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.

[havingtochangeusernameagain]

Another vote for NDR2 - and SWR3 (feels nostalgic for the old SWF3)

[Katharinblum]

If you have an amazon firestick on your tv you can actually download german tv station apps too and then stream german tv programmes We've got 3sat, zdf, deutsche welle, spiegel tv, br !

[WeshMaGueule]

If you're listening to the Monday programme a friend of mine was on it! :-)

[IsFuzzyBeagMise]

Hi, I'm listening to 'C dans l'air' podcast on Spotify, looking at France 24 on my phone and reading 'Le Monde' via subscription also on my phone. Also trying to read more novels in French. I go to a conversation class once a week.

I have degree level French and German but I am doing French as I am better at it. Fair play to you doing both!

[MsRinky]

I listen to FIP online, which is a music station, but have been surprised how much just the intros and the news breaks have reawakened my dormant French.

[RecoveringChocaholic]

I listen to German radio through our sonos system.
Also, Walter presents on all4 has lots of German speaking TV which I like watching at 3am when the baby is teething. It seems to calm her down.

[Nichtmeret]

Hi, I am from Germany but I live in the UK right now. My favourite radio is NDR2, you can easily download the NDR2 app in the play store and listen to it.

[confusedofengland]

I'm pleased & amazed to have so many replies, so thank you all & good luck to others with similar goals!

I'm rather excited about doing this small thing for myself & thinking it wouldn't do any harm to investigate options for the DC, too. I'm aware that I won't 'learn' anything much with music radio stations, but for me, the knowledge is already there (somewhere ) so it just needs reigniting, rather than teaching!

[reluctantbrit]

We listen to German Radio via Spotify. But unless you have a station which mainly speaks like BBC equivalent you don't learn that much.

Podcasts like Spiegel or Audiobooks are a lot better. Similar to setting Netflix to another language.

[drivingtofrance]

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.

[lazylinguist]

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 .

[eurochick]

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!

[Peggywoolley]

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!

[coatlessinspokane]

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.

[coatlessinspokane]

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.

[WeshMaGueule]

NRJ radio station is actually pronounced Energy.

[Monkeyhumanoid]

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 🙂

[chomalungma]

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.

[cannycat20]

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).

[IloveJudgeJudy]

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

[confusedofengland]

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!

[chomalungma]

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.

[AnnaBegins]

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

[WeshMaGueule]

Try the news in simple French on RFI.

[confusedofengland]

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