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Reply 20
Madelyn
I love southern accents, they're so interesting.


I lived in Bordeaux for 3 years. I still have bits of the intonation and some of the nasal vowels. Parisians listen to me and brand me as a rustic...

Aitch
Reply 21
Madelyn
I love southern accents, they're so interesting.


that they are. unfortunately, it made for two weeks of me going, "sorry? could you repeat that please?" (in french, obviously, as he didn't speak english). i'm pretty sure that the experience has improved my french though.
Manatee
This may sound silly, but you could try talking to yourself :smile:. Obviously do it only when you're on your own, but thinking out loud in another language will give you plenty of speaking practice, with none of the embarrassment of making mistakes in front of anyone else!

Just a suggestion...


To build on this, something which I quite enjoy doing and is good to get you thinking about vocab / pronounciation is to translate English songs to French real-time whilst you're listening the radio (and try to get the French lyrics to fit into the song!)
Reply 23
The ideal thing to improve you're conversational skills would be to converse with a native french speaker. i was lucky enough to have a french assistant for my a level, but i know that there are tutors etc around who advertise in local press who could help. Also i found listening exercises help you pick up the idioms etc, i can recommend a series available on tape/Cd called "Champs Elysees", where there are a series of reports from recent french news, for example film releases, local elections, profiles of Mayors etc, which gives you not only an up to date knowledge of the culture, but really improves your listening skills (there are transcripts too) and its spoken by native french speakers, so it'll improve your fluency too.

Here's the link to their website to find out more:
http://www.champs-elysees.com/products/french/default.aspx
Reply 24
Manatee
This may sound silly, but you could try talking to yourself :smile:. Obviously do it only when you're on your own, but thinking out loud in another language will give you plenty of speaking practice, with none of the embarrassment of making mistakes in front of anyone else!

Just a suggestion...


I do it all the time, it really helps. Normally in the shower. :biggrin:
Reply 25
emilie87
I do it all the time, it really helps. Normally in the shower. :biggrin:


Really good revision technique. We have 5 senses, so why just use the visual one to revise? Say it, chant it, hear it, mime it...

Aitch
Reply 26
Manatee's right..its a great way to improve pronunciation and forces you to think on your feet re: conjugations and adjective agreement etc...it's not silly at all! hehe

Somone else mentioned french songs...I downloaded french pop songs and got the lyrics and sang along..its excellent for pronunciation..and often there are phrases you can use in writing exercises :wink:
For listening skills, try listening to French songs with the lyrics in front of you, only with bits of the lyrics missed out so you have to fill them in. At least that's what my teacher makes us do, even if we are distracted by some very dodgy songs!
Reply 28
Just very incidentally, I'm pretty sure that cki? is "c'est qui?" rather than ce qui...

Having checked on google, here's a handy French-SMS site for the interested / bored (hmm... I like that sentence...)
leannemann
For listening skills, try listening to French songs with the lyrics in front of you, only with bits of the lyrics missed out so you have to fill them in. At least that's what my teacher makes us do, even if we are distracted by some very dodgy songs!


haha my french assistant made us do that last year..it's surprisingly useful!
sometimes i find myself translating english songs/t.v programmes/whatever into french without realising it too lol :smile:
Reply 30
A friend bought me an interesting book called 'The Complete Merde' which is two books in one ('Merde' and 'Merde Encore!'). It has alot of slang words (argot) for everything, and shows how the French clip bits off words when they speak. Eg. t'as instead of tu as, and chuis instead of je suis. Since reading it, I've noticed loads of new slang words, so its quite useful. It also helped me in my exam, when they called a job 'le boulot', which I wouldnt have known otherwise. Its also funny to read, so I recommend it!

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