All About Me: Exam Skills (AQA GCSE French): Revision Note

Yanis is talking about himself. Answer the questions in English.

1. How old is he?
2. What is his nationality?
3. What colour are his eyes?
4. How does he describe his hair? (give two details)

 Answers:

The correct answers are:

1. 15 (quinze)

2. Spanish (espagnol)

3. blue (bleus)

4. long and black (longs et noirs)

Be careful to include the correct number of details as indicated by the question and number of marks, like in part 4 of the question above.

Use the preparation time in the exam to identify tricky sounds and mentally rehearse the text.

Read aloud these sentences in French.

Je m’appelle Pierre.
Je suis assez grand.
J’ai les yeux verts et les cheveux gris.
Je suis marocain.

Answer:

• You should have identified the silent final consonant in words such as yeux, verts, marocain

• You should have pronounced the [eu] sound correctly

• You should have pronounced the liaison in assez grand and les yeux

Ana is talking about herself. Which two statements are true?

Je m’appelle Ana et j’ai seize ans. J’ai les yeux bruns et les cheveux noirs. Je suis allemande. Je ne suis pas grande - je suis assez petite. 

• Ana is seventeen.

• Ana has brown hair.

• Ana has brown eyes.

• Ana is German.

• Ana is tall.

Answer:
The correct answers are:

• Ana has brown eyes. J’ai les yeux bruns.

• Ana is German. Je suis allemande.

Spotting why the other answers are wrong can also help identify the correct answers:

• Ana is seventeen is incorrect. Ana says ‘et j’ai seize ans’, which means she is sixteen. ‘Seventeen’ would be ‘dix-sept’.

• Ana has brown hair is incorrect. ‘Les cheveux noirs’ means ‘black hair’.

• Ana is tall is also incorrect. Ana says ‘Je ne suis pas grande’, which means ‘I am not tall’ - be careful with negatives!

Choose the correct word from the three options.

J’ai les cheveux …………………… .

Answer:

The correct answer is courts. The sentence means ‘I have short hair’.

When choosing the correct form of an adjective, ask yourself these three things:

• Is the noun masculine or feminine? (‘hair’ is masculine in French)

• Is the noun singular or plural? (‘hair’ is plural in French, unlike in English)

• Which adjective ending reflects the correct number and gender? (masculine plural adjectives end in -s, whereas -es is for feminine plural and -e is for feminine singular)

Choose the correct word from the three options.

• Ma mère est assez …………………… .

The correct answer is petite. The sentence means ‘My mum is quite short'.

You need a feminine singular adjective as mère is a feminine singular noun. Petit is masculine singular and petits is masculine plural.

• J'ai …………………… yeux bruns.

The correct answer is les. The sentence means ‘I have brown eyes'.

Yeux is a masculine plural noun, so the plural article les is correct. Le is for masculine singular nouns and la is for feminine singular nouns.

Translate these sentences into French.

1. I have grey hair.

2. My dog has one blue eye.

3. I am Swiss.

4. I am not Belgian.

Answers:

1. J'ai les cheveux gris.

2. Mon chien a un oeil bleu.

3. Je suis suisse.

4. Je ne suis pas belge.

Gris already ends in -s, so does not require any changes in its plural form. In questions 3 and 4, remember not to use capital letters for nationalities in French.