Affichage des articles dont le libellé est listening. Afficher tous les articles
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est listening. Afficher tous les articles

dimanche 5 octobre 2014

NORMAN fait des videos - French videos on YouTube

I was introduced to Norman's channel by a French friend. He's very entertaining, funny and talented and it's great French listening practice.

He has one of the most popular Youtube channels in France, with over 5 million subscribers.

Check out his YT channel here :)

and here is his most recent video « 10 choses que les femmes font mieux que les hommes » ("10 things that women do better than men")

jeudi 8 août 2013

YouTube Draw My Life videos

One day I came across a "Draw my life" video on Youtube and watched it, and was almost in tears. It was by Michelle Phan, whom I wrote about before here. The video was very touching and it got me addicted to watching more of these sorts of videos, made by people I'd never heard about before..

Here is her video:



And then I came across this one, by a young 18 year old French girl, Horia AKA UnMondeAuFéminin.



These days my French is definitely not progressing at all. In fact, I am ashamed to say that I hardly ever use it :( I don't really need to use it much for work and all of my friends speak English so I speak English the majority of the time.. but anyway, I'm happy to report that I can understand everything in this video, even if I do feel that she speaks super fast (like all teens do). Check out her video for some listening practice.

If there's something these videos have shown me is that no matter how happy and wonderful someone's life seems on the outside we all have the same problems, worries, fears, and ups and downs, and that's what makes us real and human.

Happy watching!




dimanche 11 novembre 2012

French as spoken by non-native speakers

Something I noticed while doing all these tests for French proficiency is that after a certain level for the listening tests, they give you extracts that are NOT read by native speakers and/or with background noise. I think this really tests your listening skills because if everything was read by a native speaker, slowly and clearly with no background noise then 1) it would be too easy and 2) it would not be realistic as there is lots of background noise in every day life!

One of the hardest things I found at the start was making and receiving telephone calls because the line would undoubtedly be somewhat noisy and writing down telephone numbers was always hard...

Anyway I'm getting off the point I wanted to make.

I was looking at a trailer for Un Plan Parfaît and discovered that Diane Kruger speaks fluent French! She sounds like a native speaker to my ears. I did a bit of research and found out she went to Paris when she was 15 which I guess is still young enough to pick up a native accent. Of course she also speaks fluent German and English.




 J.K. Rowling (of Harry Potter fame) also speaks French. Here she is with President Nicolas Sarkozy (although she is reading and not speaking). She has an accent so I think it's good to watch this video for French listening practice.

jeudi 4 octobre 2012

On va sortir



Came across this funny video which could be (but it's not) an ad for the meet up website Onvasortir.com (OVS) 

I just put it here because 1) it's funny and 2) it's good French listening practice! :)

Enjoy.

dimanche 17 avril 2011

Orangina and Rivella

Orangina and Rivella

I would say that 90% of the time I just drink water. Yeah, pretty boring huh? I actually LIKE the taste of water. However every now and then my sweet tooth gets activated and I need something sweet like a soft drink or fruit juice.

I do not like normal soft drinks (soda) and haven't since I was about 16 so I never drink them but I LOVE Orangina and Rivella! They are so different to Coca Cola, Sprite or Fanta. For one thing, they both have a lot less gas and they also seem less artificial/chemical and sweet. To me it's like they are halfway between soft drink and fruit juice.

According to Schweppes, Orangina is a French carbonated fruit drink first created in 1936. It is the largest selling carbonated fruit drink in France. It is well-known for its funny shaped bottle, the 'real fruit pulp' content, containing no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives and funky advertising. It tastes halfway between Fanta and orange juice. There isn't a lot of pulp but enough to give it some 'texture' and extra flavour kick. I buy it here in 2L bottles.

The ingredients are:

       •  Carbonated water,
       •  High fructose corn syrup and/or sugar,
       •  Orange juice concentrate,
       •  Pure orange pulp,
       •  Tangerine juice concentrate
       •  Natural orange flavours.
It has no artificial coloring or flavoring, no caffeine, and is marked kosher. 

Here's a video (in French) all about the history of the company and the drink. Towards the end, the actor Jamel Debbouze (featured in Amélie) is shown appearing in a tv commercial. Also there is a risqué ad featuring computer-generated humanised animals.



and one of the tv commercials featuring a laughing hyena:




Rivella is a carbonated drink from Switzerland first created in 1952. I can't quite put my finger on what flavour it is. It is sweet and fruity but also different to anything I've ever drunk before. There are three varieties but I've only ever had the original (Red).

