NRV- French Radio for Macs, anyone?
Posted by MizzouKitten on May 10, 2007 · Member since Mar 2006 · 289 posts
So I've been working on improving my French lately, and I've been trying to find good online radio streaming from somewhere in France-- I'm looking for all news/information/commercials; pretty much anything but music. :P French Info seems to be the best broadcast that I should be looking for, but I can't find a website that will stream it via iTunes; they all want Windows Media, which I can download, but I really don't want that crap on my computer. :P So, does anyone have a good internation music streaming source for French Public Radio of some sort?
I hear you! Windows Media Player is cr@ppy!
Have you checked out the radio stations already linked to iTunes or done a search in the iTunes store (there are a bunch of free podcasts). I couldn't find any internet radio stations that you could just stream using iTunes, but here's a couple links to pages I found with French podcasts (I haven't personally tried them out):
http://www.radiofrance.fr/services/rfmobiles/podcast/index.php?channel=1&g=EMI
http://www.oculture.com/weblog/2006/10/itunes_learn_fo.html (scroll down to French, most of the links are for grammar, but there is also a nightly news podcast for non-native speakers)
http://www.podcast.net/cat/95
I'm totally going to check these out for myself. My French is pretty good, but my Spanish could use some serious help!
Thanks volacious-- that looks like a good place to start searching! I tried the iTunes radio channels-- there were a few based from Paris, but they were all music, which wasn't what I was looking for. (I heard more English music while trying to listen to them than I did French!) I hadn't thought to try Podcasts yet.
I live in Spain and had no trouble buying the ABGroupe satellite card for my box, from France. It's very inexpensive and you get a lot of channels. You might Google the name AB Groupe and see if they are on the Net, I think a lot of the channels in the "bouquet" actually are.
I tried listening to a few of the iTunes music channels too, and yah... do they actually play French songs?! 'Cause I sure didn't hear any! ::)
Yahoo music plays French stuff, but maybe that's just here in Europe, try yahoo.co.uk and see.
BBC News has audio clips of news and web pages of news in French too:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/french/
Yabbitgirl - Thanks or the link... unfortunately it won't play using OS X and it requires Netscape and Real Media Player which I don't have. ::) That's ok, I get plenty of exposure to new music through a couple awesome LJ music rotations. Yay international music!!
Prettyin_Punk - Other than listening to music and listening to (or watching!) the news, I'd recommend watching movies (with subtitles in French) and reading books. The reading is really challenging at first, but it helps a lot with learning new vocab. The best thing to do if possible is to join some sort of French group where you can actually practice with native speakers, but I don't know what kind of French community you have in your area. The French Alliance organises classes and cultural events all over so you could check out their website and see if there's anything near you: http://www.afusa.org/chap/pennsylvania.html
You can download Real Media Player for free on several websites, and it works pretty well.
I feel sorry for y'all who live in the States and don't have the alternate languages on DVDs. Maybe if you got some French films? Like say Amelie, The Camel Who Cried, The Choristers (not sure of the Eng title there, Les Choristes)
and my latest purchase, called in English A Common Thread. Visually beautiful and there's a lot more there than appears at first viewing.
Thanks for the various suggestions all! It's pretty tough to find anything in foreign languages on American web sources... I've taken just to going to the french google site (www.google.fr) and trying to read the news. :P I get practice with my French WHILE getting a handle on the current events. :P I'd still like to find some more listening-like activities, ie. radio or something, as a lot of them just don't seem to have operating links for Safari or Firefox (my web browsers). C'est une chose triste.
You can download Real Media Player for free on several websites, and it works pretty well.
I feel sorry for y'all who live in the States and don't have the alternate languages on DVDs. Maybe if you got some French films? Like say Amelie, The Camel Who Cried, The Choristers (not sure of the Eng title there, Les Choristes)
and my latest purchase, called in English A Common Thread. Visually beautiful and there's a lot more there than appears at first viewing.
I second the movie Amelie (even if you're not watching it to learn French!). Yabbit, the other three movies you mention--you've just given me stuff to add the my Flixtster queue. ;) For those into classics, Rififi (possibly the first movie about a heist) and The Samurai (thriller/film noir) are cool.
I took four years of French in high school, and I barely remember how to say "hello." I should brush up, too.
