How to improve listening skills? (1 Viewer)

[Sugar]

I'm terrible at listening tests. The tapes the teacher uses are too fast for me and I can only understand it when she reads it the passage out herself.

I want to continue French for next year, except the listening section is beginning to worry me. Is there any resources available online that I could use too improve? Or textbooks? Thanks.

 

[chepas]

Salut!

http://www.boredofstudies.org/community/showthread.php?t=33651 is a thread I made specially dedicated to some listening links for online sources, so I bumped it up so it appears on the first French page (bit of an old thread...)

There are a few in there, especially the www.rfi.fr, the main news radio thing in France. They have a "Actualités en français facile" (News in easy French) with transcripts (i think?) and some comprehensiony type exercises.

Apart from that, the best thing you could do is listen to as many different things as you can, as the more you sort of immerse yourself, the easier it will get and easier just 'understanding' things will come.

For the most readily available resource is the SBS, who screens "Le Journal" from Monday to Saturday at 9.20am. Don't get disheartened at the beginning when they seem to speak just gibberish! You're sure to understand some stuff, even if it's just a few words. Then along the line you'll hear words from Le Journal that you've heard before, then it builds, and then you can work out the context of things from pictures and words you know - then building more vocab from that... Also to acclimatise yourself to really Parisian 'français pointu' speaking patterns and accent that the presenters have it's good to model your oral and speaking skills on. If you can't watch it at the time, maybe time-record it or ask someone at your school to tape it (like someone in the library or something..) or your Fr teacher.

Also, the same with the SBS' French radio programme. The Sydney frequency is 1107AM (that's right, AM!).

Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 11am - 12pm
Saturday: 9pm - 10pm
Sunday: 4pm - 5pm

I like the Sat night show personally, more music and stuff. The ones during the week are good for news and stuff, as they have people that have special news sections for the whole Francophone world - that is New Caledonia, Mauritius, other DOM-TOM, Québec, etc... - and apparently are popular with schools becaues of this.

For areas outside of Sydney, the French programme is on the same timetable, with one or two less shows (I forget which shows aren't broadcast on the national frequency though...). I know the frequency for Newcastle is 1413AM.

Some links which I haven't visited yet but recommended by my Fr teacher include:

www.bonjourdefrance.com <-- apparently with some audio components
www.adodoc.net/listedoc_niv2.html <-- with short video extracts etc, and slower versions for students for comprehension stuff.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

Bonne chance avec ça alors!
Chépas .

 

[Sugar]

I didn't see that listening thread. Thanks for bumping it up.

I watched Le Journal before and I could barely understand it because they talk too fast. I'll try and make it a habit to watch on the weekends though.

Thankyou for your help!

 

[chepas]

Sorright.

Actually, forgot to mention - good thing is also French music. A lot of it is good for listening, even if its Pop and very syrupy, it's still good for this purpose.

Some recommendations in no particular order.

~ Calogero - acoustic guitary, seems a popular fellow on the music scene at the moment
~ Lynda Lemay - my favourite Franco singer. She's from Québec, so lots of her songs have slang/vocab that we wouldn't come across in the French realm. Broad styles of songs.
~ Natasha St. Pier - typical charts Top 40, some nice stuff.
~ Lara Fabian - same ^. She sounds a lot like Céline Dion.
~ Isabelle Boulay - same ^. Another Québécoise.
~ Indochine. French group (i think?) also popular.
~ Garou - reminds me of Shannon Noll sometimes. Another Québécois.
~ Claude François - now he's a 60's/70's singer so just think like that, but some songs are funny in the sense of laughing from that period. Though 'Le jouet extraordinaire' and 'Le téléphone pleure' are good, as they're stories and easy to follow.
~ Carla Bruni - very easy to listen to, calm songs, lilting, but after the 3rd hour of songs of hers on repeat can get very annoying .

One can't ignore their version of "Idol" winners, or "A la recherche de la nouvelle star". Jonatan Cerrada won in Europe, and Wilfred LeBouthillier had some form of success in his native Québec.

And of course one cannot go past the greats like Edith Piaf and Charles Aznavour.

Have a look on iMesh/Kazaa/whatever download thing that still works. www.paroles.net can also lead you in a direction of what's popular as they have a 'people's choice' list of songs on their front page (they're a lyrics site).

In the "La musique francophone" thread there are other people's thoughts too.

Chépas

 

[Hippy La-Laa]

Hmm. Watching French films is probably a good idea- or so my teacher tells me...

There are heaps of funny ones, I 'spose though the only drawback to french films is that they are subtitled. And ya don't get subtitles in the exams... So in that respect, they're not that great. But still, you can pick up and recognise quite a bit of the dialogue and get you ear accustomed to the french accent.

Yeah, SBS 'Le Journal' is good if you have the attention span... SO many times I've tried to watch it but I get so damn boooored 10 minutes into it.

But that's just me.

French music is quite funky, the lanugage becomes wonderfully melodic when it's being sung....

Yup. C'est tout. That's all I have to contribute. Chepas has said everything else!

 

[malkin86]

I've heard one song by Mecano - very balladish and cute, although I didn't understand half!

 

[SweetAngel86]

Get your teacher to make copies of french tapes and the q's that go wit them. Do them, take them to ur teacher and do some more. All You gotta do is keep on listening to more french tapes.

 

[shazzam]

I didn't see that listening thread. Thanks for bumping it up.

I watched Le Journal before and I could barely understand it because they talk too fast. I'll try and make it a habit to watch on the weekends though.

Thankyou for your help!

hey dw, our teacher said that listening is by far the easiest part of the exam, well as it has been shownin past years anyway. No way is there ever going to be something as fast as that

 

[tomorrows_angel]

I'm top of my class in listening (it's the onlly thinkg i'm actually good at!!! i'm bottom in everything else!) and i can't understand much at all of le journal. I'll occassionally get a word here and there, but i pretty much follow the graphics. I have done dozens of past papers, and none of them speak any where near as fast as that, so you have nothing to worry about. it's all good!

 

[omg_a]

Definitely do the whole listening to as much French as you can thing. Listening was my worst section to, for five years. then at the end of last year, and the beginning of this year, i suddenly made this huge break through and instead of just hearing a couple of words and guessing the meaning, i was able to separate and understand almost all the words. Le Journal is still pretty hard.....it requires a lot of concentration and often unfamiliar vocab. but persisting at it is the key.........when it changes you'll know it, and the only way to get better is to practice. and if all else fails, in the exam, just use common sense to answer half the questions!

 

[cranberries]

hey chepas, do you remember how do get to the easy news in french on the radiofrance site? It sounds really interesting but I can't find it...

btw, you post heaps of GREAT stuff on this forum!!