French Oral filler phrases

pinstriped.flower

Hey,

I know there are a whole list of french oral help threads, but could you help me think of filler phrases to say when I have my exam. I generally find that I have things to say, but I hate the awkward silence when the examiner asks a question and you generally don't know what you think in English, never mind in a foreign language.

I will start off with one that I use all the time, but if we could continue..

Je veux dire que..

Thanks!

I can't believe nobody's added to this sooner!

You could say:

•

C'est vraiment une question difficile (it's really/truly a difficult question)

•

Je pense/crois que ça dépend (I think that it/that depends)

•

Je ne suis pas sûr(e), mais... (I'm not sure, but...)

•

Euh, je ne sais pas (Umm, I don't know)

•

Je suppose que (I suppose that)

I decided to stop there since I'm just listing random expressions now. :p:

You could always try getting a copy of Mot A Mot which has some nice expressions in it, but I prefer this one:

Hope this helps, feel free to quote or PM me if you've got any more questions. :smile:

Reply 5

C.o.o.k.i.e

1

J'accepte ce que vous dites, mais...!
I love that one!

Reply 6

C.o.o.k.i.e

J'accepte ce que vous dites, mais...!
I love that one!

...mais je ne pense/crois pas que ce soit vrai!

Subjunctive FTW! :biggrin:

("I accept what you're saying, but I don't think/believe it's true")

Don't worry about how the subjunctive works right now; you only need it for A2. Just learn a few stock phrases and drop them in, e.g. "il faut que" (+ subj.), so you could have "il faut que j'aille à l'université parce que je voudrais devenir médécin". There are some phrases that take the subjunctive - see here for a better explanation if you're really interested. :smile:

Reply 7

Muppety_Kid's suggestions seem pretty good. I tend to 'euh' quite a bit - and 'je suppose que...' was used a hell of a lot in my Ox interview, ho hum...

Also - a vague 'mais si/bien sûr!' etc. usually does the trick.

Reply 8

Donnchadh

Muppety_Kid's suggestions seem pretty good. I tend to 'euh' quite a bit - and 'je suppose que...' was used a hell of a lot in my Ox interview, ho hum...

Also - a vague 'mais si/bien sûr!' etc. usually does the trick.

It's always the simplest (and most effecitve) ones that you overlook!

Whereabouts are you from in North Yorkshire, out of interest? I take it you're still at college? :smile:

Reply 9

Muppety_Kid

It's always the simplest (and most effecitve) ones that you overlook!

Indeed it is! Yeah, I'm still in Sixth Form - in a place called Yarm, which is really more Teesside than North Yorkshire, but hey, I can pretend... </off topic!>

PS. I also have that Advanced French Vocab book - I'll second the recommendation. :p:

Reply 10

Donnchadh

Indeed it is! Yeah, I'm still in Sixth Form - in a place called Yarm, which is really more Teesside than North Yorkshire, but hey, I can pretend... </off topic!>

PS. I also have that Advanced French Vocab book - I'll second the recommendation. :p:

Cool, I'm at QE in Darlington, so not too far from you! :smile:

I actually rediscovered the book the other day after having a clearout of one of my cupboards. My French teacher swears by Mot A Mot, despite the young French assistant (and Wes!) saying that half the phrases aren't ever used by natives. I have to admit, this one looks more promising for idioms...

Reply 11

I feel rather guilty subverting this thread, but wow, I somehow didn't expect many people from the North-East to be on TSR! (A few guys from my school have ended up at QE for Sixth Form.)

Hmm I've not heard of Mot A Mot before, but yeah, one of the Amazon reviews does say the same thing ("the content is very outmoded, or plain wrong") so maybe I'll leave that one. Anyway, sorry again to the OP for being a distraction...

Reply 12

Donnchadh

I feel rather guilty subverting this thread, but wow, I somehow didn't expect many people from the North-East to be on TSR! (A few guys from my school have ended up at QE for Sixth Form.)

Hmm I've not heard of Mot A Mot before, but yeah, one of the Amazon reviews does say the same thing ("the content is very outmoded, or plain wrong") so maybe I'll leave that one. Anyway, sorry again to the OP for being a distraction...

Ah c'mon, we're hardly derailing the thread - it's all vaguely French-related...

Anywho, feel free to ask either of us if you've got any questions OP - this guy seems fairly knowledgeable. :wink:

How are you finding the French? I've got the oral exam coming up in about a month, but the preparation's going pretty well. Bonne chance, in case I don't speak to you again before the exams. :smile:

Reply 13

Hah well, I suppose it is... Ditto re. the asking questions!

