Hello hello! Had a wonderful Jour de Macaron last Saturday, immediately followed by a horrible stomach sickness (luckily unrelated to the macarons) and today I'm enjoying a pleasant Saturday morning (actually more like afternoon...) finally back to my healthy self.
Taking my former french teacher's advice, I started looking for radio podcasts to take with my on my upcoming trip to Romania over Easter (hooooray!). The search was very successful, and turned out 15 pages of "émissions" or specific programs on the french public radio stations like France Inter or France Culture. Public radio here is just called "Radio France," but unlike NPR they have multiple stations. I'm pretty sure you can stream radio online, or just bump around their stations on their website: http://www.radiofrance.fr/
Two programs that I enjoy are "Allô la planete" and "Hors Champs." The former is a travel show where people call in from their travels around the world just to chat and describe what they see. Apparently there is a recurring guest, an old man, who has embarked on a world journey on foot. :) Hors Champs is an interview program that features a good variety of guests on cultural, societal, artistic themes. The interviewees are generally not in a time crunch, so the conversation is pretty relaxed. This means that the French is generally slow and clear... good for those intermediate (but also beginning!) French folk! I think it is really important to listen to a LOT of radio and/or watch a LOT of tv in the language you are trying to learn especially if you don't have a network in that language. It may seem too passive but I think listening continuously is the basis for gaining an automatic understanding of grammar, the ability to tell right off whether an expression "sounds right" or not. Classes may be good at analyzing and explaining grammar, but to really learn a language it is important to have a reflex of the proper grammar rather than just an intellectual understanding of it. Otherwise you'll be at the awful language limbo level forever, where you can perfectly recite how and when to use the subjunctive, but continually omit it while speaking. (Fascinating how that happens though! I guess learning a language is more akin to learning to ride a bycicle in some ways rather than learning to add fractions.) If you're beginning French and can only pick up on 10% of what is being said, I would still encourage you to listen on a daily basis! Don't be frustrated! I think most of learning happens kind of subconsciously anyway - so you'll be picking up on new words and context all the time, even if you don't necessarily realize it. And if not anything else, you'll start developing an ear for a proper French accent. :)
Anyway, getting back to the podcasts! You should definitely check them out! They're a neat way to maintain your French, practice your aural skills if you're learning, and if you're living outside of France, it's a good way to keep in touch with what your French comrades are currently listening to. You may learn something new, or just enjoy some French garble in the background.
The only problem I'm seeing is that podcasts are erased (?) after a while, since only the most recent few programs are coming up. I will further look into this and come back. :)
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