et mes devoirs est…

de ecoutez de la radio français et regardez la télévision français.

yes, you read right.  Listen to the radio and watch French TV !!

OK, I do admit that I listen to France Bleu at home and at work (Home: France Bleu Nord (I live not too far from Boulogne-sur-Mer); Work: France Bleu Vaculuse)… but I’m currently listening to FunRadio and I don’t have to feel guilty.  Yay!

And… tomorrow I’m off to London so I won’t have a class.  I do plan on taking some vocab for business French and reading it on the train (as well as reading the French Marie Claire).  Sounds like fun…!

Also this week, I have been thinking about what career I want to do when I move to France… I’m thinking of doing Administration still…

oh and next week in my french class we have to write an e-mail to a friend using the past tense.  Drat.  Perhaps I should revise that too…

travail et l’etat

those were my lessons today!

I throughly enjoyed them – the text books were easy to follow, which is good…

tomorrow – Culture! (Y)

Great Sites for French Lessons !

Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays are never going to be the same again….

as from tomorrow, I shall be doing French lessons from http://www.laits.utexas.edu/fi/

yes, it does seem to be ambitious, but as I want to be able to speak french fluently (or near enough!), this is a start !

La Vie Professionale is great for my Business French module as it covers Jobs, work, CVs, unemployment, salary, the approriate grammer and The World of Work in France.  Part of Chapter 13, “Amour et Argent” is also good for the Business side of things (money, finance, budgets).  And after that, the links from http://www.lepointdufle.net/specialite.htm will help me!

For Culture, the chapters “Médias Et Communication, part of “Amour et Argent” and “Mode, Sport et santé” will be beneficial.

And for my Géo section; the chapters “Les Vacances En France” will help; however, I will be needing to use http://www.frenchteacher.net/alevel/alevelindex.htm – however that site will also be useful for the other syllabuses used !
fingers crossed they will be successful for me !

2nd french lesson !

Today was my 2nd french lesson at college, and it was very educational.  Why, you may ask?  Well, today we did grammar revision (which, I have to confess, is my downfall) and I found it very beneficial to go through it.  Even more so, at the end of class I had to ask my teacher about actually buying a french grammar book, as our course is written based….

As I would like to get to grips with grammar, does anyone know where I can access grammar lessons for free on the internet?  Any help would be appreciated.

Oh, and for homework tonight, we got to revise (via a handout) masculine/feminine nouns, written conversation, numbers, preferences and verbs.  I have forgotten quite a few of these, so the dictionary will be used a lot tonight…

lesson inspiration?

I have set aside afternoons to do lessons, but lately (especially Fridays, when it’s culture day), I haven’t felt “bothered”.  I do have a lot of things on my mind at the moment (learning french is one of them!) but… just haven’t been in the mood…

which means that tomorrow I got to complete 2 chapters of my “Teach Yourself French” book. Yay. Fun

(and, the thing that is on my mind is the B-O-Y-F-R-I-E-N-D issue.  or lack of one, in my case.  I am seeking a french boyfriend – as I do believe in having one can help your spoken french…!  I do have a blog for my dating (mis)adventures so if you want the url then please ask me

ma première leçon française !

I had my first French lesson today and to be honest, I enjoyed it!

I felt like I was “on the spot” when speaking as I was convinced I’d mess up; BUT my french teacher was surprised that I listen to French music (albeit it being ‘modern’ – think Funradio/NRJ;)) and watching Star Ac’ !  A lot of the members were really surprised about my spoken french, but to be honest I haven’t spoke French like that for seven years – i.e. when I did my GCSE French !

My teacher told me that it’s possible that I may be moved up a class, but, for the moment, I feel that I’m in the right class due to the lack of pratice of spoken french…!

so now i need to do my “devoirs” (that’s homework to you and me) – write a paragraph about something of your choice.  Now, the decision is whether to do it on:
a. My recent holiday to the Drôme Provençale;
b. the new series of Star Academy
c. about my family  (BORING).
So I’m being drawn to go towards option a.  Why?  Well, it’d be interesting for the rest of ma classe to discover a new area of France… and I wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb (like I would of if I was speaking about Star Academy 8).

comments are welcomed, as always

à demain !
Julia

bonjour !

Bonjour !  Salut !  Bienvennue sur ma blog !

This blog is set to keep you all updated as to how my progress is going in trying to speak french – fluently – in one year !

In case you are wondering who I am – well, my name’s Julia, I’m 23 years old and I live in South East England.

So, why French ? Well, the reason’s pretty simple :  I want to move to France.  Simple as.  I fell in love with France ever since I was seven and, well, the rest is history !

I would also love to have a French boyfriend/husband (who is a mad music lover like me ! – See my French Music Website link opposite) and would also like any future children that I have to be bilingual in English and French.

So, how am I going to speak French in 1 year ?  This is what I aim to do :
* Go to weekly classes at my local Adult Ed centre – I am doing an intermediate (GCSE/AS-level) course on Wednesdays PM.
* Teach myself French by using the “Teach Yourself French” book on a Monday
* Tuesdays I shall be doing online courses (i.e. LiveMocha / BBC Intermediate French); as well as investigation on possible places I’d like to move to (Current runners are Avignon, Marseille and Paris)
* Thursdays I shall be doing the Business French online course available on Radio France Interational; as well as  investigating French Politics/French literature (and modern authors !!)
* Fridays is my fun day !!  I shall be doing sheets and information on French culture – including French TV and Radio.
* Watch as much French TV as I can over the Internet – I have TF1 and it sometimes works; but most of the time only NRJ Hits work, which is a shame.  I have also found a link of where I can watch Star Academy 24/24, 7j/7 which does help my french !  It’s worth noting that NRJ12, TF1 and FillesTV have videos of current French Shows !
* Listen to French Radio:  At work, I listen to either NRJ, Skyrock or FunRadio as I like the modern music that they play; however in the afternoons Fun Radio has telephone interviews with Popular American Artists (i.e. last Friday they had AKON), and the interviews are conducted in French AND English…  At home I can pick up France Bleu Nord (as I live 110 km away from France) and I try to listen to that, although my radio is broken at the moment …….
* Watch TV5 and Euronews if I can’t get on the Internet for some odd reason.
* Read French magazines !  You can download Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire from their websites – although to get the whole issue you have to pay.  The rest of their sites are free; and feature articles are available from their websites.  Other magazines to try are Biba, Glamour and Femina.
* Speak to my parents as much as I can (much to their annoyance !) in French

that’s my plan !! And if you have any more suggestions to add to my list then please say – I shall be interested to hear what you think !!

Bonne Chance!
Julia