Tricks of the Trade: How to survive te mountain of vocab

So you're about to go into A Level French? AS? Even GCSE? I bet the phrase "vocab test" isn't new to you, and for some of you it might be hair raising. Well, with seven years of language learning under my belt, I thought I'd share one of my favourite tools for learning vocabulary quickly and efficiently.

Before I introduce you to this nifty gadget, I feel like it's important to say that this won't work unless you work with  it. That means using it often, properly and consistently. When your teacher gives you a vocab list then go straight to this tool - or your own method of learning vocab. At AS and A level you might not get vocab lists anymore, which means that you need to take the responsibility of learning new vocab whenever you move on to a new unit. I can't stress how important it is to stay on top of your vocabulary. In AS Level (for French at least) I thought that it was useless to learn all of the vocab from the units in our course. Only one of them will come up, so what's the point in learning all of this vocab? You can't get by without it, that's the point. This mistake cost me my target grade. I didn't fail, nor get a bad grade per se, but I still had to resit and I was extremely disappointed with myself for not putting in the proper effort. Thankfully, for A Level I got my act together, learnt the vocab and saved myself a lot of pain. Anecdotes aside, it's easier just to learn it.

Alright, down to the help. Without further ado, I introduce to you Quizlet.

 

Quizlet is specifically designed to help you learn vocabulary. It’s not limited to languages - you could use it for anything from Biology terms to Art Historians' Quotes - but it works best for languages. Setting up an account is free, and while you don't have to sign up to use it, it’s a quick and easy way to keep track of your learning and to keep all your vocab in one place. Here's how it works.

Step One: Set it up

Once you've got your account, you can make your first set. A set is like a list - and that's a good way to do it: a set for every vocab list (or unit in a module) that you come across. That way, your learning is on the same pace as your course. It's pretty simple to do, choose which language each side is, then input the vocab into the boxes. Simples.

 

Step Two: Learn it

This is what's so great about Quizlet; there's more than one way to learn your vocab. Chances are you don't like vocab learning because you've tried it once, one way, and it didn't work or it was boring. With Quizlet, there are four different ways to learn your vocab.

 

The first - and probably most standard - is a flashcard system. You see the English word on one side, then you try to come up with the translation, and flip the card to see if you're right. Simple enough.

The second is a simple learning tool. You're given the English word, and you have to type into the bar the correct translation - but you have to get it exactly right. No cheating! This is really good if you are the kind of person who prefers to learn for ten minutes a day, rather than spend one long session learning your vocab.

The third tool is Speller. This tests your listening skills rather than your translation skills. A voice will read a word out in the target language (from your list) and you just have to spell it. It seems simple enough but it's really useful for getting to know the spelling of your vocab inside out.

The final tool is a bit less fun but no less useful. It's a computer generated test using your words. This is really helpful for once you think you've got your vocab down - don't be so sure!

Quizlet also has a couple of games to help you learn your words: Scatter and Space Race. You can read the instructions for the games when you play them, and they're a nice break from hard-core vocab learning.

If you're not sure, let me put down some tips and figures for you.

• The average adult needs to repeat something 3 times to remember it. (Hello Speller - you need to get the spelling right more than thrice to finish)
Memory is anchored better when you use more than one sense to learn. Hearing the word, then spelling it, then seeing your mistakes in front of you is a more effective way of learning than just covering the word, writing it, then looking to see if you were right. This way, both your ears and your eyes will remember the word (you're remembering visually and aurally)
• Learning the same set of words in a few different places is key; this way, when you need the word under pressure, it’s more likely that you'll be able to access it in your memory. Quizlet comes in handy because there are several different ways to learn - and therefore to remember - the words.
• Overkill is key. Ever heard someone say "I really beat that subject to death"? Well do it - you're more likely to remember it.

 

It's completely up to you how you learn, and you should tailor your studies to your personal preferences, but don't give Quizlet a miss - it's invaluable!

Actor, Director, Realist: Mathieu Kassovitz's contradictory works

In his conflicting rolls: on the set of La Haine (left), a still from Amélie (right)

In April, The Guardian's Steve Rose called Kassovitz "versatile to the point of contradictory", but is the famous Frenchman really that back-and-forth?

From The Little Boy to the Distinguished Director
Welcome to History 101. Well, it's actually just a basic timeline of Kassovitz's life, but we'll need the grounding before we go any further.

In 1967 (making him 46) Kassovitz was born to French film editor Chantal Rémy and Hungarian writer and director Peter Kassovitz.

