What are you watching/reading/listening to this week?

learning time …

KFC va arrêter de vendre du Pepsi dans ses restaurants aux États-Unis et vendra plutôt du Coca-Cola. KFC vend du Pepsi depuis environ 40 ans. La chaîne de restaurants continuera à vendre du Pepsi dans d’autres pays. Coca-Cola fournit déjà des boissons à McDonald’s et Wendy’s.

Vocabulaire : arrêter = to stop / vendre = to sell / plutôt = instead / depuis = for / environ = about / pays (m pl) = countries / fournir = to supply / déjà = already / boissons (f pl) = drinks

English translation

KFC is going to stop selling Pepsi

KFC will stop selling Pepsi in its restaurants in the United States, and will sell Coca-Cola instead. KFC has sold Pepsi for about 40 years. The restaurant chain will continue to sell Pepsi in other countries. Coca-Cola already supplies drinks to McDonald’s and Wendy’s.

You can read more news stories at Le News, In Easy French.

• je me sens reconnaissant...

• je me suis reconnaissant..

• je vous suis reconnaissant...

Hi everyone!

I'm taking the DELF B2 exam on 4 November, and honestly, I'm getting quite stressed as the date approaches. I still have a few doubts about the exam format and timings, and I'd really appreciate some help from anyone who has taken it recently!

Compréhension de l'oral (Listening)

1. After all the listening exercises are finished, do we get a few minutes to review and correct our answers, or do we move directly to the reading section?
2. Is the listening exam now entirely multiple-choice, or are there still short-answer questions?
3. If short answers are required, do we need to write complete sentences, or are keywords and short phrases acceptable?

Compréhension des écrits (Reading)

1. Does the new multiple-choice format apply to all the reading exercises, or are there still questions requiring written answers?

Production écrite (Writing)

1. I've heard that formal letters are quite common, so I've been focusing mainly on those. Should I also prepare other formats, such as argumentative essays, opinion articles, contributions to debates and informal letters? Has anyone encountered these recently?
2. For formal letters, should paragraphs start directly at the left margin or be indented?
3. Should the signature be placed on the left or right? I've seen different formats online and I'm confused.

Production orale (Speaking)

1. How strictly is the 5–7-minute monologue limit enforced? Do examiners interrupt you if you go over time, and can you lose points for speaking too long?
2. Is there a visible timer or clock during the speaking exam, or do the examiners manage the timing themselves?

General exam questions

1. Can we use a pencil for listening and reading answers initially and then rewrite them neatly in pen, or must everything be written directly in pen? Is there enough time to check to do that?

Sorry for the long list of questions! I'm probably overthinking everything at this point, but I'd really appreciate any clarification, tips or experiences from those who have already taken the exam.

Thank you so much in advance!

Hi everyone!

Has anyone taken the DELF B2 exam in the past few months? I’m taking mine on 4 November in Paris and would really appreciate any last-minute tips or advice based on your experience.

Thank you so much in advance!

How possible is it for me to pass b1 and b2 by this time next year
I started my course im b1 now and ill maybe have a tutor for french. How possible will that be to pass both b1 and b2 no need for perfect marks only a passing score

Hi! I have a couple questions about the phrase "tout passe, tout lasse, tout casse" (everything passes, everything grows tiresome, everything breaks, or basically "nothing lasts forever") and I'm finding a lot of conflicting info, so I figured you'd be the folks to ask.

First of all, is the above order the most common? Because I've often seen it with lasse and casse swapped ("tout passe, tout lasse, tout casse" vs "tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse"). From what i've read, it seems like maybe the original quote was the latter, but modern culture uses the former?

Also, I can't get a straight answer on the proper pronunciation of passe, casse, and lasse.
Google translate uses short a's like in cat and apple so it's phonetically "pass, cass, and lass".
But other pronunciation sites say the a's are "ah's" so it's phonetically "pahs, cahs, and lahs".
Then I heard a song that uses the phrase and the singer added soft "uh's" to the ends of the words, so it was "PAHS-uh, CAHS-uh, and LAHS-uh".

I thank you in advance for your help. It ain't la fin du monde, but it's bugging the hell out of me.

To give you a summary of my assignment: I need to ask 10 simple, everyday-life questions to a native French speaker—or someone with a very high level of French—via a video call. I know this is the kind of project that not everyone would easily agree to, but if there’s anyone who could help me out with this over the weekend, please send me a DM! I would be very grateful.

Pour vous résumer mon travail : je dois poser 10 questions simples, portant sur la vie quotidienne, à une personne de langue maternelle française — ou ayant un très haut niveau de français — par appel vidéo. Je sais que ce n’est pas le genre de projet que tout le monde accepterait volontiers, mais si quelqu’un pouvait m’aider ce week-end, n’hésitez pas à m’envoyer un message privé ! Je vous en serais très reconnaissant(e).

Bonjour!

I want to keep expanding my vocabulary as a A1 beginner. Can someone recommend me several apps for this purpose?

