How do you Frenchify your life?

Read, watch and listen: books, film, TV, videos, podcasts and what else?

I’ve recently indulged and immersed myself in French film at the Alliance Francaise French Film Festival.

I managed to see 9 of the 45 films and I liked/loved 6 of those. I was happy with that hit rate.

The Festival attracts a lot of people who don’t speak French so I understand why subtitles are in English but this is not my favourite way to view French film. My language skill is still not fluent, well, far from it, actually, and I find that I still miss nuance if I don’t have some subtitle prompts. However, my preferred viewing is French language film with French subtitles, as this means my brain remains in the same language and I learn more this way.

Do you have a view on this or a preference?

Reading

Last week here in the Conversation we spoke about reading: suggested Francophile reads and general reading. If you missed it… read more here and don’t forget that if you’d like to read ‘en-francais’ you can do that on our magazine – Amusez-vous !

And the conversation last week about reading, got me thinking about how else we stay in the ‘French’ zone. I’m going to share how I do it and I’d love it if you’d make some suggestions and share your ‘frenchifying’ secrets whatever they may be on ‘How you Frenchify your life’.

As well as reading and watching French films, I like to listen! I’m always trying to find more and better ‘listening’ material – are you?

Listening

I listen to TV, radio and podcasts to: –

• improve my French language skills
• stay in touch with what’s happening in France
• be entertained by interesting and inspiring people
• be better informed about the world, business, innovation and much much more…

Today, I’d like to share a number of podcast suggestions and ask you to contribute to this list as well, in the comments section below.

Listen: and improve your French

FRENCH: I use a number of the podcasts listed below.
And you’ll find descriptions at FluentU.

• Coffee Break French (iTunes – website)
• Daily French Pod (website)
• French Podcasts.com (website)
• One Thing in a French Day (website)
• Learn French by Podcast (iTunes – website)
• Je French.com (website)
• One Minute French (iTunes – website)
• Learn Out Loud: Survival Phrases (website)
• French Pod 101 (website)

And for the more  ADVANCED French speaker, here is a detailed and very helpful post, it’s a bit old, but, in my view, it’s still very useful. There are tips about reading transcripts of podcasts and more.

Also I have a few other favourites which I’ll come back to another time to do them justice!

Listen: about France &/or French people

ENGLISH: How to ‘Frenchify’ your life in English
There are so many opportunities to find good entertainment and information for Francophiles and here is a good list to start with courtesy Haven in Paris.

• Paris Cocktail Talk: Paris Cocktail Culture and other Boozy News
• Oh-la-la Franco à go-go: Groovy French Music
• Paris Paysanne: Exploring Paris Food Culture
• The Simply Sophisticate: Inspiration with a French Twist
• Join Us in France: A Podcast About All Things French

FRENCH: what about in French? for advanced French speakers

Meet the founders of NouvellesEcoutes.fr – I like what they’re doing and I thought that you might too – check it out below…

La Poudre – Breaking

Well, I’ve just discovered this new podcast which I’m really enjoying and I have to share it with you…

Nouvellesecoutes.fr presents ‘la Poudre’ with Lauren Bastide. It started in November 2016, so there is already a list of 13 episodes in which you can immerse yourself.
“Lauren Bastide reçoit dans une chambre d’hôtel une femme exceptionnelle – artiste, intellectuelle, politique – pour une conversation personnelle et sans tabou sur son enfance, sa carrière, son parcours et son rapport à la féminité. Comment les femmes qui font le XXIème siècle se sont-elles construites ?”

Banquette

Nouvelles écoutes is also producing a football podcast called Banquette (already with 12 episodes):

“Sur sa banquette, Selim Allal tente un pari fou : discuter avec les plus grands acteurs du football (joueurs, entraîneurs, présidents, agents, journalistes ou arbitres) de leur parcours et leur vie dans le football en laissant de côté l’actualité de la semaine et les polémiques éphémères. Et avec légèreté, parce qu’après tout, ce n’est que du sport.”

Parti Pris

And another six-episode series soon to start called Parti Pris:

“Explorez l’un des plus grands mystères de la démocratie française avec cette série documentaire en 6 épisodes.

Sept mois d’enquêtes, trois personnages et six épisodes en immersion dans “le premier parti de France” : l’abstention.

Sortie épisode 1 le 7 mai 2017.
Tous les dimanches jusqu’au 11 juin 2017.”

Listen: for entertainment & be better informed

And on PlayerFM here is an absolute smorgasbord of listening pleasure and choice!

Too much choice?
maybe… and when you get there I suggest that you check out Monocle if you haven’t already done so and here you’ll also find Tedtalks, Financial Times, the Economist, BBC, The New Yorker and the list goes on! Check it out and bookmark this link!

Do you have other listening suggestions? (in comments below please)

Until next Saturday – au revoir

Judy xx

22.4.17

PS: Catch-up

If you missed any of the recent le Bulletin ‘Conversations’ you can play catch up here and now!

• ‘My big challenge’ – click and read/comment
• ‘To agree or to disagree’ – click and read/comment
• ‘The real me’ – click and read/comment
• “Get a life!” Read and Think… – click and read/comment