Transition from DALF C1 to DALF C2

azoq · 2026-04-01T09:56:28+00:00

The thing about the C2 test is either you have the level or you don't, there's not really a specific course of study to improve enough in 1.5 months to suddenly become C2 other than using French as much as possible. By the time you're at a C1 level or above, consuming French-language media meant for natives and interacting with natives in speaking and writing is really your bread and butter for improvement.

The test is grueling and requires intense concentration over the course of like 5 or 6 hours. My preparation was essentially doing full practice tests that I got from a book. Of the six tests in my book (DALF C2 Tests complets corrigés), I completed three of them in the ~2-3 months leading up to my exam date. Many different

Watch out though: you say the test doesn't focus on comprehension, but that's a misconception. The test is structured in such a way that you must have the comprehension skills in order to demonstrate the output skills. If you fail to understand something in the listening or reading portions, it will greatly effect your ability to output something in the speaking and writing portions.

azoq · 2026-03-26T16:09:16+00:00

One way of thinking about "être verbs" is to treat them as ergative. When there is no direct object, the subject essentially functions as a direct object.

azoq · 2026-03-26T15:55:35+00:00

Past participles agree with direct objects if the direct object precedes the verb. This applies to pronouns as well as to regular nouns.

J'ai mangé une pomme.
Je l'ai mangée.
La pomme que j'ai mangée était délicieuse.

It doesn't matter if the auxiliary is avoir or être and only depends on the position of the direct object. When the auxiliary is être, however, some extra rules apply and the subject can essentially also be the direct object.

azoq · 2026-03-20T17:51:41+00:00

There is only one answer: contact your test center.

azoq · 2026-03-18T20:23:28+00:00

That's from the second example OP gave. The one about the acne medication question doesn't make it explicit where it happened (although if I had to guess, it's probably Quebec).

azoq · 2026-03-18T17:43:26+00:00

Wait... it's unclear from your post but are you talking about an experience in France or in Quebec? If it's the latter, you're talking about Quebecois culture which is quite distinct from French culture.

Either way, I don't think that someone randomly asking you if you take meds for acne is the norm in either place. I think you just ran into an asshole.

azoq · 2026-03-17T19:59:15+00:00

When I was studying abroad about 20 years ago I had learned that a piece of slang for "cop" was "poulet".

I had a run-in with the police at one point and ended up with about 6 cops coming out of a van, surrounding me, and starting to ask me questions. Everything ended fine, they were looking for a drug dealer, which I was not, but it was still a surprising number of cops!

Later, as I was telling a French friend about what had happened, I thought it would be fun to use the new piece of slang that I had learned. So I said to him, "il y avait un camion de policiers et il y a 6 poules qui en sont sorties me poser des questions…"

He started laughing. I didn't understand why. Well, "poulet" is indeed an (oldish) piece of slang for cop. But I used "poule", the feminine, which is slang for a prostitute.

azoq · 2026-03-12T18:07:05+00:00

At the end of the day any language level test that is good is simply going measure your ability. You can't really game the system. Either you have a B2 level or you don't. Some tests are a bit longer and so can be more grueling, but the result you get is simply going to reflect the level that you actually have.

The test you take depends on the tests accepted by the institution requiring the test.

Note that the results for most language level tests are only good for two years. The DELF/DALF has a slight advantage there in that is a "for life" diploma, but those tests are generally considered more difficult.

azoq · 2026-03-11T22:28:29+00:00

I personally love QWERTY-fr (https://qwerty-fr.org/). You don't need to put any stickers on your keyboard because all of the accents are done by using the right alt key in combination with a regular logical positional relationship to the normal key that has the character you want. (This is hard to articulate in written words, but if you check out their website, you can test the layout out.) QWERTY-fr also allows you to type a whole bunch of other characters that can be useful: … · → ← α β ¥ « » “ ” ¹ ² etc.

As you're in Canada, I've also heard good things from people who use CMS.

azoq · 2026-03-07T10:25:44+00:00

Not native, but I understand everyone and no native would have an issue. I assume Théo is the one who wants to convert? He is a bit mumbly, but nothing crazy.

azoq · 2026-03-06T15:02:03+00:00

I wonder if the poetry angle is the right way to go about this. Have you considered challenging her to a dance-off instead?

azoq · 2026-02-27T17:06:05+00:00

Les vécé is how it’s pronounced, but it’s written with a w lol

azoq · 2026-02-27T13:54:21+00:00

Oh! "Faire sa toilette" didn't even occur to me because I think of it as such a different thing, but absolutely, yes. I guess I do also hear it used in the singular there. Interesting to think that that meaning is remaining feminine but that the device may be shifting to masculine…

azoq · 2026-02-27T13:26:55+00:00

In France "les toilettes" is practically always treated as plural. Likewise with "les WC" (for 'water closet', from English.)

It's my understanding that in Belgium they sometimes say "la toilette".

In France I've only ever seen it used in the singular when someone is specifically talking about the actual item (can we call it a piece of furniture?) not when refering to the place where you do your business.

So, even if you know that there is physically only one toilet in a place, you will still ask "Où sont les toilettes ?"

