Article: French music can help you become more familiar with the French language and the repetition of song lyrics will help you memorize more vocabulary. Search on YouTube or your favorite music streaming service for French music that you can listen to.  Since you can listen to French music while you're doing other things, you can also use this as a way to increase your study time. For example, you could listen to French music while you're commuting to work or school. Singing along with a French song can also help your pronunciation, particularly since lyrics are repetitive and often slower than normal speech. French movies and television help you become accustomed to listening to French. Unscripted television programs and news broadcasts, in particular, help you become more familiar with normal French speech patterns and the rhythms of a natural French conversation. Many streaming services have popular programs over-dubbed in French. If you watch a show that you already like in English, you'll understand more of the context if you watch it in French. If you've been taking French in school, you're probably accustomed to the Parisian accent, since that's typically what's taught in French classes. However, as in other countries, people from across France and other French-speaking countries have different accents and use different phrases to express themselves.   Becoming familiar with different accents is especially important if you're taking an official French proficiency exam with a listening component. Frequently, the speakers come from different parts of the world and have different socio-economic backgrounds, which can also alter their accent. Videos and newscasts from Montréal can give you more familiarity with the French-Canadian accent. Movies such as Manon des Sources give you the opportunity to hear a Provençal accent from southern France. Search "French accents" on YouTube to find videos the distinguish the different accents in France and other French-speaking countries. Videos of French standup comedians are also good to watch if you want to test your understanding of the language. Standup comedians also have many different accents, as well as exaggerating or making fun of accents in some bits. This exercise tests your listening comprehension. Find a speech or monologue in French that's only a few minutes long — ideally, one with a transcript so you can check your work. As you listen to the speech, write down what you hear in French. Then check what you wrote against the transcript.  For this exercise, don't worry so much about your spelling as getting down the words quickly. Don't worry so much about articles and other smaller words that don't really add anything to the meaning of what the person is saying. Take note of the parts that you misunderstood or wrote down the wrong words and figure out why you got them wrong. Perhaps the person speaking had an unfamiliar accent or was speaking too quickly. Listen to the speech again after a few days and see if you can pick up more of the words the second time through. A listening test isn't testing your memory of what was said, but rather your understanding of what was said. You don't have to worry about vocabulary or verb conjugations that you may not know as long as you have a good idea what the person was saying. You don't need to be able to create a perfect translation of what was said either. Try to think in French and understand what is said in French, rather than struggling to translate French into your native language. If the test you're taking includes a speech component, your pronunciation may need some work. Listening to and copying the pronunciation of native speakers will help you improve. Find a video online that you can pause. Listen to the speaker say a sentence or two, then pause the video and repeat the same words. If a particular word or phrase is giving you trouble, you may want to practice it several times before moving on to the next passage. An online dictionary with audio of the words can also help you with problematic words or sounds. A website such as Forvo (https://forvo.com/languages/fr/) can also give you examples of a word spoken in different French accents, since the audio files are contributed by volunteers from all over the world.

What is a summary?
Listen to French music. Watch French movies or television. Seek out people with different French accents. Listen to a speech and write down what you hear. Focus on understanding what is said generally rather than specifics. Mimic the pronunciation of native speakers.