At the age of 12, Kassovitz appeared in his first movie - Au bout du bout du banc (deliberate tongue twister, I believe). He had a few other acting roles as a child, including a credit for Le Petit Garçon in the 1981 film L'année prochaine... si tout va bien.

In 1993 he tried his hand at writing and directing his first film, and so came Métisse. Just two years later he released what would become his best-loved film, La Haine. Starring the fabulous Vincent Cassel and filmed entirely in black and white, La Haine is a strikingly real portrayal of the suburbs of Paris which Kassovitz himself said tells a story of "police brutality".

After collaborating again with Vincent Cassel in thriller Crimson Rivers (2000), Kassovitz apparently wondered onto the set of Amélie (2001) as an extra merely hoping to meet Jeunet, when he was cast as the romantic Nino Quincampoix and gained world-wide recognition for the role.
A few years later, after starring in a film here and directing one there, Kassovitz once again poked his head into the political scene. In 2005 riots broke out in Parisian suburb, over the death of two North African youths during a police prosecution. Shortly thereafter, Sarkozy was quoted calling the rioters "scum" and claiming that they should be "cleansed" from the banlieues of Paris with a "fire hose". Kassovitz reacted to Sarkozy's statement publicly via his blog, writing that Sarkozy had "ideas that not only reveal his inexperience of politics and human relations, but which also illuminate the purely demagogical and egocentric aspects of a puny, would-be Napoleon." In 2012 he reinforced his statement in an interview by deeming the outgoing Sarkozy administration as "horrible".
So there it is, you're pretty much up-to-date with Kassovitz. But that's not all.

Captain Contradiction?
In his article, Steve Rose points out the huge contrast between Kassovitz's efforts as a director and as an actor, and the contrast really is colossal. La Haine was critically acclaimed for being controversially honest and realistic about the situation in Paris, while Amélie is well known for painting over every droplet of context surrounding the film. It's not just that the films held different points of view; the confusing thing is that Kassovitz appears so passionate for people to see the true portrait of Paris at the time, and yet nothing about Amélie even touches on the subject. So what's the deal? Why would Kassovitz take part in a project which went so strongly against the grain of what he had in his head? Rose's interview holds some hidden insight.
When asked about his career as an actor, Kassovitz said:

"As an actor I'm very easily bored, so I just work with directors that I'm interested in. I don't really care about the script or the part."

So maybe it's just that he didn't care about what message the film was putting across, so long as he was within a ten meter radius of his childhood hero, Jeunet. Alongside this, when asked about his contradictory projects - hip hop videos, Amélie, La Haine, and the Lancôme campaign - here's what he had to say:

"Sometimes it's nice to do the opposite of what you just said."

So why does Kassovitz get involved on both sides of the fence? Because it's nice, and that's all he wrote. 

Evidently, Kassovitz is a contradictory character, and you have to respect that he admits it. But maybe he's right to switch it around. After all, it's his career, and actors in Hollywood are celebrated because of their versatility. So, why shouldn't he chop and change?  Kassovitz might have many faces, but so long as the movies he gets involved in don't all end up like Babylon A.D, then there's no significant problem.

Colour Concept: Mise-en-scene in Das Leben der Anderen

Das Leben der Anderen is a film rife with history. The geographical and historical area that we see in it – East Berlin under the DDR - was notoriously dark. It’s probably for that reason that director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has used colour as a device so much in the film. But what does he use it for, and what does he say through colour in the film?

Painting his places

One of the main things colour does is this film is distinguish atmosphere attached to characters and places. The very first scene in the film is set in Hohenschönhausen – the Stasi’s famously brutal prison in Berlin. Not only are we introduced to the atmosphere of this blood-curdling building without any background music, but without any significant colour either.

The walls are grey; the guard’s uniform is grey; the prisoner is dressed in a sickly greyish yellow outfit; the lighting even gives the impression that their skin is grey. The only glimpse of real colour we get is from the red light signalling another prisoner crossing the hall. Manipulation of scenery aside, Henckel von Donnersmarck’s colours here wouldn’t have been too far from the truth. On visiting the prison, you will see that it’s completely devoid of any colour and that the rooms are inexplicably bare – all part of the intimidation and torture that Hohenschönhausen was about. This first scene is a festival of humdrum colours, and it represents the Stasi perfectly.