Ingredients - The exact recipe for Rivella Red is a well kept secret, these are the known listed ingredients:
  • Water
  • Whey (35 %)
  • (lactose, lactic acid and minerals)
  • Sugar (76g of refined sugar and 14g from whey per liter)
  • Herbs
  • Fruitextract
  • Carbonation
  • Acidifier (L(+)-Lactic Acid)
Given the list of ingredients, to me it tastes like something halfway between carbonated fruit juice (with maybe a hint of strawberry flavour) and the Japanese fermented milk drink Calpis/Calpico (ingredients: Lactose, Glucose, Sugar, Skim milk powder, Lactic acid (with a lactic acid cultver), natural and artificial flavours).

In any case, all three drinks have unique flavours and I love them all! Every time I go to Switzerland I try to get me some Rivella.

Here is a Dutch tv commercial for Rivella:

mardi 3 août 2010

Kids audio animal encyclopedia in French!

Nancy primary school: L'encyclopédie multimédia des animaux

Found this totally by accident! It's so cute. It's a mini encyclopedia of various animals with cute drawings and descriptions read aloud by the kids!

There is heaps of new vocab to learn too!

dimanche 18 juillet 2010

France Bienvenue YouTube channel

Link

There are some really interesting discussions on society and life, on this site! such as these ones:

Tutoyer ou vouvoyer





Interprètes pour l'Europe (being an interpreter for the EU)





Les femmes et la cigarette (Women and the cigarette)



Grandes villes et villes moyennes




They also have a blog. Check them out :)

vendredi 18 juin 2010

Le Bac 2010 le philo...

The end-of-high school exams, the Baccalauréat (or le bac for short) started this week, firstly with the philosophy exam.

Since I've never taken a course in philosophy and therefore never had a philosophy exam it's interesting to find out how it all works and what they need to know for this exam..











(totally unrelated, but I can't believe how cold it looks in the videos and it's June, it's summer! I see people here wearing the same sort of clothes and it's winter here now. Crazy).

lundi 7 juin 2010

Teachers.tv French society teaching videos



Teachers.tv

In one of my previous posts I posted a link to the Teaching handwriting in France video and I'm really glad I stumbled upon that site because there's a whole heap of great high quality informative videos on there. I've listed some relevant ones. Unfortunately many are only streamed to UK viewers.


Lesson starters - Primary French - Bienvenue en Martinique !
A second selection of short videos filmed in the Caribbean island of Martinique, to be used as lesson starters for primary French learners.

Citizenship: How do they do it in France?
A revealing look at the way in which the French education system approaches the teaching of citizenship, and how this compares to the approach of British schools.

Santé
This programme looks at a French healthy food scheme, called the Fleurbaix Laventie Ville Sante project. Run by Agnes Lommez, it has not only helped to drastically reduce the level of childhood obesity but has also succeeded in creating an understanding of nutrition and health from the early years.

Secondary modern foreign languages
Resource Review is your solution to finding the best resources for teaching your subject. Each week we test out resources in the classroom, targeted to a key stage, in a specific subject area.

Attention seekers
In this programme, John Bayley visits a part time French teacher to observe and offer advice in the teaching of a particularly disruptive Year 7 class.

Great primary teaching lesson ideas for Primary French
Four ideas for teaching French at primary show an approach for giving pupils the confidence to practice their language skills in class.

Mind your languages
In many ways Greenhill Primary School is a primary like any. Yet here, the learning of modern foreign languages is embedded within the school's ethos.

Hard to teach - Secondary modern foreign languages using ICT
Innovative ICT applications which support the teaching of MFL are investigated, including web applications that encourage boys to speak, and ways of using the internet to keep students interested.

Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) teaching
As English primary schools gear up to teach modern foreign languages, we look north of the border - where schools have 10 years experience of MFL - for some top tips and advice.

Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) teaching - Attraction lower ability pupils
This programme visits Frederick Gough School in Scunthorpe to examine the issue of making language courses more appealing to lower ability pupils.

MFL - Making language learning more appealing
How The English Martyrs School in Hartlepool has transformed the popularity of MFL subjects and boosted its GCSE results.

Lost for words
According to John Dunford from the ASCL, the number of students sitting language GCSE and A Level has dramatically declined since the government made MFL non-compulsory.

Modern Foreign Languages
A Year 10 GSCE Italian class at Haydon School, Hillingdon, focus on extending their vocabulary so they can achieve top marks in their upcoming conversation exam.

Independent learning: One teacher's journey
An MFL teacher enlists the help of education expert Jackie Beere to demonstrate how to implement independent learning techniques in the classroom.

