Best way to learn French reading? (A-Level)

Ive always struggled with reading. How possibly can i improve this as i normally score half marks and im aiming for much more?

thanks :smile:

Reply 1

wiseLAD

There is no short cut I'm afraid, the only thing you can do is learn specific vocab.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 2

beyknowles

Original post by naxiv

Ive always struggled with reading. How possibly can i improve this as i normally score half marks and im aiming for much more?

thanks :smile:

Learn vocab, practice reading to familiarise yourself with french structures

Reply 3

Anna Schoon

Original post by naxiv

Ive always struggled with reading. How possibly can i improve this as i normally score half marks and im aiming for much more?

thanks :smile:

I often find that students who do not perform well in reading comprehensions are simply not working methodically enough - so that's related to exam technique, rather than understanding the text itself. If this is your case, these tips might help:

- Your problem might be that you don't answer the question, so you don't pick up enough points. Make sure that you first understand what you are asked. Look out for words like : comment, quand, où, pourquoi, depuis quand, qui etc, which all ask for specific information, and make sure that your answer gives that information.

- Another guide is to see how much the question is worth - a question worth 3 marks will need a much longer, more developed answer than a question worth only 1 point.

- For longer answers, make sure that you use your own words as that is the only way you can prove that you have truly understood. Just copying the text does not prove comprehension; it just shows that you know where in the text to find the answer! As a general guide, do not use more than four-word phrases from the text. It can be useful to use verbs instead of nouns, or nouns instead of verbs - eg. use combattre instead of le combat; or la lutte instead of lutter -
and adjust your sentence accordingly.

If you have problems understanding the texts themselves, then you will need to develop your vocab and knowledge of structures, as wiseLAD and beyknowles have said. Every time you read a text, make a note of new vocab and make sure you learn this and revise it regularly. You will find that, within a topic area, the same specialist vocab will crop up time and time again. Learning vocab is all about repetition, so regular revision is vital. Understanding structures is a little more tricky as you need to learn your grammar for that.

Hope this helps! Bon courage. :smile:

Reply 4

beyknowles

Original post by naxiv

Ive always struggled with reading. How possibly can i improve this as i normally score half marks and im aiming for much more?

thanks :smile:

Also, make sure you don't try to translate the text word-for-word in your head. If you do this you may lead yourself to think you don't understand the text. Read a whole sentence and try to make sense of it.

Being a non-native speaker, 99% of passages you read will contain at least one word you can't quite put a meaning to in solidarity, but if you read the sentence for context, you should be able to roughly guess the meaning.

Make sure you utilise mark schemes and examiner's reports for your exam board. They may give you hints and tips specific to your exams.

Bonne continuation avec tes études, les examens approchent :redface:

Moi, j'aime bien les reading et listening parties des examens français, puisque mes compétences réceptive sont bcp plus développées que my writing and speaking skills, aussi j'ai plus de confiance quand personne ne m'écoute et quand il ne faut pas créer mes propres idées. So yeah try to be confident when doing reading questions, read Qs carefully, learn vocab, practice reading texts without translating too many words

Il n'y a pas beaucoup plus qu'on pourrait te dire :smile:

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 5

naxiv

What im actually having trouble is reading and comprehending. Its nothing to do with the amount of given for a question and how much i'm meant to write (its not a geography essay exam).

I think i just need to memorise more vocab.

Original post by beyknowles

Original post by Anna Schoon

Reply 6

beyknowles

Original post by naxiv

So you read a text and you can't understand what it means?

Ce que je te conseille de faire: Practice reading as much as possible, read relevant media articles online (if you cover Sport in your spec, maybe read one or two articles on this topic) as well as passages from your textbook and past exam papers. When you see a word you don't recognise, try to guess what it could mean by looking at the context of the question, if you just can't do this then look the word up, note it down and put it in a list with other new words and learn them, I suggest using the smartphone app Quizlet for this.

Has this helped any more?

Reply 7

naxiv

Thanks

Ive got that app its really good
Do you use it? How much does it help you?

Original post by beyknowles

Reply 8

beyknowles

Original post by naxiv

Thanks

Ive got that app its really good
Do you use it? How much does it help you?

I've downloaded it with the intention to use it, but I've not used it properly yet. I've tried it and I find it very useful. If you keep doing the lists until you can translate each word from English into French error-free, in the exam the words should just spring to mind straight away.

At the moment I'm writing notes for each of my 12 topics, I'm aiming to have gotten this done by MAX the end of next week, but hopefully before that. Then I will add any other relevant words to my vocab lists and then I'll learn them systematically.

I don't care about learning as many words as possible, I'd prefer to memorise points instead, obviously you need the both though

Reply 9

Anna Schoon

Original post by naxiv

OK - what your actual problem is wasn't very clear from your original post!

As you say, vocab is really important and you will have to bite the bullet and learn more. Try to work out what words mean in context and check that you've got it right when you've got time. Revising vocab is also really important; it's easy to forget words and expressions you've learnt recently if you don't see or use them again quickly.

It can be helpful to use new vocab and expressions in sentences you write yourself - active use often helps memorisation.

How about your grammar? Do you know your verb conjugations? Some conjugations can be tricky and if you don't know what their infinitives are, or what tense they are in, you could find yourself struggling with understanding.