Characters by Colour

Henckel von Donnersmarck’s main characters – Stasi Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler and culture-loving writer Georg Dreyman – are the opposite ends of one very odd scale, and our director shows us just how different they are through colour. This is true throughout the film, but for the sake of comparison, the scene, which has become known in the classroom as the Sonata Scene, is particularly useful. In this scene, the director has used jump-cuts between Wiesler at his equipment in the attic, and Dreyman at the piano in his apartment to show the diversity between characters. What becomes obvious as the camera flicks between protagonists is the massive difference in colours which surround them both. If we take a look at the breakdown of colours in a still from each room in this scene, it’ll become clearer.

This is a still of Dreyman as he plays the Sonata. It doesn’t seem to bright and cheery does it? Considering Dreyman has just found out about the death of his close friend and former co-worker Albert Jerska, it’s only natural. Let’s look at the flip side of the coin.

That’s a still of Wiesler in the attic, doing his "Uberwachung" thing. It mightn’t seem too terrible: it’s not completely dark after all. However, if you compare the breakdown in colour of the two stills, the contrast is obvious.

Dreyman’s surrounding colours aren’t exactly exciting, but when you put them next to Wiesler’s, it’s like comparing the Antarctic to the Caribbean. Wiesler is given a dreary surrounding scale of dark grey to – you guessed it – light grey. Not forgetting, of course, the daring brown and silvery purple on the end there. You get the picture: his colours are boring and cold. Why? Because he, as a character, is cold. He lives alone; his only friend is his boss; his only hobby is his job; up until this point he’d do anything to punish the “enemies of the state”. You wouldn’t call him the life of the party, would you?

Compare this to Dreyman’s colours. They might not be bright and colourful, but they are undeniably warmer, for similar reasons. He spends his time surrounded by his friends; within the first 30 minutes of the film he’s already thrown two parties; he has a longstanding girlfriend; but his one true love is culture. He’s infinitely livelier than Wiesler – and so we see in Henckel von Donnersmarck’s choice of colours. 

The grass is greener

One final thing Henckel von Donnersmarck uses colour for in the film is to represent ideas. This is particularly true during the scene of Jerska's funeral. 

Here's the colour breakdown of the still to the right.

If you consider the colour breakdowns we've already seen in comparison with that of this scene, the difference is obvious. For a funeral scene you would generally expect dull colours and blacks, but this is quite the opposite. While it might not be a melange of bright yellows and reds, this is possibly the brightest and most natural composition of colours throughout the film. You will also notice that the only greys in the still come from the soviet-style apartment blocks in the background. So why has Henckel von Donnesmarck chosen to make the funeral the brightest part? Why has he made the apartments - a place of life - the most desolate colours? If you listen to Dreyman's monologue, you'll see.

"Sie kennt keinen Blutrausch, sie kennt keine Leidenschaft, sie kennt nur das Sterben. Das Sterben der Hoffnung."

"It's nothing to do with bloodlust, nothing to do with passion, it has only to do with death. The death of hope."

The people's lives, Henckel von Donnersmarck makes it seem, were utterly devoid of any hope. In fact, their only hope lies in death. The fact that Jerska's funeral is so generously coloured is the director's way of showing us how hopeless and desolate the lives of DDR inhabitants were. Jerska lives his life in general misery after his work ban, and only through death does he reach a brighter place. And as ever, the apartment blocks in their hushed but impacting grey represent the ever-present Stasi intimidation.

King of Colours?
So how successful is our director in representing the time period through colour and mise-en-scene? It's not up to me to make the final ruling, but if you want my opinion, he deserves a medal. His colouring is not so radical that the scenes look unnatural (I'm look at you, Jeunet), yet not so delicate as to be unnoticeable or not convey his message properly. So in my eyes, it's hats off to Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck for top effort.

Where, when, and why: Setting in Amélie

Being one of France's most popular films (at least amongst Francophiles), setting is  a focal point of Jeunet's Amélie. From the first second to the last, no viewer could possibly be unaware that what they were watching was a scolding melting-pot of all things Parisian. What they might be a little less aware of is when exactly the film is set. The question is: is Amélie a reflection of Paris, or is it an abstract painting manufactured by Jeunet?

Paris, je t'aime
Well, Jeunet certainly does. Amélie takes its place in the picturesque streets of Montmartre, in Paris. With claims to such names Van Gogh, Renoir, Picasso, Monet and Dalí - amongst others - it's no wonder that this quartier of Paris has earned the title of the 'Artistic quarter'. But it doesn't stop there. Montmartre is equipped with winding cobbled streets, shops which fail to age, buildings older than any viewer's grandfather, all - of course - overlooked by the famous Basilica Sacré Cœur.

