Oui, mais à une condition (DALF C1 French Oral Exam Tips)

This month we resume our blog post series that introduces French language learners to the common types of French oral exam questions. We started the blog series with our first article titled “Free Download: 7 Tips to Pass Your French Oral Exam in 2021” and we started to outline the seven common types of French oral exam questions.

If you have not read all of the articles in the series then we recommend that you review the first three articles noted below and this article is number 4 in the list — Yes, but on one condition (conditions).

Our last article in the series titled “Let me tell you what I think (opinion)” we introduced various ways for you to communicate your personal opinion during an exam, or more importantly, to know the types of questions and keywords that are used by the evaluator to pose a question demanding your opinion. Each of the question types are further outlined in our ebook study guide series available in Amazon Kindle.

This article will emphasize a set of recommended phrases to help you provide a DALF C1 or DELF B2 French exam response that demonstrates your ability to produce complex phrases and responses.

Getting up close and personal (present)
One or many (singular vs plural)
Let me tell you what I think (opinion)
Yes, but on one condition (conditions)
For better or worse (comparison)
Tomorrow is another day (future)
Give me one more chance (retrospective)

Ajouter Des Conditions

Having the ability to express what changes, prerequisites, or limits would be required before an action can be taken is a very useful element in French oral communication. Expressing conditions as part of a response during an oral interview allows you to nuance a point of view and add more context to the response. For instance, imagine that you were the manager for a project that was scheduled to end tomorrow, and at the last minute the client asked your team to include new requirements. Ideally, you would want to negotiate the change – no problem, provided that…., no problem, but on the condition that…, no problem, if…– or any other way to signify the need for a condition to be applied.

We can communicate conditions in French by using the following phrases:

Pourvu que + subjonctif (provided that)
À condition de + infinitif (on the condition that)
À condition que + subjonctif (on the condition that)
Pour autant que + subjonctif (as long as)
Sous réserve que + subjonctif (under the reserve that)
Ça dépend de + nom Si (that depends on)

By analyzing another example, we can see the usage of the conditionnel présent verb tense and the possibility to use the subjonctif verb tense in addition to the insertion of conditions being applied to the response:

Accepteriez-vous un emploi dans un autre pays ?
Would you accept a job in another country?

Apply to your DALF C1 or DELF B2 French Oral Exam

Therefore, the sample formula to respond to this type of question can be templated as the following:

Step A. Create the réponse by answering the question immediately

Si tel était le cas, j’accepterais l’offert / le changement / …)

Step B. Add one or more conditon options

….pourvu qu’on / il soit apte à déterminer …..

… à condition que l’impact ne soit pas négatif

..si je peux avoir (…)

Step C. Reinforce what will increase or decrease related to the condition

Ça éliminerait / réduirait……..

Ça augmenterait / ajouterait….

Ça considérait / choisirait….

Step D. Conclude by stating the consequence

Puisque

Étant donné que

Putting it all together for your exam

Example responses:

Ça dépend. J’accepterais l’offert pourvu que je sois capable de déterminer les heures au travail, le travail était très intéressant, et si le trajet n’était pas long. C’est-à-dire, je dois être stimulé par le travail afin de changer ma vie personnelle puisque ce serait un impact sur ma famille aussi.
J’accepterais le changement, mais ça dépend de l’impact sur ma vie personnelle étant donné que je travaillais dans la même poste depuis cinq ans donc j’éviterais l’idée à changer sans une bonne raison.
Je pense que oui, mais seulement à condition que l’impact n’étais pas négatif à ma famille étant donné que ce serait un changement important pour tout ma famille.

Add to your Personal Learning Plan

For the following questions, develop a well structured condition response.

Questions:

Accepteriez-vous un nouvel emploi dans un autre pays ?
Would you accept a new job in another country?
Accepteriez-vous de travailler un jour supplémentaire chaque semaine ?
Would you agree to work an extra day each week?
Quand accepteriez-vous d’accepter de nouvelles responsabilités au travail ?
When would you agree to accept new responsibilities at work?

Note the structure of your responses.

Were you able to use a variety of verbs in the conditionnel présent tense?
Did you add an additional justification argument to further reinforce your point?
Were you able to use a variety of connectors instead of repeating the same connector for each response?

Learn more

If you would like to learn more tips and tricks to help you pass your DALF C1 or DELF B2 French oral exam the first time then be sure to subscribe to our newsletter. Also, do not forget to update your personal learning plan and consider applying our five phase approach to help you incrementally grow your French communication skills.