French seems to be going all right - I've done less work for it than my other subjects as I have a ridiculous amount of coursework at the moment, and a Russian AS oral this Tuesday (arghhh!). I'm doing the interpreting for my French oral, too, so that doesn't need too much preparation... And anyway, AS went well so I can afford to lose quite a few UMS! :smile:

Good luck to you too - hope the Frenching is all right your end as well? :biggrin:

Reply 14

Donnchadh

Hah well, I suppose it is... Ditto re. the asking questions!

French seems to be going all right - I've done less work for it than my other subjects as I have a ridiculous amount of coursework at the moment, and a Russian AS oral this Tuesday (arghhh!). I'm doing the interpreting for my French oral, too, so that doesn't need too much preparation... And anyway, AS went well so I can afford to lose quite a few UMS! :smile:

Good luck to you too - hope the Frenching is all right your end as well? :biggrin:

Ah, I don't think we're on the same spec. I'm with WJEC and we have to prepare a 5-minute exposé on a chosen topic (with about 5 minutes for questions on it) and then we'll be given a newspaper article on the exam and asked about that for a further 5 minutes. You're given 10-15 minutes to prepare just the article though, so nothing too bad - just brushing up on the idioms!

I found that my AS went pretty well too, which was a relief - I took it a year early (studying semi-independently) whilst still at high school. However, school didn't have a sixth form so they weren't too sure what was required for AS. They had me conjugating irregular subjunctives and speaking to the French assistant for an hour a week on my own (came out with a high A! :biggrin:

). I'm finding it slightly different now I'm at college and I've got timetabled conversation lessons since I'm being taught the stuff I need as I go along, but one of the downsides is that it's more rigid - I've had to work to the conversation teacher's deadlines in terms of writing my exposé. Don't get me wrong - I see the benefit now I've learned it word perfectly, but as I'm sure you'll agree, it doesn't feel like a good idea when you've got tons of coursework to do! :woo:

Reply 15

Ah ok, I'm with Edexcel! The interpreting definitely has advantages (e.g. no rote learning) as long as you can think quickly enough in the language - it'd be horrific for German but seems to work well for French, although it can be quite hard to concentrate for the whole thing; it's essentially just a role play-type conversation for about 10 minutes with one teacher reading in English, you translating into French, and then vice versa with the other teacher responding in French and you translating and so on...

By the way, well done on the AS front. I did the GCSE early (worked far too hard for it, but it's paid off in the last year or so with grammar and stuff) but then did Russian in year 11 instead, which was 'interesting' if soul destroying at times... I'd definitely agree that a rigid structure for language learning can be a bit annoying, as well - it's sad just to have to work towards an exam, at times... Are you planning to do languages at uni?

Anyhow, now we're seriously off piste... I don't want to get shouted at by moderators! :o:

Reply 16

SiaSiaSia

16

In my mock oral last week i filled it with
"Selon moi" "A mon avis" "Je suis d'avis que...."

Reply 17

rainbow drops

Apologies for the lack of accents in this post! Off the top of my head...

Quant a moi - as for me
Selon - according to
C'est-a-dire - that is to say
Il m'apparait que - it appears to me that
Il me semble que - it seems to me that
Bien que/quoique + subjunctive - although
Je ne crois pas que + subjunctive - I don't believe that
Ainsi que - as well as
D'ailleurs - furthermore
Tout compte fait - all things considered
Je suis d'accord - I agree
Bref - in brief/in a word

Mot a Mot is good, especially for vocabulary relating to specific topics, but if you overuse vocabulary in there it makes your French sound meaningless and contrived, so use it sparingly.

Reply 18

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6831233/French-Subjunctive

rainbow drops

Apologies for the lack of accents in this post! Off the top of my head...

Quant a moi - as for me
Selon - according to
C'est-a-dire - that is to say
Il m'apparait que - it appears to me that
Il me semble que - it seems to me that
Bien que/quoique + subjunctive - although
Je ne crois pas que + subjunctive - I don't believe that
Ainsi que - as well as
D'ailleurs - furthermore
Tout compte fait - all things considered
Je suis d'accord - I agree
Bref - in brief/in a word

Mot a Mot is good, especially for vocabulary relating to specific topics, but if you overuse vocabulary in there it makes your French sound meaningless and contrived, so use it sparingly.

Wow - that's a fairly exhaustive list, thanks!

I've just checked to see if "il me semble que" takes the subjunctive, and it appears that it does.

My search also turned up this, which I thought I'd share since it looks pretty useful. :smile:

Reply 19

rainbow drops