Listening to French/German radio?

[confusedofengland]

I have decided, after a break of far too many years, that I'd like to brush up on my language skills, mostly French & German. I did them both in a translation MA, so the language is there, but buried deeply

I have hit upon the idea of listening to French/German radio whilst doing my usual jobs around the house, but I can't seem to find any!

I have access to Alexa & also a Smart TV with Amazon Prime, Netflix, Now TV & YouTube. Any suggestions please? I like listening to current chart music but anything would be ok for now just to practise listening.

For German I listen to Spiegelonline podcasts. There are 2 different types at least. One is weekly and partly politically based and partly issues based, the other, more in-depth one , comes monthly and is a Der Spiegel journalist talking in great depth about a single issue. HTH

Thank you. Where would I find them? Can it be via Alexa or SmartTV? Sorry, I'm pretty clueless about all this!

For listening purposes the Netflix own series are all available in French and German - just change the language in options.

For French radio, we mostly listen to RTL2 - there's an app for that so imagine there'd be apps for others.

We have had a Freesat dish and box (one off payment for the equipment) and receive multiple channels from Europe (and beyond), worth a try if you want TV as well as radio.

It may be worth investing in a Roberts internet radio, which can get any local radio station anywhere in the world. I use mine to listen to French radio (mainly France Inter) while doing the ironing.

Also try the Grand Bien Vous Fasse podcasts, available every day on lots of different subjects.

A couple of mainstream German radio stations: Antenna 1 and SWR3.
I am in Germany and listen to BBC radio via Alexa over the TuneIn app. I had to add the stations to "favourites" before she would play them, if that helps at all.

I've got this buried in my bookmarks. Radio over internet

www.francetvinfo.fr/en-direct/radio.html

Audiobooks!

Easier than radio because th y speak very clearly, and you can slow it down. Audible has 1000s of foreign language books.

Thank you, I'll look into all of these.

Try the news in simple French on RFI.

I just go on the France info or France inter websites and live stream it from there on my phone.

We have NRJ on Alexa.....but that's just to remind us of our holidays in France

It's fun to hear what they are saying - especially the adverts as they obviously repeat regularly.

Choma what do you ask Alexa for? I asked for it pronounced the French way & also the English way & she had no idea It was a favourite station of mine as a twentysomething when I lived there, so would be fun to revisit!

Hi OP. I've only just seen your question. I access the podcasts either via Spotify or any other podcast provider.

There are some stations that you can stream listed on - try www.radio.net/search?q=french or www.radio.net/search?q=german. If you have Netflix you could also give something like "The Dark" a go in the original German rather than the dubbed English - it's in the settings somewhere (she said helpfully).

asked for it pronounced the French way & also the English way & she had no idea

En Arr Jey (with a soft French j)

DS is better than me at saying it.

For German Deutschlandfunk is an excellent talk station (not funk music!) which you can get via TuneIn. You have to add TuneIn on your music services part of the Alexa app and then just say 'Alexa, play Deutschlandfunk' and it should work. Deutsche Welle have some brilliant podcasts, my favourites are "Alltagsdeutsch", "Sprachbar","Wort Der Woche" and the daily "Langsam gesprochene Nachrichten" (might be too slow if you are good). I think you can play these through Alexa, via TuneIn but haven't tried. I will try when I get chance 🙂

NRJ radio station is actually pronounced Energy.

You want Google Home not Alexa. You can program it to speak to you in 33 languages which means you can command it in FL too. Alexa only speaks Pig Latin.

Also, not a radio station but Netflix original Plan Coeur is great, full of argot.

Stick the LLM on to analyse parts of the text. It’s a google add on.

Following. Listening to French/German radio daily has been a long-term aim of mine! I asked for a Roberts internet radio for my birthday but DH decided they were too expensive and got me a normal clock radio, even though I already had one!

I'm just starting to brush up on my French. Like you it used to be good (degree level, plus I worked in a French speaking country for a couple of years) but was buried! I've just restarted a weekly French class. The teacher has been recommending tv shows. On Netflix you can watch in French with French subtitles, which is helpful.

I'm watching Le Chalet at the moment, which is quite good. We have also been recommended Nue et Culotté on YouTube. I can ask the prof about radio and podcasts too.

Bonne chance!

I've got an app on my phone which gives me access to a gazillion Spanish radio stations- there must be a similar one for French or German.
I teach French and German but am learning Spanish, and I find podcasts and audiobooks better than radio tbh. There's more sensible, solid content and it's easier to choose stuff that interests you. I'm currently listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks in Spanish .

I like to watch the news in French sometimes.. Can't remember the name of the channel now as have just switched from virgin to sky and I had it stored as a favourite.

Radio would be useful in the car though.