Edit: Flixtster?!? I meant Netflix. This is the kind of weird-ass typo that happens when you've had serious insomnia on and off for three weeks!
Amelie is probably my favorite movie ever. Les Choristes was so cute! I saw most of L'auberge espagnole, which looked very promising, but I need to rent it. He Love Me, He Loves Me Not was ok, but not classic or anything. I think that pretty much accounts for my entire French movie database.
I actually watch more French TV than any other kind, I have a lot of films recorded from TV.
Another film I can't recommend enough but I don't know if it made it over there is "Un Monde Presque Paisible" (Eng title Almost Peaceful). And "Lulu, Roi de France". Never, ever try to explain a good French comedy--like a novel by Isabel Allende, they make sense at the time, but lose a lot in explanation!
ShaolinBunny - Isn't The Camel Who Cried in Mongolian? I haven't seen it yet, but it's going on my (ever growing!) list.
Some of my fav French movies :
- Banlieue 13 (the plot isn't that original, but it's worth watching for the parkour)
- Joyeux Noel
- Amélie
- L'Auberge Espanol
- Les Poupées Russes (sequel to l'Auberge Espangol)
- Huit Femmes
- Bon Cop Bad Cop (this is a Canadian comedy/action movie that came out last year, half in English, half in French)
- Les Aimants
- Le Secret de ma Mère
- Les Choristes
STOP PRESS! I just found out that France 5 has programmes on the Net! Don't know if they're Mac Friendly but you can try. I believe it would be France5.fr but I'm not sure.
ShaolinBunny - Isn't The Camel Who Cried in Mongolian? I haven't seen it yet, but it's going on my (ever growing!) list.
I'll hand that question over to Yabbit (I haven't actually seen it--though I plan to!).
After reading this thread, my movie list is growing rapidly, too!
I've seen it on DVD only--offers Spanish (natch since I'm here), French and Mongolian. So the original may be Mongolian dubbed into French. Hadn't thought of that.
The French title of "A Common Thread" is Les Brodeuses.
A friend of mine from Grenoble highly recommends Etre et Avoir, which I haven't seen yet either.
Oops. Sorry, I asked the wrong bunny! Maybe I should give up on the foreign languages and focus on the reading thing! I just checked on imdb and it looks like "The Camel Who Cried" was originally in Mongolian. I only ask 'cause dubbing drives me nuts!
I thought of another good (as long as you don't mind nudity!) French movie: "Gazon Maudit"
I thought of another good (as long as you don't mind nudity!) French movie: "Gazon Maudit"
Giggling--those who mind nudity do not watch French cinema! And French people who mind it do not become actors--Juliette Binoche's first screen test consisted of walking around a set, nude, combing her hair and reciting poetry! I guess one could say that they have a very healthy attitude to the body, summed up, as Mlle Binoche says she was told, by "We're all naked under our clothes!" It appears in the most unlikely scripts and noone thinks anything about it.
I only ask 'cause dubbing drives me nuts!
I'm totally with you, volacious, on the dubbing. Dubbing is pretty annoying (and funny sometimes, in a bad way). I'd much rather watch a foreign movie and listen to the natural intonations of the actors' voices (I find it insightful), even if I can't translate what they are saying (subtitles work for me). I won't watch a movie if it is dubbed. The worst are decent movies that are aired on TV where the bad words are dubbed with what are considered more innocuous ones. So pointless and annoying. But that's just me. I don't think of words as being bad or good. The FCC can go...*BLEEP!*...themselves! ;D
Nudity doesn't bother me if it makes sense in the story. It can actually be very beautiful. I must admit, though, I do get tired of gratuitous scenes in American cinema.
I won't watch dubbed movies either. The only exception is the most recent version of the Phantom of the Opera which I saw in French because (silly me) I'd forgotten to check beforehand if it was dubbed or subtitled. I just assumed that a musical movie wouldn't be dubbed! Doh! Anywho... I've seen the movie in English since then, and the French singers were (in my ever-so-humble-opinion) better than the English ones so I'd totally watch it in French if I had the choice!
What I like about the nudity in French films is that it's more natural instead of always sexual. I mean hell I walk around my house naked sometimes and it's not about sex, why shouldn't people in a movie be able to do the same?! It bothers me that we seem so shy or ashamed of our bodies, after all half the population has the same bits as I do and I'm sure that the other half has seen them before!
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