French Help

I have taken french and i am not very good at it ... can anyone please suggest how to improve to achieve an a* an give me some useful websites... thanks

Wordreference http://www.wordreference.com
It's a very good web site for translation of word. there are many explanation of usage of the word and examples of sentence.

For study language, I advise you to read a lot of text (easy for start, like poems or tales for children). And write some sentences even if you make mistakes or you unknown words ! You write and when you don't know the word, use dictionary or wordreference. It's no big deal if you lokk for the same word many times, you will finish to memorise it in the end.

French poems for children : http://www.learn-french-help.com/french-poems-for-children.html

Write in a forum is a very good idea for write if you don't have any inspiration ! It is that I'm doing at the moment for work my English writing ! :-D
French forum or community of english student in French, there is everything in the web.


French translation of my message :

Wordreference http://www.wordreference.com
C'est un très bon site pour traduire des mots. Il y a beaucoup d'explications sur leur usage ainsi que de exemples de phrases.

Pour étudier une langue, je te conseille de lire beaucoup de texte (simple pour commencer, comme des poèmes ou des contes pour enfants). Écrire beaucoup de phrases, même si tu fais des fautes ou que tu ignores des mots ! Écris et quand tu ne connais pas le mot, utilise un dictionnaire ou wordrefence. Ce n'est pas grave si tu regarde plein de fois le même mot, tu finiras par le retenir à force.

Poèmes français pour enfants : http://www.learn-french-help.com/french-poems-for-children.html

Écrire sur un forum est une bonne idée si tu n'as aucune inspiration ! C'est ce que je fais pour travailler l'écrit en anglais ! :-D
Des forum français ou des communauté d'étudiants anglais qui étudient le français, il y a de tout sur le web !

Here is something I posted a few days ago to a similar post:

For a top grade at A level you need to demonstrate a good grasp of grammar and a wide range of vocabulary.

Grammar:

Use a wide range of tenses in all your work (oral and written) - particularly tenses where the use in English and French is different such as:
- si clauses
- tenses with depuis
- tenses in reported speech
- the subjunctive
- the "hidden" future (after expressions of time)

Also:
- use the more advanced pronouns correctly. These include the personal pronouns y and en; relative pronouns like ce qui / ce que; dont; demonstrative pronouns celui/celle/ceux/celles.

- use negative structures with your verbs - not just ne...pas , but particularly using rien, jamais, personne, aucun as these are trickier.

- use the more difficult adjectives and adverbs like meilleur / mieux; mauvais / mal.- try and use inversions correctly - either ask rhetorical questions, or use conjunctions like à peine which trigger an inversion.

- use the passive voice.

And try and make your work as accurate as you can: check your agreements of adjectives and past participles (watch out for preceding direct objects); check your verb conjugations; make sure you've got your use of gender for any one noun at least consistent throughout your essay; use du, de la, des and de correctly; make sure you do your reflexive verbs right.

For grammar practice I always recommend this book which has really good explanations and a huge amount of exercises. The answer section is particularly good as it has further explanations and links back to the main text so that, if you've made a mistake, you can work out where you went wrong.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/French-Gramm.../dp/095706120X

Vocabulary:

Make sure you know your topic-related specialist vocabulary, that is really important.

On top of that, you need to use a range of connectives (eg tout d'abord, par conséquent, etc.) to link your ideas together. Try not to repeat the same expressions all the time (things like il y a; c'est une bonne/mauvaise idée; un grand problème).Examiners are also looking for good idiomatic use of the language so you need to a good lot of idiomatic expressions to use appropriately for the context you're in.

Best book for this: Mot à mot: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mot-Fifth-A.../dp/1444110004

Other general comments

Your oral exam is important and you need to get as much practice speaking French as you possibly can. If your school has a French assistant, use him/her! It's a great help if you can organise a daily session with classmates by, for example, agreeing you will speak only French together over lunch every day. Even at 15 minutes a day, that's over an hour a week extra practice!

Try to get as much "contact time" with the language as you can. French films are wonderful for this; but you can also switch your social media language settings to French, watch lots of French YouTube videos, make a cake from a French cookery book, etc. The possibilities are pretty endless and the internet is a fantastic resource.