Reddit reviews English Grammar for Students of French: The Study Guide for Those Learning French, 7th edition (O&H Study Guides) - Learn French (English and French Edition)

First, I would check to see if the language requirements are for entering the program or if they are for achieving candidacy. I know it varies widely by program, but if it is a candidacy requirement (or even maybe a requirement to be fulfilled by the end of the first year), the program you enroll in might have a path to achieving proficiency that doesn't require remedial language courses or self-instruction.

That being said, I am doing this right now. I would recommend a healthy dose of Duolinguo, but also some French for reading books. Karl Sandberg's French for Reading is an excellent resource that is aimed at the academic. Additionally, I have heard that Jacqueline Morton's English for Students of French is great, too. I have also picked up a few side-by-side French/English novels to practice on. After about a month of this (maybe 3-5 hours a week), I am already feeling like I could struggle bus my way through the exam if I could beg another half hour out of the proctor.

There are some informal extension courses offered by some universities for rather cheap, as well. Just googling "French reading summer online" or something like that makes a bunch of them pop up.

Lastly, in the next few weeks I am going to be rounding up some music theory/musicology articles in French that have English translations (or perhaps the reverse) so that I can practice. PM me if you want me to send them to you when I get them.

Hello. Actually, it does not make sense in English with the blank. ‘Est-ce que Marc en France?’ means ‘Is it that Marc in France?’, which is incomplete. The blank would be ‘is’, which is ‘est’ in French. So, the correct answer should be ‘est-ce que Marc est en France?’.

Also, ‘ils sont’ and ‘elles sont’ are the same thing, except ‘ils’ is masculine and ‘elles’ is feminine.

I highly recommend ‘English Grammar for Students of French’ by Jacqueline Morton for clear explanations, translations, and comparisons of French and English grammar.

Duolingo

English Grammar for Students of French

French videos? I've never used this, but it looks fine

FSI might be a little easy

These grammar charts

Also, for practice with a teacher, you could try a website like italki

I've got a copy of French for Readng which I've found helpful. Its focused entirely on increasing reading comprehension and French-to-English translation skills, plus it briefly reviews grammatical rules covered by other materials.

Also, English Grammar for Students of French is an excellent resource for improving your grammatical foundations in both English and French.

Well, I should say that I learn best when I understand the grammar, both for comprehension and composition. It's like a logic puzzle for me. Plain immersion doesn't do it for me. There's a reason why French school children are drilled in written grammar - it's quite different from spoken. Moreover, I am a firm believer in learning hard core grammar to prepare for standardized language testing - it counts for about 30% of any test, at least. It's the middle section in the TCF.

So, I found french grammar books written for French students - it forces you to work completely in French and improves comprehension faster, I think. It also introduces you to French cultural stuff at the same time. Something like the Grammaire progressive du francais series.

I did lots of random online French website conjugation exercises. There are plenty of them, although they look like sites from 1998.

For listening, I used the TV5 Monde website mentioned above a lot for preparation, first with videos and then just the listening exercises. And then as I started to feel confident, I did their online timed tests. BTW they closely match the real TCF material because they provide the content for the test!

I watched French movies with French subtitles, not English. And I watched French news online - their accents are quite clear.

However, within 60 days of the test I generally listened to radio online, with transcripts if I could find them. Video news becomes a problem because you build a false sense of comprehension for testing. TCF listening tests are audio-only, no video.

Finally, when you get stuck on a grammar point, as I still do, I highly recommend either English Grammar for Students of French or Side-By-Side French and English Grammar.

Good luck!

Many professors/teachers praise this book for French grammar and all its intricacies. However, I bought it way back when I first started studying French and opened it maybe once or twice. Honestly, I think about.com has the best explanations for grammar points. Whenever I come across a weird grammatical structure or am trying to form a sentence a certain way, I google some key words related to it (ex. pendant vs. depuis) and about.com always has the best explanation. If you're just a learner/student of French, I would stick to google/about.com. It's really the best source and all you need plus it's free.

English Grammar for Students of French