SACE Stage 2 French (continuers) cheat sheet

Register control: tu is for peers, family, and age-mates; vous covers strangers, teachers, officials, and any adult addressed formally. Switching mid-conversation without an invitation from the other speaker reads as a deliberate snub.

Negation in spoken French drops ne: «Je sais pas», «C'est pas grave», «Y a pas de problème» are standard oral forms; keep ne in the formal interview register of the oral exam.

Question formation ladder: statement + rising intonation (informal) → est-ce que (neutral) → inversion (formal). Choose one per utterance; mixing inversion with slang creates an inconsistent register.

Fillers and discourse markers that buy planning time without sounding lost: «alors», «donc», «en fait», «du coup», «écoute», «voyons», «comment dire».

Turn-taking signals: «je peux te couper?», «si je peux me permettre», «un instant, juste pour finir», «tu disais?», «pardon, je t'ai interrompu».

Softening disagreement: «je vois ce que tu veux dire, mais…», «je ne suis pas tout à fait d'accord», «ça se défend, sauf que…». Bare «non» or «tu as tort» escalates.

Oral exam structure: greeting, topic framing («aujourd'hui je voudrais parler de…»), two or three developed points with an example each, a closing that returns to the question asked.

Pronunciation traps: final consonants stay silent (ils parlent, le respect); liaison is obligatory after determiners and pronouns (les_amis, vous_avez) but forbidden before et and h aspiré (les héros).

Repair strategies when a word is missing: circumlocution («c'est l'appareil qui sert à…»), a hypernym («une sorte de…»), or asking «comment on dit déjà?» - silence costs more than an imperfect paraphrase.

Skim structure first: title, chapeau, subheadings, first and last sentence of each paragraph. French journalistic texts place the key claim in the opening paragraph (the «attaque»), not the conclusion.

Register markers in a text: passé simple and imparfait du subjonctif signal literary prose; passé composé plus slang signals a blog or interview transcript; conditional and impersonal constructions signal argumentative or editorial writing.

Connector logic decides the answer: opposition (mais, or, en revanche, toutefois), cause (car, puisque, étant donné que), consequence (donc, par conséquent, d'où), concession (bien que + subjunctive, même si + indicative).

Pronoun reference chains: y replaces à + thing/place, en replaces de + noun or a quantity, dont replaces de + antecedent, lequel/laquelle agrees with the antecedent. Trace each pronoun back before answering.

False friends that flip meaning: actuellement = currently (not actually), éventuellement = possibly, assister à = to attend, demander = to ask, ignorer = not to know, une librairie = bookshop.

Inference questions: the answer is implied by a contrast or a value-laden adjective, never stated verbatim. If an option copies the text word for word, check whether it answers the question asked.

Tone identification: irony shows through quotation marks, exclamation, and understatement; indignation through rhetorical questions and intensifiers (scandaleux, inadmissible); caution through hedging (sans doute, il semblerait que).

Numbers and dates: French uses a comma for decimals (2,5 %) and spaces for thousands; quatre-vingt-dix-neuf = 99, soixante et onze = 71 (et only for 71 and 21, 31, 41…).

Summary discipline: a résumé keeps the text's own logic and tense, drops examples, and stays within about a quarter of the source length; adding personal opinion converts it into a commentary and loses marks.

Text-type conventions: a lettre formelle opens with Madame, Monsieur, and closes with «Je vous prie d'agréer, Madame, Monsieur, l'expression de mes salutations distinguées»; a lettre amicale closes with «Bises» or «À très vite».

Argumentative paragraph shape: thèse → argument → exemple/concret → mini-bilan. One idea per paragraph, and each paragraph opens with a connector, not with «je».

Subjunctive triggers to check while editing: il faut que, bien que, pour que, avant que, à condition que, douter que, vouloir que. Same-subject sentences avoid it (je veux partir, not *je veux que je parte).

Past participle agreement: with avoir only when the direct object precedes (les lettres que j'ai écrites); with être it agrees with the subject (elles sont parties); pronominal verbs agree unless a direct object follows.

Depuis, pendant, il y a, dans: depuis + present for ongoing (je travaille ici depuis deux ans); pendant + past duration; il y a + point in past; dans + future point.

Written connectors by function: addition (de plus, par ailleurs), illustration (ainsi, notamment), concession (certes… mais), conclusion (en somme, en définitive, tout bien considéré).

Formal syntax upgrades: passive voice, nominalisation (la mise en place de rather than on a mis en place), and impersonal il convient de / il s'agit de replace conversational on and ça.

Accord and spelling checks that examiners reward: -ment adverbs are invariable, tout agrees before feminine adjectives starting with a consonant (toute seule) but stays tout before a vowel (tout entière).

Cohesion audit: every pronoun has one clear antecedent, tenses stay in one narrative frame (present for analysis, passé composé/imparfait for narration), and no sentence exceeds about 25 words.

La Francophonie covers over 300 million speakers on five continents; the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) counts 88 member and observer states, and Africa holds the largest share of daily French speakers.

French state secularism: the 1905 law separated Church and State; laïcité bans conspicuous religious symbols in state schools (2004 law) and face coverings in public space (2010 law).

Republican motto and values: liberté, égalité, fraternité, with the indivisible Republic refusing official recognition of ethnic or religious communities in law.

Cultural icons worth naming precisely: la Fête de la Musique (21 June), la Fête nationale (14 July), le Festival de Cannes (May), le Tournoi des Six Nations, la bande dessinée as the «neuvième art».

Media landscape: publicly funded broadcasters (France Télévisions, Radio France), the daily press of record (Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération), and satirical tradition (Le Canard enchaîné, Charlie Hebdo).

Language policy: the Académie française (1635) issues recommendations but has no legal power; the Toubon law (1994) requires French in commercial and public communication.

Regional languages recognised as «langues de France» include breton, occitan, catalan, basque, corse, and the creoles; the 2021 Molac law on immersive teaching was partly struck down by the Constitutional Council.

Immigration and identity debates recur through the concept of intégration républicaine, the contrat d'intégration républicaine, and periodic controversies over laïcité in schools and hospitals.

Comparing cultures: use «en France, on a tendance à… alors qu'en Australie…» with hedging rather than absolutes; generalisations about a whole nation weaken a cultural analysis.