Le prince Harry dit qu’il veut réparer ses relations avec son père, le roi Charles III, et son frère, le prince William. Dans une nouvelle interview pour le magazine GQ, Harry a parlé de ses relations difficiles avec son père et son frère. Il a dit qu’il se sentait triste face à cette situation et qu’il voulait faire la paix avec eux. Harry et sa femme Meghan ont quitté leurs fonctions royales en 2020 et ont déménagé aux États-Unis. Ils ont publiquement critiqué certains membres de la famille royale. Après cela, leurs relations avec la famille se sont dégradées.

Vocabulaire : vouloir = to want / roi (m) = king / se sentir = to feel / triste = sad / paix (f) = peace / quitter = to leave / fonctions (f pl) = duties / déménager = to move / se dégrader = to worsen

English translation

Prince Harry wants to repair his relationships with his father and brother

Prince Harry says he wants to repair his relationships with his father, King Charles III, and his brother, Prince William. In a new interview with GQ magazine, Harry spoke about his difficult relationships with his father and brother. He said he felt sad about the situation and wanted to make peace with them. Harry and his wife Meghan left their royal duties in 2020 and moved to the United States. They publicly criticized some members of the royal family. After this, their relationship with the family became worse.

You can read more news at Le News, In Easy French.

I went through 642 tcf Canada expression écrite prompts reported since 2023 and realized that half of them came back more than once.

I’m a native French TCF teacher and went through a public archive of writing prompts that candidates reported after their exam, from 2023 to this last September. After merging duplicates and rewordings, that’s 642 different prompts and about 1,500 reports, a few things really stood out.

The first thing is that prompts repeat like crazy as half of the 642 were reported more than once, and some came back 10 to 17 times. The task 3 on the subject of low-cost flights debate for example, was reported 17 times, the surprise birthday party invite (task 1) 15 times, the blog post about your favorite artist for task 2 was 14 times. In task 3, banning cars in city centers 14 times. So practicing the frequent ones is not a waste of time!!

Task 1 is almost always a message to a friend, for about 3 out of 4 prompts. So you mostly have to use "tu”, informal, and the job is practical: invite someone, describe a place near you, explain how to get there or what to do. If you have a ready structure for “here’s where, when, how to get there, see you soon”, you’ve covered most of task 1.

Task 2 is mostly telling a story. About 2 out of 3 ask you to post on a blog or a forum, and about the same share ask you to tell something you lived (a party, a trip, a concert, your first week somewhere) and say why you liked it. Formal complaint letters are rare, around 6% only! That means your past tenses (passé composé vs imparfait) matter way more here than formal letter scripts.

And finaly task 3 is a debate built on two short documents. Nearly 3 out of 4 are some version of “advantages vs limits”. The themes that come back most are school and kids (homework, uniforms, screens, cameras at school), cars and transport, food and health, and work. You don’t need an opinion on everything. You need one clear structure that works for any of them: both sides using the documents, then your position.

One last thing I want to mention is that these are prompts people remembered and posted over the years, not an official list, and my grouping of similar prompts isn’t perfect. Take the exact numbers as a broad estimate but the pattern is very clear tho

For context, I took written french for about 6-7 years in school, and even had a trip to france. While i did well then, I never actually got past written french and would love to learn spoken french if possible.

I’m pretty dedicated when I pick up something, and mostly doing this for career reasons. Im also from Canada.

Any advice for me? Any places, like books movies or maybe a course I can buy?

My french teacher is an asshole and is making learning French and studying feel like an actual chore and super draining, which is unmotivating to me. Any tips on how to do it for the most part alone while still feeling motivated?

Edit: Also, I'm learning other languages too (English, German and Latin)

Hey, I'm Ares/Yoshi, 21yo trans guy who like fashion, music, games (especially horrorgames), anime, and art in a lot of forms

I'm from germany and I am pretty good at writing/speaking english

Sometimes I get brain-fog tho so learning french from german would be easiest

Tbh I just wanna learn. If it's based on english, I don't care, since almost everyone speaks english and not german.

I want friendship too tho

So its important to me that interests are similar and we can be friends in english or german too!

I'm a little introverted but if we get along well, I think I can be a fun person to be friends with.

I wanted to learn french since I was a child but never had the money or resources to do it

I still don't really have a chance to properly learn it. I'm broke, sick and Duolingo or other apps are not doing it for me. You just don't learn what you actually need. I also want to be able to make french lyrics for the music, poems and storys I want to write.

I want to be able to speak it fluently eventually and write it too!

I hope there is someone out there who can help me and maybe even be friends for a long time!

If you have questions about me, feel free to ask anything

I'm open to all kinds of questions :3

Because of my job, anything longer than half an hour doesn't survive past week one. So my routine is ten minutes on a B1/B2 TV5Monde clip, listened to twice with notes on what I understood, ten minutes on a random TCF-style question recorded without notes, five minutes recalling the words I couldn't find, and five minutes replaying the recording to pick one or two fixes. I'm going to stick with it for two weeks. If you've taken the exam, does the balance look right, or would you shift time toward writing or timed practice?

Hello everyone, I’m a 13 year old living in Canada and am working on a grade 10 French project (I skipped grade 9 so my grammar is not the greatest). For the project, I am interviewing a family member and asking them some questions about their lives. Please look through the questions and tell me if there are any corrections (grammar, spelling, vocab) that I need to make. Thank you all so so much!

