Help with French over the holidays?

I've applied to do French A-Level starting in September, because I've always really enjoyed the subject and think it would be useful in the future.
However as I did GCSE French a year early, I can't remember much of it at all - I achieved an A* in Year 10, yet this last year we've had free lessons and its all got a bit muddled in my head - I can't remember tenses, grammar, pronunciation, and it's stressing me out a little bit.
So, if anyone here knows any resources - books, websites, etc - I can get to refresh my memory over the summer, it'd be much appreciated :smile:

Thanks everyone! xo

Reply 1

hissyfit

15

Try these
GCSE & A Level French Resources

Spoiler

Also check out the stickeys @ the top of each forum :biggrin:

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 2

starsandguitars

OP

wow, thank you!

no problem

starsandguitars

I've applied to do French A-Level starting in September, because I've always really enjoyed the subject and think it would be useful in the future.
However as I did GCSE French a year early, I can't remember much of it at all - I achieved an A* in Year 10, yet this last year we've had free lessons and its all got a bit muddled in my head - I can't remember tenses, grammar, pronunciation, and it's stressing me out a little bit.
So, if anyone here knows any resources - books, websites, etc - I can get to refresh my memory over the summer, it'd be much appreciated :smile:

Thanks everyone! xo

You don't have to be stressed out by it, at A-level, french may be very different from GCSE but they do go through grammar, tenses etc...

Reply 5

James Simmonds

If you don't mind spending £5, I can really recommend the Hugo In Three Months books. You don't need to get them with the CD, they have good functional vocab and also explain some of the more complicated structures. They're really good!

Reply 6

hissyfit

15

Some Edexcel Oral notes & more can be found here: http://intranet.wellingtoncollege.org.uk/modern-languages/french/lower-sixth/speaking-practice

Reply 7

hissyfit

15

Some notes I d like to share with you (haven t finished typing them up yet,sorry)

Edexcel AS French Preparation Notes . Lifestyle,Health and Fitness.doc156.2KB

Reply 8

robthefool

12

Original post by hissyfit

Some notes I d like to share with you (haven t finished typing them up yet,sorry)

WOW these are amazing! Thank you so much these are so helpful! :smile:

Reply 9

najabri

10

Original post by hissyfit

Some notes I d like to share with you (haven t finished typing them up yet,sorry)

these are amazing!

OP, I'm in almost exactly the same position as you. Don't get too stressed about getting to A level standard immediatiately - it's good to get a head start but as long as you keep up A* GCSE standard you should be okay, and then you can work at building up to AS (especially as most others will go straight from GCSE level). I think what's really important is to get your basic grammar sorted - make sure you understand how to form all of the major tenses (present, the two future tenses, perfect past tense, imperfect past tense, conditional tense), adjective agreements and so forth. A website I often find useful is http://french.about.com/.

When I was revising for GCSE I stumbled across this set of flashcards: http://quizlet.com/5221722/gcse-french-vocabulaire-flash-cards/. That set contains roughly 1400 words, so basically everything you need for GCSE (minor differences between exam boards). I suggest you revise them every so often so you have a solid base of vocabulary. If you have an account, you can take the data of the set and break it down into smaller sets with less vocab if doing 1400 at once is too much. You can also find loads of French flashcard sets on Quizlet. Search "AS French" and plenty should come up.

For pronunciation, I suggest watching a french film/TV programme every so often (with sub-titles), listening to french music and/or radio. However, if you're doing lessons at school I suspect you'll still hear French regularly so you should be okay (providing you don't have the teacher I had for part of last year... it was a real struggle to work out what she was saying under her thick Irish accent). If you're really struggling most beginner french books have a guide to pronunciation of French letter combinations, and things like films will get you used to the sound of the language.

Hope that was of some use. :^_^:

Reply 10

cooki_monstr

There is a website called Memrise which will help you with any language, including French. I am doing AS-level French and I found Memrise very useful when I was doing GCSE French and now at AS-level.

Hope this helps

Reply 11

Toriar

14

I see you've already had a lot of good replies but I want to give another recommendation for Quizlet, it has been a lifesaver for learning vocabulary and irregular verb stems in grammar.

Help with French over the holidays?

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