Montmartre by night - overlooked by the Basilica

Jeunet really has chosen the picturesque part of Paris for his film,  and it was by no means an accident. The entire film displays Jeunet's intense desire to show Paris in the most fairytale light possible: the accordion dominates the movie score; it only rains once in the entire film; and perhaps most telling of all, Jeunet had the streets and metro stations he used cleaned every morning before he started filming.
 

Jeunet's completely spotless Metro stations

In reality, if you were to venture outside of the streets of the film, you'd find yourself in a city like any other; graffiti, trash, and (shock horror) homeless people who accept money. 

A homeless man refuses money -
"Non merci madame, je travaille jamais dimanche" 

Even the metro stations we see in the film are not the picture of perfection Jeunet would have us believe. Perhaps Jeunet is a painter, not a photographer.

But does the setting really change the plot? Are the characters affected by where they live? It's probably best to break it down to really get the truth here. 

Amelie
Amelie seems to have spent most of her life in Paris. She grew up there, her mother met her unfortunate end at the city's famous Notre Dame, her father notoriously never left the place, and her entire adventure seems to take place within a few streets of Montmartre, and one or two nearby houses. So it would seem that Amélie is fairly attached to Paris (much like her creator). That said, she doesn't seem to be much affected by it, nor her actions. You might argue that her mothers death affected her greatly, and that had they not been at the Notre Dame, she would have survived. However, we don't really see any of Amelie's traits or actions stem from that particular event. In actual fact, the one event we do connect to her actions is the death of Lady Di, and while that took place in Paris, it could have happened in Paris, London or Abu Dhabi and she would still have been shocked. So in short, no - Amelie isn't massively affected by where she lives. She's a protagonist of a fairytale, and Jeunet could have made any city into that fairytale.

Nino
Let's keep it short for Nino, considering he doesn't appear that much in the film. His few traits are that he was bullied as a child, that he collects discarded passport photographs, and that he works in a sex shop. None of these things belong explicitly to Paris, and Nino could easily exist outside of the city and still follow the exact same plot. 

Nino's connection to Paris

The Coffee Shop Crew
The gang at the Deux Moulins are obviously brought together because they all work in Paris. However, none of them are specifically affected by it. You can be insufferable (Joseph), flirtatious (Gina), or hypochondriatic (Georgette) in any city. And you can certainly fall off a horse if you aren't in Paris too (Mme Suzanne).

Monsieur Raymond Dufayel
Now here's someone who really is worth talking about. Dufayel is a lonely-living, brittle-boned recluse who never leaves his Parisian apartment. He might never set foot on the streets of Paris, but no matter, because the spirit of Paris lives in his apartment via his obsession with Renoir. Recreating one of Renoir's works each year, Dufayel adores his idol and can't stand for people not to feel the same way. It's arguable that Dufayel is the only character whose home - the artistic quarter of Paris - really affects his life. 

Auguste Renoir - Luncheon of the Boating Party 1880-1881
Dufayel's obsession

What of it?
So what of Jeunet's setting? There are two ways to look at it - one in favour of Jeunet and one against him.
On the one hand, it's likely that Jeunet's aim was to create a fairytale version of Paris for the film. He'd just come back from filming Alien in Hollywood, and probably wanted to make a film which celebrated everything that was his homeland. In this respect, he's absolutely been successful. The Paris we see in Amelie isn't realistic, but 'féérique' - which is exactly how Jeunet wanted it.

On the other hand, is this really success? Serge Kaganski argues that Jeunet's Paris isn't Paris at all. He believes that Jeunet is 'incapable of filming anything human' and that Paris' ethnic diversity is grossly misrepresented throughout the film - with only one ethnic minority being show in Lucien (who is even given a French name). Kaganski's idea of a good setting is a truthful one, and in this sense, Jeunet's setting isn't a good one at all.

My vision is blurred by my intense dislike of Jeunet's style. If you asked me, I'd side with Kaganski in that Jeunet's model of Paris is suffocating and too manufactured. Compared with other classic French films like La Haine, the Paris we see in Amélie just isn't real enough for me.I prefer my directors to capture a place and show it to me for what it is - whether that be good or bad. I think that Jeunet looks at a place and reproduces it as it looks through rose tinted glasses. It's not my cup of tea.

But don't take my word for it. It's up to you to decide whether Jeunet has done a good job with his representation of Paris in Amélie. While you're deciding, keep one question in mind: is the setting successful when it's true to the city, or when it's true to the director's intentions?