- Quel est le plus grand changement culturel entre la Chine et le Canada
- Ton souvenir d'enfance préféré et pourquoi tu penses qu'il est encore important pour tu aujourd'hui
- Une personne de ton enfance qui a contribué à faire de la personne que tu es, même elle ne sait peut-être pas
- Nous aimons manger les nourriture asiatique, quel est ton plat préféré et pourquoi penses-tu que c'est très spécial
- Si tu es coincé sur une île déserte, exclutant la nourriture et l'eau, quels sont les cinq objects tu emporteries?
- Quelle est la citation ou idéal qui tu utilises dans ta vie
- Pourquoi a-tu choisis de venir au Canada, habiter au Canada, et élever ta enfant au Canada?
- Quels sont les aspects les plus gratifiants et les plus difficiles de la maternité
- Quand tu à la retraite, je ne vie pas à la maison, et tu a beaucoup de temps libre, qu'est-ce que tu veux faire dans ce temps?
- Quelle est sa journée idéale?
- Quels sont les éléments que tu regardes avant tu prends une décision?
- Ton modèle, aujourd'hui et dans ta enfance
- Comment sens-tu devenir une hockey mère, alors que tu n'as pas grandi avec ce Sport?

I speak English and Spanish and I’m learning French. Im learning the basics like days of the week, months, etc. but I am doing all the conjugations with the verbs, is that recommended?

I know with most new learners to languages you start with just the present, but since French Is kind of similar to Spanish I’m learning it I guess a little differently than most beginners so I’m doing the conjugations that are used in everyday conversation.

I just don’t want to get too ahead of myself but from anyone who learned another Romance language, did you find learning the second one easier? Thanks

I’d like to learn Quebec French because I plan to move there in the next couple of years. Does anybody have any recommendations or yips that might help? Thanks in advance?

Bonjour à tous, avec les manifestations qui se passent ces dernières semaines, on entend souvent les mots « légitime » et « justifié ». C’est pour cela que je me suis penché sur l’étymologie de ces deux mots pour essayer d’en extraire une différence. Je ne fais pas d’étude de linguistique et je n’ai jamais étudié le latin alors je vous présente mes excuses si je dis une ou plusieurs absurdités, merci de me corriger au passage. J’espère également que ce post est approprié pour ce sub, après avoir lu les règles je pense que oui mais sait-on jamais… N’hésitez pas à me rediriger vers un sub plus approprié.

Légitime vient de lex (latin) et signifie loi.
Lex est un type de règle particulier, en l’occurrence les règles de l’Etat, la loi écrite établie par l’Etat. Autrement dit, lex correspond au droit positif.
Légitime a d’ailleurs la même origine que légal.

Justifié vient de jus (ius) (latin) et signifie droit, ou loi mais dans un domaine plus large.
Ce n’est plus seulement ce qui est conforme à la loi de l’Etat, mais aussi au droit natural ou au droit moral, ce qui est bien différent du droit positif.

Alors, légitime est plus restraint car il comprend seulement un certain type de loi. Quand quelqu’un affirme que la violence (de manifestants) peut être légitime, c’est faux puisqu’elle n’est pas conforme à la loi. Elle l’est seulement dans un contexte de légitime défense ou de son usage par les forces de l’ordre. En revanche, on peut dire qu’elle est justifiée lorsqu’elle répond à l’Etat qui ne respecterait pas des droits naturels à l’Homme (le droit à la vie, à la santé, à la liberté, à la propriété de son travail…).
Pourtant, j’ai l’impression qu’il y a une inversion de ces deux sens dans le langage commun. Au cours d’échanges, d’ecoutes de ce qui se dit à la télévision ou sur les réseaux sociaux et de recherches sur internet en cherchant la différence entre légitime et justifié, j’ai pu constater que légitime prenait le sens de justifié et inversement.

Après avoir écrit tout ça je me suis rendu compte que les différences que j’ai exposé sont exactement les mêmes qu’entre légal et légitime qu’on peut voir en philosophie. Dans cette mesure, légitime et justifié auraient le même sens. Mais la philosophie change parfois le sens de deux mots identiques pour permettre plus de précision. C’est par exemple le cas de morale et éthique. À la base ils signifient la même chose mais Paul Ricoeur a donné un autre sens à «éthique ». Ici ce n’est pas une discussion philosophique que j’essaie d’avoir mais purement étymologique.
Qu’en pensez-vous ? Ai-je fais une erreur dans l’explication des mots légitime et justifié ? Avez-vous également constaté cette confusion dans leur usage ?
Merci de vos réponses et je vous rappelle que je ne fais pas du tout d’études de linguistique ou de philosophie bien que ce soit des domaines qui m’intéressent, alors désolé si j’ai dis des inepties 🙏

Bonjour à tous,

I am a high school French teacher in Hawaii and I am looking to create a partnership with a teacher and their students to do a language/culture exchange so my students can practice their French and connect with other students in French. If anyone has any connections or are interested, I would love to connect with you.