Audio courses for French

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jeffers
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Re: Audio courses for French

Postby jeffers » Tue Jul 09, 2024 11:35 am

Cainntear wrote:
Granrey wrote:I left the season after the season in which they started reading some simulated students letters which were learning french.

I find Podcasts usefulness is really overrated.

In most of these podcasts, you can understand the host as he uses a limited set of vocabulary with clear slow speech.

As soon as the host invites someone to the podcast, it's harder to understand the host and you rarely understand the invited person.

One day, two hosts (which I understand to 95% in their individual podcasts) that I listen got together in a podcast for an special event but I could barely understand them as their script of set of words, speed, etc gets off rail.


Yup... podcasts are hardly appropriate.

For one thing, podcasts have historically been people "playing at radio"... despite the fact that hardly anyone listens to radio talk stuff now anyway.

Some conventions they've taken on from radio:
  • You get the "cold open" of trying to retain the audience attention. On radio, that means stopping people who were listening to the last programme switching off or switching over to another channel. That still happens in podcast platforms as they often start suggestions automatically after one podcast finishes, but most of the audience have actively chosen to listen to a particular podcast -- you do not need to do as much to get their attention as on radio.
  • Theme tunes. The role of the theme tune is to establish a context for the listener -- tell them "this is coming on, get back in the usual headspace". Again, people have made a conscious decision to listen to podcasts, so they're likely already in the headspace.
  • "Hey -- how are you doing!" type banter. A lot of the wider podcast industry has ditched this but the language ones haven't. I strongly suspect that a lot of the people doing language podcasts are a similar age to me, because it just seems all too reminiscent of the style of radio programmes that my primary school would play to me. In a primary school, it's really important to be friendly, but doing the same thing with adults is just patronising, cos it's literally treating them like children.
  • 30 minute episodes... argh! The radio has timetables with fixed slots. You start on the half hour, you finish on the half hour. Nothing can be done. But a podcast can be any length you want, because there are no broadcast schedules. This means that the absolute beginners' stuff is packed with useless filler, because they don't really want to teach you more than five or ten minutes' worth of content, but they've got to make it up to 30 minutes because "that's what a podcast does". And then in the later episodes, everything's crammed in because they want to teach several important points but they don't have time to do it properly, made worse by...
  • Friendly goodbye banter. Somehow, the radio convention of having to make people leave feeling good about the presenters is more important that having the learners leave feeling confident in the skills and knowledge taught. >sigh<
Furthermore, the entire style of radio is predicated about it being a once-a-week thing, and if you're trying to learn a language, are you really going to be listening to a single 30-minute podcast a week...? It'll take forever if you do! I remember getting a lot of LanguagePod101 things and trying to blitz through them. The jingles got increasingly irritating, because it was just a waste of time, and they weren't even quality music. Running them back to back or squeezing them in and around things, I'd hear someone ask how my week had been 3 or 4 times a day and then say they hope I have a good week and that they'll see me next week 3 or 4 times a day. It was massively infuriating.

But the worst thing about podcasts is that the convention is to dip in and out -- you don't start on episode 1, then do episode 2 etc etc... you just start listening to the podcasts wherever and get the back episodes in a random order. You cannot teach in a structured way if you don't have a good idea of what your students know and what they don't.

I'm not sure if I've ever come across a podcast created by genuine teachers, because most would simply refuse to work that way.



I believe Cainntear was writing about instructional podcasts, e.g. xlanguagepod101, Coffee Break, etc. They can be useful for some people, I suppose, but I never liked them much. I agree with Cainntear's criticisms for the most part, especially the banter. I think the problem I had when I tried some of these podcasts was that there was too much fluff and very little substance.

On the other hand, I think general topic podcasts aimed at learners but entirely in the target language are a great stepping stone to bridge the gap between material for learners and material for natives.

Answering some of Cainntear's other criticisms (but in regard to the type of podcast I mentioned):
  • Theme tunes. I think a quick bit of intro and outro music is useful for setting the stage. Good podcasts also have a short bit of music between sections, which makes the transitions less jarring. The Easy French Podcast doesn't have exit music, and I've often been surprised when it simply stops.
  • "Hey -- how are you doing!" type banter. This does feature in a few of the intermediate podcasts I listen to. I love "Paris o'clock", but hate the way the host opens every single episode with "Heeeey! Salut les amis!" and then describes the purpose of the podcast in general.
  • 30 minute episodes. Fortunately, none of the intermediate podcasts I listen to follow strict timings, and each episide will be as long or short as it needs to be. Some follow more regular patterns (e.g. Easy French Podcasts have a set of regular episode sections), but even they don't follow strict timings.

I'll add one complaint that really grinds my gears:
* When these podcasts have a section where they play a voice recording of some learner. Inevitably the learner speaks with an atrocious accent, and inevitably the hosts compliment them on how well they did. I listen to these podcasts to listen to good examples of the spoken language, not to hear another learner struggle to speak. InnerFrench and Easy French both do this, and it bugs me every time it happens, to the point that I don't listen to them anymore. I suspect they do this for audience building, and probably the people whose recordings they play are premium members. Fair enough, they're trying to keep paying customers happy, but it's not for me.


