Nan in Mass Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 My youngest is planning to do this in Dec. His French spelling is horrible and he wants to know how much of a problem this is going to be. If it is going to be a large problem, he says he'll confine what he writes to things he has a reasonable chance of spelling correctly, but he'd rather write at his speaking level. I guess his quesiton is about test-taking strategy. Thanks, Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iskra Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 I've taken the first level test of either DELF or DALF (I can't remember which one, but it was the easier one of the 2) many many years ago (when I was in high school). I don't remember much about it though unfortunately. However you should definitely do some research and decide whether it is DELF or DALF you want. One of those is much harder than the other, and from what I remember you have to pass a level, to take the next level and there were several levels. I don't know if it is still done the same way though. This was at least 15 years ago or more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lune Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 I don't have any experience with the DALF because we're native speakers but I can share the French point of view on spelling if it helps. :001_smile: It depends on what kind of spelling mistake you're talking about. If it is purely an orthographe issue (like a double consonant), it's not such a big problem - unless it is a very simple word that everyone is supposed to know. He should avoid very common spelling mistakes like ver/verre/vert of course. But very often a spelling mistake will also be a grammatical error (in a verb, an adjective) and this gives a negative impression. (For instance, writing "je vais mangé" would be a problem: it shows that you don't master the futur proche or don't understand the difference between the participe passé and the infinitif.) Punctuation mistakes are not serious mistakes in French - well, not as much as in English anyway. Did you have a look at http://www.ciep.fr/delfdalf/documents/C2_L_ex1_cand.pdf ? Apparently, "L’usage de dictionnaires monolingues français/français est autorisé". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted July 24, 2012 Author Share Posted July 24, 2012 Really! That would help. It never dawned on me that they would let him use a dictionary. I wonder if this is true for B2? He seems to be varying between B1 and C1, depending on the prof and/or whether writing is involved. Thank you for the info. I will pass it along. Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted July 24, 2012 Author Share Posted July 24, 2012 Doesn't look like B2 allows this. Oh well. That is a helpful explanation about the spelling, though. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lune Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 From this document for B2, page 14 http://www.ciep.fr/delf-scolaire/documents/DELF_B2_junior.pdf Production écrite (25 points) - orthographe lexicale: 1 point - orthographe grammaticale : 4 points If he has a good knowledge of French grammar, he should be fine. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted July 25, 2012 Author Share Posted July 25, 2012 This is exactly what he wanted to know. I bet that link answers other questions, too. Thank you! Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 I totally agree with Lune. As her, I don't have direct knowledge of the DELF or DALF, but I have known teachers who will simply refuse to read a paper based on grammar errors (aka wrong spelling, like Lune explained) If you write "il sans est allé" instead of "il s'en est allé", it renders the phrase meaningless, even though it's pronounced the same way. French natives will simply not understand the first one. It truly is a huge problem, if his spelling level is not strong enough to match the grammar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joan in GE Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 It truly is a huge problem, if his spelling level is not strong enough to match the grammar. This is a problem natives work on in school too - homophonic words and phrases.... But if you think about each word, you can figure out that it is wrong if you know the grammar and take the time to examine... Taking the example Lune gave...if you remember that manger means 'to eat' then you would see that is what you need. But these type of mistakes are so common - I found myself doing it the other day - and I completely know it is wrong. My brain was just spelling phonetically... Unhappily I caught it only after I sent the mail. I can usually write correctly in English the first time - though make mistakes too, just not as often. But with French I should always check. Every time I do, I find a missed accent, homophone problem, etc. If your son has that self-doubt and patience to go over his work, it should help... Joan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted July 27, 2012 Author Share Posted July 27, 2012 One of his teachers says she'll correct anything he sends her and he says all the teachers are saying the problem isn't his grammar in general but the conjungating. That, at least, is a fairly straight forward thing to fix. I will pass these posts along to him. Thank you for taking the time to explain the pitfalls. I spoke to him the other day and reminded him of why I had chosen French for him (he wanted to be an Egyptian archaeologist when he was very small and Arabic wasn't something I could manage) and I apologized for not having picked Spanish. He laughed and said he doesn't want to work in South America, he wants to work in Switzerland, and he still wants to spend some time in northern Africa, so the French is a good thing, despite its difficult spelling. So many of the homeschooling choices we make for our children are based on wild guesses about their future needs or based on things they say when they are 7 lol. Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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