive.
(But I didn't quite understand "Pour que nous allons au cinemas, on ..."...?)

Here are the french.about.com sites I mention. Here's one, here's a guide to using the subjunctive.

And now je vais me taire
chepas.

 

[LaCe]

thanks for that,

i've a real problem now after that assessment task today:

There are currently 3 people in my french class (continuers). I came last in my last assessment worth 5% with 37/40

Today, however, 1 on the students did not turn up to today's assessment and i think he will drop it, because he has no excuse for not turning up. I was always going to beat this guy in ranking (he fluked bits of that listening task 5%). I would have caned him in speacking and writing. Anyway, the person who is ranked 1st is basically fluent as he did go to a french school in canada for 6 years. Therefore I will prob get a ranking of last (2nd) with a raw internal mark of something in the 90s (i hope).

Am i screwed?

Anyway back to french, another one a failed to mention earlier is the use of the "participe present"

this shows an action being done

eg Une fille souriante
eg Je vois mon pere faisant la cuisine

ie. en allant, en travaillant, en niquant , etc... (this is the gerundive)

 

[chepas]

Une fille souriante

In this first example, 'souriante is actually an adjective, as it is talking about the noun (une fille) that preceded it.

The second one "Je vois mon père faisant la cuisine" wouldn't appear in French. While we use the present participle in English to signify this, this does not apply in French, and we'd have to think in another way. Perhaps "Je vois mon père qui fait quelque chose dans la cuisine"?

Re: en allant/travaillent etc. Yep. "Je suis arrivé en couriant vers ici.", and that usage is self explanatory.

As for your position in your assessments, I can't offer many conseils I'm afraid! This is moreover a question of scaling and perhaps could be asked in the UAI Technical Arcana forum. But, seeing as there are only three people in your class, don't worry about it! It can be a situation that could polarise you, but, no matter what, you still came either 1st/second/third. There actually was a thread about this in the UAI Technical Arcana forum, because I was in a similar position with Music 2 and Extension. That said, there were only two of us and the other girl sucked...

 

[melsc]

My teacher says that I write in a sophisticated manner...but then i neglect my grammar...hmmm use of things such as A mon avis....tandis que....etc is always good

 

[illin]

Yeah that's a good idea, use the little sentence openers:
Selon, a mon avis, Cependant, Premierement, etc

but that is a given, most of us should use this time to time.

Yeah i shouldnt really worry about the ranking stuff, just concentrate on future assessments.

 

[chepas]

Ah yes, those things are very good. Especiall in Extension oral, but also in beginners and continuers writing.

Examiners will go orgasmic if you are organised in your written responses. One way to do this is do organise these in an order dictated by a sequence, that is, what you mention illin with 'premièrement' (using your old account ). This structure is good for organising extended responses like essays, formalish letters etc.

I have a lot of time on my hands, so here's a little example:

"Les pommes frites ne sont pas bonnes pour la santé."

On dit que ces pommes frites tellement délicieuses ne servent a` rien de benificace, vu qu'elles ne sont que des petits bâtons de gras. Mais je ne suis pas tout ê fait d'accord avec cette constatation.

Premièrement, les études nous ont montré que les frites peuvent lutter contre le cancer. Les pommes de terre ont des petites cellules qui font mal aux cellules cancereuses.

Deuxièmement, selon la charte de McDonald's, les frites ne posent aucun danger aux consommateurs. Elles ne contiennent que 35 grammes cholestérol, ce dont les êtres humains ont besoin chaque jour.

Finalement, le gout des pommes frites est une bonne source de joie de vivre. Les enfants âgés de 6 ê 12 ans ont toujours besoin de l'énergie, parce qu'ils sont les gens les plus actifs. Cette "joie de vivre" que donnent les pommes frites aux enfants donc doit rester en place, pour le bien-être de l'humanité.

En conclusion, d'après de longs débats, on peut constater que les pommes frites tiennent une place importante dans la société contemporaine, et donc ne présentent aucun danger au peuple.

 

[HellVeN]

Rofl chepas, you have a good imagination I'll give you that :O!

 

[ElGronko]

Some good phrases that i have acumulated are things like:

en ce qui concerne
en ce qui me concerne

a` cet e'garde

quant a` moi

ceci joue un ro^le de

pour une raison quelconque

il faudrait analyser de plus pre`s

tout en reconnaissant ce fait


stuff like that, i've got loads, its a good idea just to right down phrases you like when reading anything in french, and read past responses and steal there stuff.

Then try and use it as much as possible so you remember it.

 

[illin]

It is a good idea to use idoms, however, are there any 'sophisticated' french idioms?
Is there such a thing?

-l'argent ne se trouve sous le pas d'u cheval
Is that the type of idiom?

 

[malkin86]

Some basic idioms are expected in the dreaded email format, and for penpal type writings - aside from the mauvais francais thread, there is another that Chepas has linked to in his welcome to 05ers thread.

 

[melsc]

There are alot of idioms...like to "Murder the french language" in french is translated as "To speak french like a spanish cow"

 

[illin]

Yeah i used that one today in the oral assessment

"mes amis parlent francais comme des vaches espagnols"
Another one:
"l'argent ne se trouve sous les pas d'un cheval"

 

[malkin86]

The second one.. is that like our "money doesn't grow on trees"?

 

[chepas]

Yep.

Does anyone have a proverb/saying book of French quotations etc? Cos I reckon that would be an excellent thing to have!

 

[melsc]

Yep.

Does anyone have a proverb/saying book of French quotations etc? Cos I reckon that would be an excellent thing to have!

The lonely planet lil travel books thingy my friend has, has almost everything u want...from idioms - to asking when the next train is comming to "frisky french" LOL its so cute...it has pages like idioms invloving animals...foods etc...

 

[chepas]

^ Hehe, yeah those are good. I have the Mandarin and there's the curse sectoins, and something really rude in Mando translates as "May my dog fart on your mother" or somtehing... I forget it now .

But for something a bit more involved probably those proverb books might be a good investment. Abbey's is crawling with them.

Here's what fruit google has born:
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/proverbes/proverbe.htm
http://www.mermet.info/dictons.html <--- some funky patois and créole ones too...

 

[melsc]

So ur gonna learn mandarin now??? U know what i was doing my half yearly speaking exam and the teacher was using the questions u posted on the forum...and I saw it while i was talking about wat i wanted to do after the HSC and i see the paper...with ur avvy and Chepas...LOL she printed it straight off