frenchgrinds.ie » barneymc

Bienvenu

barneymc — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 14:29:39 +0000

Welcome back! A new school year starting and lots of time to get stuck into some new subjects and some new areas in other subjects. Hopefully you will find this site useful during the year. I will try and bring you a few tips and tricks and also help you with some of the slog-work. Make no mistake, you will have to work at a language to get it organiesd poperly inside your head. Are you ready?

Drop me a comment below or an email if you have any questions or require any help.

Some Words

barneymc — Sat, 01 May 2010 11:06:02 +0000

Try out these simple words….

Leaving Cert Oral Preparation

barneymc — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 21:00:54 +0000

I’ve set up an online grind tomorrow Wednesday 06 April at 6:30 PM. This will be for anyone with questions on the Oral exam and how to prepare for it. Remember, this is a conversation so you will need (a) broadband (b) headset and preferably (c) a webcam.

Check out this link and you can enter the virtual classroom. A demain, alors.

You can also check your internet speed at speedtest.net Make sure you hit the ‘BEGIN TEST’ button…and not any other…

If you get download speed less than 2 Megs then really the online grind wont work.

Oral Preparation

barneymc — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:44:05 +0000

I was going to try and organize and oral grind this evening. At the last minute I am afraid I will have to cancel….

Apologies to all but I will try and get time put aside this weekend to help you out…..

So watch this space….and keep up the study…

Leaving Cert Oral preparation

barneymc — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:16:13 +0000

6:30 PM on Wednesday night we will have a preparation grind for the French Oral. Just log on to the link below and you can access for free. Just enter any old email address when registering (joe@gmail.com will get you in for example).

http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/284276-preparation-for-oral-french

We will cover general questions that anyone may have. So just click on the link above and come on in. You will need a headset (earphones and mic) and preferably a webcam to get the best out of the webgrind.

Are you listening ?

barneymc — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:56:50 +0000

Do you listen regularly to French radio? It’s a great way of training your ear into the speed and pronunciation that is required for the aural listening.

Listening to French radio...improves your Leaving Cert grades!

So here are some radio stations that you can listen to online…that way you can also record some of the snippets and play them back at your leisure. What I recommend is to try and listen to the news on the hour. If you miss a word or two at 7:00 PM then you will probably catch it’s meaning at 8:00 PM….

http://players.tv-radio.com/radiofrance/playerfranceinter.php France Inter radio/news discussion

http://www.france-info.com/

http://www.europe1.fr/Radio/Direct/

Happy Listening

French on your iPhone

barneymc — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:33:49 +0000

If you are an iPhone freak then you got to get your hands on this app! It’s free in iTunes for the month of March.

French Flashcards on your iPhone

Since I’ve started using it I can’t believe how easy it is to learn verbs, vocabulary and much more! Stay tuned and I will be bringing you some more goodies for the iPhone.

More more vocab

barneymc — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:05:17 +0000

Some more vocabulary …

J’en ai entendu parler	I heard about it…(people were speaking about it…)
Être contre	To be against
Les périls (mas.)	The perils/dangers
Aux alentours	Around (approximately)
Convoquer	Summon, call for
Régler	Sort out (bill/problem)

Listening vocabulary

barneymc — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:12:31 +0000

How did you get on listening to that audio file from yesterday?
Here are some words to help if you are confused.

César	French equivalent of the Oscars
Avoir lieu	To take place
La vie privée	Private life
Être dans la sellette	To be in the hot seat
Terminer	To finish up
Évidemment	Of course
Ca sera tout	That will be all
Accueillir	To welcome
L’équipe	The team
S’est allumée	Lit up
Se ressentir	To feel/sense
Confier	To trust

Some Audio

barneymc — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:07:08 +0000

Time to get those ears tuned in…..
Start by listening to French radio. Below is a podcast from Libération.fr….

You can download the MP3 from the link below.

Original audio source (ecrans-fr-le-podcast_2010-03-03_ecrans-fr-le-podcast.mp3)

Have a listen, if there are some words you don’t understand please let me know. I’ll add some vocabulary in the coming days….