Back to the OPs original question, I would strongly recommend intermediate podcasts for listening practice, but not audio courses. A few years ago I made a thread listing several intermediate and advanced podcasts. By advanced, I meant podcasts aimed at natives.
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17152&p=193289

Some of the podcasts have closed down, e.g. Le français à la une, but episodes are still available.
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Cainntear
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Re: Audio courses for French

Postby Cainntear » Tue Jul 09, 2024 6:41 pm

jeffers wrote:I believe Cainntear was writing about instructional podcasts, e.g. xlanguagepod101, Coffee Break, etc. They can be useful for some people, I suppose, but I never liked them much. I agree with Cainntear's criticisms for the most part, especially the banter. I think the problem I had when I tried some of these podcasts was that there was too much fluff and very little substance.

Guilty as charged. This was probably shortly after I'd tried several episodes of a Ukranian podcast which had really struck the "primary school radio lesson" notes pretty hard.

On the other hand, I think general topic podcasts aimed at learners but entirely in the target language are a great stepping stone to bridge the gap between material for learners and material for natives.

I'm sure that's the case, but I haven't personally used anything that really fits the description. Anything I've listened to that tries to suggest otherwise will often divert onto very specific language points with no way of really knowing how many of their listeners they will be useful for.

I am very pleased if such podcasts do exist, although as I said before, it's only really the mainstream radio stations I would personally expect to see such a thing from as they don't have a need to build a brand around the lesson. If smaller podcasters can build a name around being a supplementary resource, that is excellent news.

Answering some of Cainntear's other criticisms (but in regard to the type of podcast I mentioned):
  • Theme tunes. I think a quick bit of intro and outro music is useful for setting the stage. Good podcasts also have a short bit of music between sections, which makes the transitions less jarring. The Easy French Podcast doesn't have exit music, and I've often been surprised when it simply stops.

But as I said, it's always all or nothing. We now live in a world where we can create heavily personalised materials. You like theme tunes, I don't -- so why can't you select to download with and me without? There is nothing technically to prevent this, but the podcast culture has copied radio where you don't have choice, even though the medium absolutely gives a mechanism for choice.
  • "Hey -- how are you doing!" type banter. This does feature in a few of the intermediate podcasts I listen to. I love "Paris o'clock", but hate the way the host opens every single episode with "Heeeey! Salut les amis!" and then describes the purpose of the podcast in general.

  • Yep, and that's the whole podcast culture. You have to be able to start listening whenever... because you would on radio, so you should on podcasts. And that's fine when you're talking about news or politics, but it makes no sense when there is no need to be contemporaneous. If I want to try out a podcast that isn't particularly time-sensitive, why doesn't it throw me an episode that is deliberately tuned to being a sample for a new audience? The medium allows that, if the platform managers wanted to do it!
  • 30 minute episodes. Fortunately, none of the intermediate podcasts I listen to follow strict timings, and each episide will be as long or short as it needs to be. Some follow more regular patterns (e.g. Easy French Podcasts have a set of regular episode sections), but even they don't follow strict timings.

  • OK, that's fair enough. I imagine the "professional podcasts" (by traditional media figures) have helped the podcast culture mature quite a bit. I've been listening to some recently and the strict timing isn't there... because the media types know full well that the fixed programme lengths don't make any sense on podcasts. Now that the radio wannabes have a different model to work to, I#m not surprised that things are improving.

    I'll add one complaint that really grinds my gears:
    * When these podcasts have a section where they play a voice recording of some learner. Inevitably the learner speaks with an atrocious accent, and inevitably the hosts compliment them on how well they did. I listen to these podcasts to listen to good examples of the spoken language, not to hear another learner struggle to speak. InnerFrench and Easy French both do this, and it bugs me every time it happens, to the point that I don't listen to them anymore. I suspect they do this for audience building, and probably the people whose recordings they play are premium members. Fair enough, they're trying to keep paying customers happy, but it's not for me.

    That does sound a lot like "playing at radio", particularly playing at school radio. It was always an "it could be me next" aspirational thing, and it was fine when you were listening when it was broadcast, but if you're listening to a series of podcasts a couple of years old, it's never going to be you -- it's already written in the history of the show.

    It's really hard to stop seeing the person as just "someone who isn't you and who you don't know" if you can't see the possibility of being in their position a few weeks from now...
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    Granrey
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    Re: Audio courses for French

    Postby Granrey » Fri Jul 12, 2024 1:19 am

    weird, I don't recall ads on podcasts. Except when the host is promoting his own course.

    I'm assuming you guys are listening to podcasts on YouTube.

    I was using podcasts (by google) which is being replaced by YouTube music. I guess I will get them then.
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    Re: Audio courses for French

    Postby Granrey » Tue Jan 14, 2025 4:52 am

    Just a little update.

    After focusing a lot on audio courses, plus anki audio courses. My oral comprehension has improved.

    I recently achieved a milestone by chance.

    Last year, I watched a youtube video in which someone said : "you are not understanding french because you are reading subtitles rather than listening".

    When I saw the video then, I gave it a try and did not work.