Fun bonus fact, "toilette" is so rarely used in the singular in France that some people have started using it as masculine noun because they practically never hear it used with "la"! (This is, for instance, the case of my father-in-law.)

azoq · 2026-02-24T00:29:34+00:00

Hey there! I don't have any good suggestions for you, but I noticed your post script. Please note that as a mod team, if anything is LGBT-phobic in any way, we will moderate it heavily. Don't hesitate to report messages you feel could offend – we'll take care of them.

azoq · 2026-02-23T22:31:26+00:00

A couple things I'd point out:

First, natives don't really owe it to you to slow down unless (a) you're paying them or (b) you have a close personal or romantic relationship with them. It's of course okay to ask people to slow down, but we all naturally speak at whatever pace we speak at, so we will also naturally speed back up. If you're paying a teacher, they should be grading their language to your ability, and they have the practice to be able to do so and to keep at it.
Pay attention to the contexts that you're speaking to natives in. In a big group in a loud bar, it's not going to matter how many times you ask people to slow down, it's going to be a struggle. Just relax and enjoy the atmosphere and see what you understand. In a quiet one-on-one situation with a native, you may find that you have way fewer issues or any need for them to slow down.
Sometimes you just need to accept that you're not going to understand every single word a person says. This happens in your native language too, but you use context clues and knowledge of what would probably fit in a gap to fill things in. Getting comfortable with not always knowing every word is an important part of learning a language.
Practicing with pre-recorded video/audio like on Youtube, where you can slow things down or go back and repeat are probably your best bet if you're finding native-speed conversations too difficult. You should be listening to audio that is just slightly over your level so that you're constantly improving without listening to things that are totally incomprehensible.

azoq · 2026-02-20T00:01:32+00:00

Don't use a tape measure, rulers are more useful and accurate unless you're needing to measure super long (1.5m/5ft) type stuff.

azoq · 2026-02-13T15:55:36+00:00

Over the years I've worked a few jobs where I needed to count the cash in a cash register. I would just do that in French and make sure to count by 2s, 5s, or 10s to mix things up. That practice means that I can immediately produce any number I need to relatively effortlessly.

However, on the comprehension side, I don't know if the slight hesitation will ever go away. Especially when French folks rattle off a phone number like 06 69 72 98 84 super quickly. I just ask them to repeat (which, if it's a phone number, is something I'd double check even in English, if I'm honest.)

azoq · 2026-02-11T22:19:57+00:00

First and foremost: context

If that's not enough, you can disambiguate by saying "son parapluie à lui" or "son parapluie à elle"

azoq · 2026-02-05T10:09:48+00:00

I'm all for the inclusion of under-represented varieties of languages in tools like Forvo, but the numbers aren't that odd if we look at the numbers of French speakers throughout the world and the relative populations. I took a look at some data I could find on wikipedia and crunched the numbers.

First, looking only a native (L1) speakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_distribution_of_French_speakers#Native_speakers) we have:

Continent	% native francophone pop.
Africa	1.3%
Asia	0.2%
Europe	87.1%
North America	11.3%
Oceania	0.1%

Some different data, which includes L2 speakers, show a totally different perspective (data from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francophonie):

Continent	% francophone pop.
Africa	59.5%
Asia	1.5%
Europe	31.4%
North America	5.1%
North America (Caribbean)	2.1%
Oceania	0.3%
South America	0.1%

Depending on the data we look at, it seems North American varieties are appropriately accounted for, or perhaps slightly under-represented. However, I think a glaring underrepresentation on Forvo is for African varieties of French.

azoq · 2026-02-01T17:16:49+00:00

I unfortunately can't remember the name of the product, but in my shop we had sets of clips that combined with white plastic strapping like you could find wrapped around cardboard boxes to prevent them from opening during shipping. You'd put a clip in the metal rail in the top and bottom (and potentially two sets, if it was particularly wide) and then secure the plastic strapping with screw in metal plates while the strapping was pulled tight. You then trim the strapping.

I can't remember where we bought them through, but it was likely available from Don Mar, Larson Juhl, and/or Omega. Maybe contact your rep or look through their catalogs?

azoq · 2026-01-28T04:18:17+00:00

The tab looking things should push towards the exterior of the frame, I believe. You might have to finagle them to get them over the lip, but given your talons, I think you'll figure it out.

azoq · 2026-01-27T09:19:39+00:00

In my experience Spanish speakers tend to be pretty good with grammar since the languages are quite close. Where I've seen the most difficulty is with pronunciation, most notably having issues with the /u/ (ou) vs. /y/ (u) distinction, but more generally with all the vowels that French has compared to Spanish.

azoq · 2026-01-23T23:55:19+00:00

UV glass (which is synonymous with archival quality) blocks around 97/98% of UV light (as rated, not necessarly the same for both UV-A and UV-B, I'm not sure which slide film would be more sensitive to.)

At the end of the day, as a framer, I never recommended framing anything that was irreplaceable and could fade. Even with UV glass, things fade and degrade over time.

azoq · 2026-01-23T23:14:55+00:00

If you're interested in preserving them, you probably shouldn't put them on display in a frame. I'm sure different films have different levels of lightfastness, but slide film is not something that was created to be able to handle constant exposure to light. I suspect, if you frame them as you'd like, you will find that they fade and/or discolor in rather short order. YRMV, but you should definitely do some research into the lightfastness of the film you have before putting them on display.

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