Lesson planning
Clare Hewitt, a former air hostess and supermarket manager, now teaches modern foreign languages at Parkside school near Bradford. This programme charts her progress over her first term of teaching and takes a detailed look at how she is tackling her lesson planning.
Clare is finding it hard to motivate children at Key Stage 4 and wants to plan dynamic lessons to keep them interested. Using mind-mapping - a non-linear way of planning - mentor Sarah Williams helps Clare to plan a Year 10 French lesson for pupils of mixed ability.

Better learning with ICT: Online communities in the classroom
Secondary French teacher Marie Guyomarc'h, investigates how to make use of online communities in her classes.

Jack, Year 8
A look at the school and learning experience of Jack, a Year 8 pupil at Hove Park School in Sussex.
Jack's experience at school is mixed. In subjects such as history, in which students dramatise a slave auction, and art he is very motivated, but is frustrated in French, where his refusal to work results in him being sent out of the lesson.


The story of gannets and their environment
The story of gannets unfolds through a look at their home in the biggest bird reserve on the French sea.
(not available for screening outside UK)

Healthy eating - Let's start a café - portraits
A second collection of short videos to be used as lesson starters for primary French learners.
(not available for screening outside UK)

They filmed the war in colour: France is Free part 1
A look at the German occupation of France during World War II, using colour footage from the time.
(not available for screening outside UK)

An insight into WW2, including the liberation of France from German occupation, captured in colour.
(not available for screening outside UK)

Follow pupils at Malherbe Lycee in Caen, France, as they prepare for the high demands of their final exams and the impact it will have on their future careers.
(not available for screening outside UK)

Ella, one of three hopefuls picked to work as a fixer for The Wombats, struggles with her French and her enthusiasm as the band play a music festival in Arras, France.
(not available for screening outside UK)

Chez Mimi, a series for nine to 12-year-old French beginners, features Madame Mimi, the cantankerous concierge of an apartment block.
(not available for screening outside UK)


I've only watched about 3 of the videos...
I found the Citizenship video really really interesting because I started to get a sense of déjà vu! My French classes at the Alliance Française were just like this! We'd watch a video or read an article and discuss it in great length and have the class talk about or even debate their points of view, etc. After the first one or two lessons I was really weirded out by the whole experience. I couldn't see the point of it all. I wanted to both cry and scream. It's been a long time since I was in high school so I don't remember doing anything like that and even when I was in high school, we don't really talk about issues like that in that way either. After I got used to this 'concept' the classes became a lot more fun and easier though. And after watching this video (and reading various books about French people) it's obvious that that's what French people love to do: philosophise and argue and debate about random topics but especially those relating to the government and politics and society!

vendredi 2 avril 2010

Bradley Cooper speaking French





I loved Bradley Cooper in the "He's just not into you" film... in my wanderings on YouTube, I discovered that this gorgeous and talented actor also speaks French!

Admittedly I can pick out quite a few mistakes with gender and grammar... but overall he speaks well and his pronunciation is pretty good!

The videos are quite long to watch though but it's good listening practice and I pretty much understood everything they were saying!

jeudi 18 mars 2010

Extr@ - French learning videos


I came across these videos some time ago on this website and I felt compelled to watch them all. Strangely, they became quite addictive for me even though:

1. the acting is horrible
2. the storylines are largely predictable
3. the whole thing is just so cheesy and lame...

but, it's good for:
1. listening practice
2. learning new vocab
3. a laugh

haha.

check it out here. There are 13 episodes in total and I found myself wishing that there were more!

samedi 27 février 2010

Londres, sixième ville française - great listening practice!

Link: France 5

This video goes for almost an hour and is available for a limited time only! It is streamed from the France5 website so you can't download it either. For some reason I can't get the video to work for me but I can hear it. It makes for really great listening practice. Surprisingly I can understand most of it! It's also interesting to learn about London being 'France's sixth biggest city' by population size.

mardi 26 janvier 2010

Lilou Macé


A few weeks ago I bought this book I LOST MY JOB AND I LIKED IT: 30-Day Law-Of-Attraction Diary of a Dream Job Seeker but only got around to reading it today.

When I first read about it (after a random browse through Amazon) I read the blurb and the favourable reviews, the fact that it mentioned the Law of Attraction, the fact that the writer is around the same age as me.. all these factors had me hooked! I had to buy this book!!

So now that I've started reading it, I discovered that the author is part French. She was born in the States to French parents, grew up in France, and then moved back to the States to work after graduating from university. After her time there she moved to London to work, and was later laid off (due to the financial crisis) which prompted her to write this book.

