i saw night tapes at block party and obviously totally ascended during their set, but in a stroke of luck i managed to catch iiris after the set too !! i feel like i just blabbed so much about how much i love portals//polarities and how much i connect with the lyrics, but she was such a sweetheart and i had such a nice time chatting 🥹 can’t wait until they come back!!
Hi all! Just got my TCF Results back from GBLC Toronto and they were as follows:
CE: 690/699 (C2)
CO: 644/699 (C2)
EE: 13/20 (B2)
EO: 13/20 (B2)
I wanted to do a long detailed post regarding my experience as I appreciated everyone else's here, and the more info the better!
TLDR:
I did not start from a base zero of French, but I think that there is useful info in here for every level of French comprehension. Highly recommend: do tonnes of practise tests for CE & CO, engage with french media, and speak as much as you can!
THE LEARNING:
I started re-learning french at the beginning of February 2026 - I had taken it for a fairly long time in school, but it had been about 8 years since I had spoken any, so I was starting from around an A2 level. However I found that the knowledge quickly came back, so even if you learned French a long time ago there is a good chance that it will still be very useful! I opted for 4 private sessions a week which were expensive, but I booked my exam for the end of June and so budgeted for that timeline, with the thought that the harder I pushed myself, the cheaper it would be. I went through a language academy but I would honestly just recommend any teacher who has done the TCF themselves even for 1-2 sessions a week, and then a couple of weeks before your exam hire a tutor who is also an examiner/has previously been an examiner. This will really make all of the difference. I specifically requested that they give me lots of homework for grammar and writing practise, and I also tried to complete one practise listening or reading exam a day about 2.5 months before the exam. For my exam, the vast majority of questions were ones I had already seen, hence why my score for those was so high. I also watched french tv, listened to french podcasts (huge shoutout to Inner French - genuinely interesting, and they have podcasts on topics that are relevant to EO!), and read french books when I had time. When I had the lessons themselves, I pushed myself to only speak in french with my teacher, this hugely helped my fluidity and general comfort speaking french (which is something very important which we'll get to in the next session). So yes for me: reading and listening practise mostly in my own time, writing practise as homework, and speaking practise took up most of my lessons. On average I probably studied/consumed french for 2-3 hours a day, this was on top of my full time job and social life, but the key with languages is consistency and I did some form of french every day, even if it was only for 30 mins or just to watch drag race france lol. i did not use ai in any form so pls don't ask me about that :)
THE EXAM - WRITTEN PORTION:
I get so stressed in exams and made some blunders in my TCF so wanted to reassure people that even with mistakes you can pass! I went from Vancouver to Toronto for my exam due to limited availability in BC, so definitely book as early as you can. I went to GBLC and it was a good experience - the headphones they had there for the written parts of the test were super noise cancelling which was great for me. I chose to do the CO, CE, & EE in the morning, and then EO in the afternoon as I knew that would be my weakest one and I wanted to build confidence. The great part about the TCF is that you literally get your comprehension results straight away, they will tell you on the screen as soon as you've finished those three tasks, so if you do well in that it really spurs you on. For CO & CE - just do a tonne of practise papers and you'll be fine. Tips for EE - I had memorised a couple of key phrases that used si clauses, subjunctive, imperative, etc. that I could use in the majority of tasks with small tweaks, and then other than that I tried to use lots of connectives for all three tasks, and generally to just be as flowery as possible in the language while stil being natural if that makes sense? I also wrote super quick bullet points down for each task before fully starting, just so I had a really basic framework. Practise here is key, when I first started practising the EE timed I had no idea how I would finish in time, but then for the actual exam I had about 10 minutes to check for grammar errors which ended up saving me.
THE EXAM - SPOKEN PORTION
So in the waiting room i had the chance to watch other people taking the test get called in, and the first thing I can say is...if the examiner asks you a question, even before the test starts, answer it! I saw so many people blankly stare at their examiner when they asked ça-va, and even though it's not recorded, these examiners are marking you on how naturally you speak french, so why are you giving a bad first impression and making it so clear that you are only speaking french for the exam? for my actual exam, the examiner was nice and there was a timer in the room (i asked if i could see a timer and she pointed to the one directly in front of me lol). task 1 was simple enough - i was interrupted after maybe 45 seconds with a couple of simple questions, but pivoted back to my general plan of what to say. for this task do not rote memorise exactly what to say, because then you will get stuck when you are thrown off. i had a few talking points that i wanted to cover and practised freestyling around that, and tried to guess what kind of questions i might be asked. task 2 was the one i was most nervous for, and my nerves got the better of me because i mistakenly said thank you and goodbye after only 2.5 mins of speaking. luckily the examiner told me and i was able to get right back to asking questions, so if you did this too then all is not lost!! i also think my grammar was not amazing during this section, however i really prioritised reacting to the info given and trying to treat it like a regular convo I would have with a friend (as the situation I was given was related to speaking to a friend). i felt reasonably comfortable with task 3, and prioritised speaking continuously rather than trying to hit all of the different grammar points, and giving a balanced argument with a nice conclusion. once again i wasn't trying to talk in a pompous way where it was clear that i had memorised structure, but more so how i would speak in english (my native language), and i think that this worked well. i didn't get interrupted once during this section.
OVERALL:
This is a pretty comprehensive summary of my experience - I again want to say that I am super lucky to have been able to pay for tutoring which I know is not accessible for everyone! That being said I hope that everyone can find something useful from this writeup, whether it's studying tips or exam info. Happy to answer questions too if helpful!
hello muna nation, i'm just wondering...what are the chances of muna adding more tour dates do you think? i know that naomi mentioned that this was a possibility, but i didn't see any updates on this (i don't have instagram so might have missed something). signed a vancouver based girlie who would give her left arm for them to play here !!
Hello all - searched on the sub and couldn't find any recent similar qs - was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for private soccer training for U17s (specifically for a striker). Can be through a club or a private trainer, ideally a 30 min drive or less from Queen Elizabeth Park. Thanks in advance!