    For the last year, I decided to watch all movies in french with subtitles but no much progress.

    On December, I decided to watch an anime on Netflix which I had put on hold for long time because it's not available in French (Boruto). It was available in portuguese and I decided to watch it in Portuguese which I have been studying as well now for a year.

    On the first episodes I could not understand much but then I will stop reading and concentrate on listening. Quickly, I was able to follow and understand 80% or more. So I watched many episodes.

    I noticed something stopping my portuguese comprehension was not just the unknown words but the accent. Still, I thought that maybe because it's close to spanish that's why I was understanding.

    So, couple days ago, I decided to watch a documentary about the Maury show in french. The same phenomenon happened I was able to understand about close to 75%. I repeated with another show and today I decided to watch my first movie in French and I was able to follow without reading no problem (again about 80%).

    All those were dubbed french/portuguese which obviously is way easier than natives speaking.

    Later on I want to try movies in native French and Portuguese and see what happens.

    ty that's all. I hope this helps others too.
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    Re: Audio courses for French

    Postby Le Baron » Tue Jan 14, 2025 11:05 am

    I'm unclear. Are you saying that what helped you was not reading subtitles, or watching things dubbed into the target languages? Or both?
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    Re: Audio courses for French

    Postby Cainntear » Tue Jan 14, 2025 3:52 pm

    Granrey wrote:Last year, I watched a youtube video in which someone said : "you are not understanding french because you are reading subtitles rather than listening".
    ...

    Well the question of subtitles or no subtitles brought up an old memory.

    When I was studying Spanish, I started following a series on RTVE.es (now geoblocked *) that was then being broadcast, so there was a new episode every week. I watched with Spanish subtitles. About a third of the way through, I did a bit of a binge rewatch of all the episodes up to that point. I found that I was understanding better. Then about another third of the way through I did a bigger binge rewatch. My understanding was again better. I'm not sure whether my first binge watch included switching the subtitles off, but I'm fairly sure my second did. But one of the clear benefits of the second rewatching was that I was so familiar with the story that things that I might have dismissed as minor irrelevancies (and therefor not worth the effort to understand) were more obviously signposts for an end-of-season plot thread, so I tended to make sure and understand the language.

    My personal view is that television is much much better for language learning than cinema.

    Cinema scripts are very very deliberate, specific and precise with language -- if something is said, it's probably important, so failing to understand just lets problems pile up on top of each other. Also, there is very little repetition in a movie, and that repetition is very deliberate -- stereotypically a villain will say something unnecessarily cheesy like "give me a violin so I can dance a jig on your grave" to someone in act I and the hero will end up repeating the line back to him in the final act, before pulling the trigger on a stupidly overpowered rocket launcher. But in a TV series, there's lots of time to fill, so there's lots of mundane day-to-day dialogue. You get a feel for the characters and how they talk just through frequent contact.

    [ * "geoblocking" is blocking people from accessing sites based on their location. In the early days of the internet, it was considered that because the EU had an open market and anything sold in one location should be available throughout the whole EU, geoblocking sites to specific areas within the EU was against EU rules. However, the problem with media is that a channel (eg RTVE) would only be paying for a license to broadcast in one area (in this example Spain), so they didn't have the right to distribute it throughout the whole EU anyway, so the broadcasters were essentially asking for geoblocking to be allowed to match the rights.

    This isn't just a small academic matter, either. Licenses for distribution in poorer countries are cheaper, because there's less disposable income to spend on TV, music etc. This meant that there was a real risk that people like Netflix would set their European subsidiary up in somewhere like Bulgaria in order to get cheap licensing deals and then rely on the then-standard thing of not geo-blocking within the EU to sell to countries where the license would otherwise be expensive. This would have meant that Netflix, Amazon etc would have been able to do even more harm to domestic broadcast channels than they have.

    And the danger wasn't just pricing broadcasters out of the market -- once Netflix started serving Germany, France and the UK with an Eastern European licensing rate, the studios would have simply increased the licensing rate in Eastern Europe to levels comparable to Western Europe. This would have priced the actual Eastern European channels serving actual Eastern European viewers out of the Eastern European market, and dubbing North American and Western European content would have been pointless because no-one would be able to afford broadcasting it to people who understand it!
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    Re: Audio courses for French

    Postby Granrey » Tue Jan 14, 2025 11:03 pm

    Le Baron wrote:I'm unclear. Are you saying that what helped you was not reading subtitles, or watching things dubbed into the target languages? Or both?


    The audio courses helped me. Turning off the subs allowed me to see it. Which was something I could not do before.

    But I can see as well that reading and listening at the same time seems to be too much for the brain in a language you are learning.

    Specially when what being said does not match the subs. Either because it's a different version even in (kind of like saying : "I'm ok" but the sub says: " I am fine")

    I'm watching an anime now:"my happy wedding" . on this dubbed the spoken version matches exactly the subs word by word. in this case I can read and listen.

    While writing this post I decided to listen a portion of the current episode I'm watching in french and sub in spanish or English. It's a mess for the brain.

    The other thing is that dubbed are very neutral accent wise.
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