She has a website, a Blogspot blog and a YouTube channel. She writes about Well-being, Spirituality, Evolution, Love, Consciousness, Fitness, Health, Creativity, Relationships, Meditations, Open Heart, Universal Laws which are all topics that I'm highly interested in. She seems like a lovely person and her videos/messages are very uplifting. Unlike a lot of online or YouTube personalities ('celebs') she doesn't seem arrogant or egotistical or bimbo-ish either.

You can check out her videos (she has over 800!) and the fun thing is, a lot of them are only in French, so it's an awesome way to practise your listening!

Anyway if you're interested in any of the above topics check out her book, her website or her videos! Here's one to start you off:

Qu'est ce que la Loi de l'Attraction? Noel Wan

jeudi 12 novembre 2009

Permettez-moi de me présenter...

I was just reading here on Chez Marseille where the author pointed to this link - Le Défilé de Marques which has a whole series of short interviews with various people. Well, it's more of a monologue than an dialogue but it makes for great listening practice because there are both sexes, a few different ages, and lots of different accents (and speaking speeds!).

Here's Kate's:



Casting Citoyen « Le Défilé de Marques »


and some others:


Casting Citoyen « Le Défilé de Marques »



Casting Citoyen « Le Défilé de Marques »



Casting Citoyen « Le Défilé de Marques »

lundi 9 novembre 2009

De-facto relationships in France - PACs

Last week, in my French class, we were given a newspaper article about the lives of women in France since the 40s, particularly after the 70s.
It mentioned the work, baby, marriage thing (which of course is a hotly debated topic in any country!)...

So anyway, I found out that a de-facto relationship in French is called a concubinage, a union libre or a PACs (which stands for "pacte civil de solidarité", meaning a civil union between 2 people, including homosexuals). PACs has been around for 10 years.

I found two recent articles about the rising popularity of being PACsed in France here and here.

In the second site (France info) there is an interesting graph with statistics at the slightly decreasing rate of marriage and rapidly rising rate of PACsing. It's in Flash so I have uploaded it as a jpg here (click on it to see it larger).

I think the topic is quite fascinating as everyone knows that in most Western countries the age of first marriage and first baby is increasing, and birth rates are generally declining. Also, in France, there isn't as much of a religious impact on people's daily lives so having a de-facto relationship without marriage, or having a child without marriage seems totally OK there because they are so free and liberal...

Both websites are in French so if you can't read it you'll have to use Babelfish or another translator. There are quite a few audio files on the second site too which are good for listening comprehension practice. :)



The age at first marriage seems to the oldest in certain European countries including France. It's also quite old in Australia (stats from nationmaster).

Women

# 1 Sweden: 30.4 years
# 2 Denmark: 30.1 years
= 3 France: 29.1 years
= 3 Spain: 29.1 years
= 5 Norway: 28.6 years
= 5 Australia: 28.6 years
= 7 Finland: 28.3 years
= 7 Netherlands: 28.3 years
= 9 Ireland: 28.2 years
= 9 Switzerland: 28.2 years
= 9 Germany: 28.2 years
# 12 Austria: 27.9 years
# 13 United Kingdom: 27.7 years
# 14 Canada: 27.4 years
# 15 Japan: 27.3 years
= 16 Italy: 27.1 years
= 16 New Zealand: 27.1 years
# 18 Belgium: 26.6 years
# 19 United States: 25 years

Men

# 1 Sweden: 32.9 years
# 2 Denmark: 32.5 years
= 3 France: 31.2 years
= 3 Spain: 31.2 years
# 5 Norway: 31.1 years
# 6 Germany: 30.9 years
# 7 Switzerland: 30.8 years
# 8 Netherlands: 30.7 years
# 9 Australia: 30.6 years
# 10 Finland: 30.5 years
# 11 Austria: 30.3 years
= 12 Italy: 30 years
= 12 Ireland: 30 years
= 12 Japan: 30 years
# 15 United Kingdom: 29.8 years
# 16 New Zealand: 29.2 years
# 17 Canada: 29 years
# 18 Belgium: 28.9 years
# 19 United States: 26 years

According to the chart

Average age of (first I assume) marriage (2006)
Men 37.6, Women 35.6

Average age of (first I assume) being PACsé (2006)
Men 31.5, Women 32.9

mardi 20 octobre 2009

French Listening comprehension

I found this video which I thought would be good for listening practice. He speaks clearly and there is no background noise.

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