Stupid French exam is stupid
It's a good thing we were given a week to complete these exercises because it is not easy! At least not for me. Some of the things are simple enough: correct this text with errors, fill in the gaps here, etc... But then there's a translation exercise. And that is the serious part of the exam, of course. Now, it's nothing strange about it. What we have is normal, colloquial everyday Swedish, things you could hear people say if you're eavesdropping on the bus or whatever.
That is why it is difficult -- how £$@"#¤! am I supposed to know how to transform it into colloquial French?! But that's obviously what I should know how to do. I'm not saying that everything is difficult, but here and there, there's a phrase that I just don't know how to say -- because things like this are not always in the dictionary. (But some things are, luckily.) I understand that this exercise is important because obviously it makes sense to be able to use "relaxed" French that one is likely to hear on the bus in a French speaking country... But it's not words and expressions I'd be expected to use in a paper about La Princesse de Clèves or about the history of gay rights...
The thing is that even if I can't translate the words, I'm not always sure if they make sense at all in French, or if I have to replace the whole phrase by something. One example is when the characters use "Swenglish" in ways that are more or less "acceptable" because that's what people do... and I suppose French speakers also have certain "Franglais" expressions but they might not be the same as the "Swenglish" ones...
I guess I've not been listening enough to French. Fanny Ardant movies and Mireille Mathieu songs are perhaps the wrong choice. And the books... My friend A. has said to me that I should read modern literature.... Last year, I only read what my teachers told me to read because that was all I had time for... I don't really know a lot about contemporary French literature. I know that I quite dislike Anna Gavalda. I'd say my favourite writers are Marguerite Duras, Amélie Nothomb, Nina Bouraoui and Françoise Sagan...
Also, this thing I'm supposed to translate? Boooring, and stupid. It's Rocky, a Swedish comic strip guy that is rather popular, I belive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_%28comic_strip%29), but I am not the least bit amused by his stupidity even if it's supposed to be funny and spot-on and whatever. The more I read these three pages, the more annoyed I get.
I've done two of of three of theese translations. (And then I'm done, except for the last part of the test: "Comment peut-on interpréter la phrase suivante aux niveaux, morphologique, sémantique, sociolinguistique et pragmatique? [...]"
Obviously, I can't ask for help! We're allowed to use dictionaries etc (books or online) but asking a French or French-speaking friend would be cheating! Then it wouldn't be a test of how good my French is but of how many French-speaking friends I have and how helpful they are...
That is why it is difficult -- how £$@"#¤! am I supposed to know how to transform it into colloquial French?! But that's obviously what I should know how to do. I'm not saying that everything is difficult, but here and there, there's a phrase that I just don't know how to say -- because things like this are not always in the dictionary. (But some things are, luckily.) I understand that this exercise is important because obviously it makes sense to be able to use "relaxed" French that one is likely to hear on the bus in a French speaking country... But it's not words and expressions I'd be expected to use in a paper about La Princesse de Clèves or about the history of gay rights...
The thing is that even if I can't translate the words, I'm not always sure if they make sense at all in French, or if I have to replace the whole phrase by something. One example is when the characters use "Swenglish" in ways that are more or less "acceptable" because that's what people do... and I suppose French speakers also have certain "Franglais" expressions but they might not be the same as the "Swenglish" ones...
I guess I've not been listening enough to French. Fanny Ardant movies and Mireille Mathieu songs are perhaps the wrong choice. And the books... My friend A. has said to me that I should read modern literature.... Last year, I only read what my teachers told me to read because that was all I had time for... I don't really know a lot about contemporary French literature. I know that I quite dislike Anna Gavalda. I'd say my favourite writers are Marguerite Duras, Amélie Nothomb, Nina Bouraoui and Françoise Sagan...
Also, this thing I'm supposed to translate? Boooring, and stupid. It's Rocky, a Swedish comic strip guy that is rather popular, I belive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_%28comic_strip%29), but I am not the least bit amused by his stupidity even if it's supposed to be funny and spot-on and whatever. The more I read these three pages, the more annoyed I get.
I've done two of of three of theese translations. (And then I'm done, except for the last part of the test: "Comment peut-on interpréter la phrase suivante aux niveaux, morphologique, sémantique, sociolinguistique et pragmatique? [...]"
Obviously, I can't ask for help! We're allowed to use dictionaries etc (books or online) but asking a French or French-speaking friend would be cheating! Then it wouldn't be a test of how good my French is but of how many French-speaking friends I have and how helpful they are...