#Writing tips

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

terse dome
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Hello,

I've been learning French for just over 3 months, and I have a plan to study abroad in France next year (I'm applying atm).

I've taken the TCF last month (Nov 3) and the result is as follows

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I'm going to retake the TCF in 2 days, and my goal is to score 290-310 in the QCM & 1-2 in Writing (A1/A2)

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I haven't had much time to prepare for the Writing for the past month due to the other classes that I have to do at the university in my country at the same time

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So I'd like to ask about tips to be able to write about any topic that I'm given during the exam.

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My issues are that whenever I see a writing prompt, I can sometimes encounter unfamiliar words and might misunderstand what's being asked

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And also with a limited amount of vocabulary that I have, doing the writing is a big struggle for me because if I don't know what word to use, it's very hard to finish the sentence & the task. I usually write as I think, including the grammar & stuff like that

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I hope I spoke clear enough. @ me if you need to ask me more info

radiant remnant
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Perso, je m'entraînerais à écrire, en cherchant les mots que je ne connais pas au fur et à mesure que j'écris

terse dome
radiant remnant
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Quoi 💀

terse dome
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Le TCF est le 12

radiant remnant
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Euh attends

terse dome
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Can we speak English?

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Cuz I can't comprehend written French well

radiant remnant
radiant remnant
radiant remnant
terse dome
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However, my reading & grammar is still okay though

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I think I can still do that well

radiant remnant
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Improving those won't really matter

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You need to fix the 0

terse dome
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Yeah true

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In TCF, they only look at ur Writing

radiant remnant
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It's less that and more that you already have like 35% in the other categories

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While you have 0% in writing

terse dome
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Oh, yeah true

terse dome
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Any other tips? Anyone else? I'd like to hear from others as well

vestal fjord
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When it comes to written production, the issue is either lack of vocabulary or lack of structure. A lot of the times, lack of vocabulary can highlight lack of structure because anyone who knows structure knows a way to reformulate a phrase that does include the words you do know

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While you're formulating your phrases and you've found a word that is missing, try and reformulate that.

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For example, say I had thought of an idea:
'For a lot of farms, there's too many products and too many harvests to the point where the soil isn't healing.'

I then came up with a sentence like, « Quant aux fermes qui y existent, il y a toujours […] de produits et de […] à tel point que le sol […] »
Here, there's a lack of key vocab: the word for 'too much (trop)', 'harvest (récolte)', and 'heal/improve (s'améliorer)'. Though I can't think of the right words, I can at least reformulate my idea to avoid this.

I might say: 'For a lot of farms, there is a lot of products that required a lot of chemicals to the point where the land is worsening'. With that, I can give out a good result:
« Quant aux fermes qui y existent, il y a beaucoup de produits qui ont besoin de beaucoup de produits chimiques à tel point que le sol se dégrade. »

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Because I know how my idea works at its heart, I can reformulate it in a way that doesn't expose my lack of vocabulary. The way to train this is by just practice, unfortunately. You really have try and understand the most basic form of an idea, develop it, and find out ways to reformulate it in case there's a lack of vocabulary in a key area

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That being said, if you still want to work on vocabulary, you can look up DELF/TCF prompts from past tests – if they exist – and just write according to that prompt. Don't look up Google, a dictionary, or whatever, just write. If there are gaps in your vocabulary, jump over them. You can put in brackets with three full stops in them like [...] or whatever to mark that there's a word you don't know. Once that's done, look at your sentences with the crucial gaps and try and reformulate them. Once you've done that, then you can look up the missing words online. The key bit is training that reformulation first because from personal experience, reformulation is going to be faster than being stuck on a specific word.

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The moment you've learnt that new word, use it all the time. You can rewrite the same prompt but with that word repeated again and again. Not just mindlessly writing it in a textbook a million times but actually write it in context. You can even reformulate other phrases so that they can feature that new vocabulary. That will solidify the word in your head as well as the context it comes up in.

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The god-tier advice I have for you when you're learning new words is always go to sleep immediately after. Sleep converts short-term to long-term memory, and that will help you in recollection and remembering that word

vestal fjord
# terse dome Mais j'ai moins de 2 jours :(((

Since you have less than two days, I suggest you don't overwork yourself and don't force yourself to write thousands of lines in preparation. It's not worth it given this time-scale. I'd rather you have a bad score rather than not being present at all because you were sick from late nights.

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Good luck, hope you get it

terse dome
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I tried doing a task 1 prompt earlier and it took me almost half an hr of thinking

vestal fjord
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even if your vocabulary is basic and repetitive you still have something

terse dome
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Here's one that I just finished minutes ago

Sujet : Votre ami canadien va venir dans votre ville pour passer le week-end. Vous lui proposez des endroits et des activités.

Salut, Paul,
Je suis heureux que tu vas venir à Hanoï le samedi prochaine.
Il y a beaucoup d’endroits tourisques dans cette ville, comme la musée d’historique militaire où tu peux savoir plus pour l’histoire du Vietnam. Tu peux aussi visiter la lac Hoan Kiem et prendre le déjeuner en regardant le lac de haut. Le soir, si tu veux acheter des souvenirs, tu te promeneras dans le quartier ancien où des produits locaux sont vendu.
J’espère que ton vacances sera bien.
À bientôt,
...

vestal fjord
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Writing tests are less to do with the actual words you use and more with the structure of your text and the logic of your arguments

terse dome
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Last time I could barely do Task 1 and not anything at all in Task 2

vestal fjord
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It's okay to be repetitive

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For example, « être adjectif que » will just trigger the subjunctive

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You're still graded on grammar so if anyone sees « Je suis heureux que tu vas venir » instead of « Je suis heureux que tu viennes », that's going to be a minus. Instead, I'd put something there like « entendre » :
« Je suis heureux d'entendre que tu vas venir à Hanoï (I'm happy to hear that you're going to come to Hanoi) »

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Better yet, I'd reformulate that:

Ça me rend heureux de savoir que tu vas venir à Hanoï

terse dome
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Maybe things like "Je suis (adj) d'(V)" work?

vestal fjord
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Yeah works fine

terse dome
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Alright 👍 ima try a task 2 cuz it's my struggles last time

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They could ask me abt topics that I don't know well

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In my last writing, they asked me to write abt a sport competition that I participated and I have to announce that I won it

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For task 1. Task 2 was abt sharing my experience living in "un collocation"

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I didn't understand the Task 2 prompt and couldn't do it, therefore getting the 0

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@vestal fjord would it be okay to @ u? I won't do it again if ur uncomforable with pings

vestal fjord
terse dome
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Alr cool. Understanding what they ask is very important as well

terse dome
vestal fjord
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Not understanding prompts?

terse dome
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Sometimes those strange words are the key words

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And misunderstanding that may cause me to write off topic

vestal fjord
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A lot of the times, you can guess by context

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so don't focus on the word itself but on what the rest of prompt is saying

terse dome
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I see. I'll try out more stuff and see

vestal fjord
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Votre ami canadien va venir dans votre ville pour passer le week-end. Vous lui proposez des endroits et des activités.
Say that you don't understand the crossed out words, you can still make out the context. Your friend is coming to town and you're suggesting activities. Focus on those activities instead of just spending the weekend.

terse dome
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Thanks to ur help, I now have some basic ideas on how this actually work

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I was wrong for almost my entire time of preparing for writing

radiant remnant
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Très intéressant bertie

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Ignore all my advice, KingOfRed

terse dome
terse dome
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@vestal fjord just letting u know, my TCF will start 1h from now

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So yeah. I’m rereading the stuff here and praying that I can use ur technique during Writing 🙏