French speakers

[nowlook]

I'm trying to listen to French radio to improve my very rusty language skills.

I can understand much more of what is said by female voices than the male ones

Any reason why that might be? Is it because the pitch is higher so easier to hear?

It's an internet radio, if that's relevant.

I find that the men tend to speak much faster than the women on radio. What are you listening to? I like France Inter, Antoine de Caunes weekdays with pop pop pop is good.

@LeNil

I'm on France Inter. Will try the others. I only got the radio today (it's my birthday) so I'm in the first flushes!

One of the first things I heard was the female presenter say "pardon my French". Literally that! In English! No idea what she said that was pardonable though 😂

Sorry, "excuse my French". Can't even remember my own idiomatic phrases 🙄

Happy Birthday!

Unusual. Never had that problem. As long as everybody is articulating correctly.

One answer may lie in biology. Scientific studies have shown that people generally find women's voices more pleasing than men's.

edition.cnn.com/2011/10/21/tech/innovation/female-computer-voices/index.html

Personally, I've found non-French french speakers much easier to understand than natives ... maybe a Francophone equivalent of Trevor MacDonald ?

I could listen to this guy all day

I totally agree, I'm learning French and find womens voices much much easier to understand.

I wondered if it could be as I have only ever been taught by women, and therefore attuned to it. Deeper men's voices are really tricky, I really struggled speaking to a lovely french man in Toulouse, I think he had a regional French accent too. What he thought of my pronunciation with a northern English accent God knows!

But to my untrained ear native French speakers do speak very quickly and words run into one another, but I'm listening with a rubbish learners vocabulary and I'm not very skilled at picking out words.

Personally, I've found non-French french speakers much easier to understand than natives

Yes, me too! I've never noticed a difference between men and women though.

I have had my internet radio for years, it is in the kitchen as I like to listen to French in the background as I'm doing stuff. However, it has just decided that France Inter is the only channel on the planet that it won't receive

Personally, I've found non-French french speakers much easier to understand than natives [] Yes, me too! I've never noticed a difference between men and women though

That said, Canadians .... well Quebecois ... ???? Nope, not a word

Thanks, all! I've just tuned in to RTL and the men there do speak more slowly than the chaps I heard on France Inter. I'm grappling with the fact that I've really let the language slide over the past 20 years. As such, I'm not at a level where I'm choosing a station based on whether I find it funny/matches my politics. Just trying to understand the gist of a segment!

That said...French music is still mainly terrible, non?

Personally, I've found non-French french speakers much easier to understand than natives

I'm completely the opposite. Standard French is easiest by far for me. I can cope ok with regional French accents, Belgian, and Swiss. North Africans (maghrébins) can be tricky. I find west Africans the hardest of all to understand, especially if they've never lived in France. I don't meet many Quebecois, but they're quite difficult at times, especially with the different vocab. Still don't come close to the west Africans though.

I don't listen to French music radio (except in France), but I do get a few French podcasts. They're really good for keeping your ear in and finding out interesting stuff at the same time.

Fink - which French podcasts? Any 'easy-ish' ?

@Fink I don't think my French is strong enough to recognise whether the speaker is native or otherwise! Unless, we're talking about 7 seconds feat Neneh Cherry...

It may well be that the woman I heard this morning was intelligible because she was talking slowly about excessive consumption in our society (in the context of Black Friday). So, an argument I've heard before multiple times in English.

@Dylanpickle

Keep at it! It's a bit like smoking for me...I identify as a French speaker, even if I haven't had a conversation in 20 years

@Mother87 - I was recommended the podcasts at innerfrench.com recently and I have to say that so far they're good. Pitched at intermediate level but even if you don't feel you're at that level yet, they are clearly spoken and also come with a transcript.

@Mother87, if you want an easy podcast, the News In Slow French is very good, although a YouTube video rather than a podcast. They take one current affairs story a week, read it out, and give a short comment. They subtitles of what they're reading are on the screen (in French) with difficult words highlighted and a translation underneath.

Otherwise, I think it depends what your interests are. I used to listen to one called Nouveaux Chapitre which was a different woman each fortnight being interviewed about her experience of pregnancy and motherhood and how it affects her view of herself, her professional life etc. It was relatively interesting at first, but they are all upper-middle class Parisian women and they got very samey for me quite quickly.

The others I listen to are more specialist interest and probably not generally appealing (e.g. Catholic theology). But I'm sure there's good ones out there for all interests. I found one of my favourites just by doing a keyword search on iTunes.

@nowlook I only mentioned the accents because two posters upthread had brought it up. On French radio they'll nearly all be native French and standard northern accent, unless they're interviewing someone. The exceptions are the foreign musicians they get to record 'you're listening to Chérie FM' style clips. You can spot them a mile off. It will be Ed Sheeran or similar doing an awful schoolboy accent.

There's the news in simple French on RFI.

I agree although I find Macron very easy to understand.

A French friend once mentioned the same in reverse (she could understand English-speaking women better than English-speaking men). She thought the men mumbled more!

That said...French (assuming you mean in the French language) music is still mainly terrible, non?

Quite a generalisation. It depends on the radio station. I mean you can spend your days listening to Niska, Damso (and tbf even that is subjective; sometimes Damso is relatively tolerable – if you don’t take into account what he’s actually singing because well that’s sometimes a bridge too far) etc… . Or you can listen to something else.

This thread is so interesting! I'm another one who finds it easier to follow Belgian and Swiss French than French French. I haven't noticed a male/female thing in French, but I definitely find women easier to understand than men when listening to the Italian news.

It might well be speed. For me the one person whose French I just cannot follow is Arsene Wenger, even though I had no difficulty in understanding everyone when I was in his home part of France.

Nothing on languages, but I remember from guitar years ago that slight differences in higher frequencies are apparently easier to differentiate than at lower frequencies (hence why guitar solos are at the higher pitch notes, so that you can tell the difference between the notes and be more amazed).I would assume the same would transfer across to syllables.

Merci crivit et fink - will try all