Learning French in Japan

[katsu]

OK, you've convinced me. I've decided to take off the training wheels and watch a dubbed show without subtitles. I tried watching bits of some shows I've already seen and liked ("Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" was one), but I found that knowing what was going to happen kind of ruined the fun and I couldn't make it through an entire episode.

Scrolling through the endless choices on Netflix, I stumbled on a Catalan-language series called (in French at least) "Si je ne t'avais pas rencontrée", which is about a guy who undergoes a horrific personal tragedy, and then is given a device that allows him to travel to parallel dimensions where he made different choices in his life. It's a fairly by-the-numbers scifi plot, and unfortunately there's only one season, but I've watched the first two episodes with the French dub, and lo-and-behold, I can actually understand most of it! Or at least enough to follow the story. Dubbing seems easier to understand than shows originally made in French, maybe because the voice actors are concentrating more on speaking clearly? I plan to watch an episode of this every day, and then switch to another show when I'm done with this one.

[katsu]

A few notes on some French TV I've watched (with subtitles) recently:

Paris etc.
The synopsis on Amazon for this show starts with "Cinq femmes. Et Paris.", which pretty much sums it up. The stories of five completely different women living in Paris, whose paths occasionally cross. This is very much a character-driven, rather than plot-driven, show where not much happens in many of the episodes. We're just following the various characters as they navigate various problems in their lives. I loved it, but some of the reviews on Amazon show that not everyone does. The first episode was a bit hard to follow, as the story jumps from character to character without any explanation, but once everything clicked I didn't want it to end. The show was created and written by Zabou Breitman, who also plays one of the five women, and I'll be keeping an eye on anything she does from now on (her latest project is an animated film set in Afghanistan).

Hippocrate
This is another great show, set in a hospital and focusing on four young interns who have to essentially run an entire wing of the hospital when the regular doctors are quarantined elsewhere. The creator of this show, Thomas Lilti, had an entire career as a doctor before he switched careers to screenwriting and directing, and you can tell from the finished product. There's a focus on the gritty reality of being a young doctor (the sleep deprivation, suddenly having to do a procedure you've never done before) that I haven't seen much in other medical shows. The same guy directed an earlier movie which confusingly has the same title as the show, but with an entirely different story and characters. The movie's good too, but the show is better. The French can get pretty difficult with all the medical slang and terminology.

Nox
After the previous two shows, I thought Canal+ could do no wrong, so I also got the DVDs for this, their latest show. Unfortunately, it's not that good. The premise: a Parisian cop has gone missing during an investigation in the sewers below the city, and the only ones willing to look for her are her partner and her mother, herself a tough-as-nails ex-cop (played by Nathalie Baye). I love the idea of a mystery series set in the tunnels and catacombs of Paris, but I feel like the premise was wasted here. You never get a sense of the vastness of this underground world (I've heard you can travel from one end of Paris to the other without going aboveground), and the characters never come fully alive despite some solid performances.

[Lawyer&Mom]

Were the Paris show and the hospital show also DVDs, or are they streaming somewhere?

[Cavesa]

A few notes on some French TV I've watched (with subtitles) recently:

Hippocrate
This is another great show, set in a hospital and focusing on four young interns who have to essentially run an entire wing of the hospital when the regular doctors are quarantined elsewhere. The creator of this show, Thomas Lilti, had an entire career as a doctor before he switched careers to screenwriting and directing, and you can tell from the finished product. There's a focus on the gritty reality of being a young doctor (the sleep deprivation, suddenly having to do a procedure you've never done before) that I haven't seen much in other medical shows. The same guy directed an earlier movie which confusingly has the same title as the show, but with an entirely different story and characters. The movie's good too, but the show is better. The French can get pretty difficult with all the medical slang and terminology.

A reality show! Just with an added quarantine plot, to avoid being sued or causing public riots
(partially joking. In some specialties and hospitals, it goes really well, like in mine right now. But yes, there are services that couldn't function without internes, and there are services without enough doctors, so the internes basically do lot of stuff without the proper support and supervision).

But thanks a lot for this recommendation!!! It could be fun, and I'll definitely recommend it on my list of medical French resources that I'm preparing for some people.

And it sounds very relatable. It makes a huge difference, when someone who actually knows the stuff makes a tv series.

[katsu]

Were the Paris show and the hospital show also DVDs, or are they streaming somewhere?

Sorry, I should have put this in the original post. Yes, they were all DVDs I found on Amazon France. None of them are on any streaming services that I know of. All of the DVDs have French-language subtitles.

[katsu]

A reality show! Just with an added quarantine plot, to avoid being sued or causing public riots
(partially joking. In some specialties and hospitals, it goes really well, like in mine right now. But yes, there are services that couldn't function without internes, and there are services without enough doctors, so the internes basically do lot of stuff without the proper support and supervision).

But thanks a lot for this recommendation!!! It could be fun, and I'll definitely recommend it on my list of medical French resources that I'm preparing for some people.

And it sounds very relatable. It makes a huge difference, when someone who actually knows the stuff makes a tv series.

I'd love to hear what an actual medical professional thinks of the show. All I can say is that as someone with no experience in that area, it felt more real than a lot of other shows. If you're looking for similar resources, Thomas Lilti has done a couple of other movies (which I haven't seen) involving doctors or medical students.

[katsu]

Some more stuff I've watched recently (all on DVD):

Mouche
I loved the British series Fleabag, and I love the actor Camille Cottin, so a French remake of Fleabag starring Camille Cottin can't miss, right? Well, not so much. I was expecting a looser adaption, but this is a very literal translation of the British show into French, scene-by-scene and possibly line-by-line. The problem is that the original show is so tailored to Phoebe Waller-Bridge's acting style that the same lines just don't work with another actor. The acting in the original show is all just slightly over-the-top (in a good way), whereas the performances in the French version are dialed down to a more realistic tone, which I don't think works as well. Overall, I can't really recommend it, but it might be more enjoyable if you've never seen the original.
(By the way, the French title comes from an actual nickname Camille Cottin had as a child.)

Le Mystère Henri Pick
I picked up a 4-DVD boxset of Fabrice Luchini movies from Amazon, and this is the first one I watched. The premise is that the manuscript for a fantastic new novel has just been discovered in a bookstore, apparently written by the recently deceased owner of a small town pizza parlor. Fabrice Luchini plays a hot-shot literary critic who hosts a high-rated book discussion show (I tried, and failed, to imagine such a show even existing in the US). He somewhat snobbishly refuses to believe that a mere pizza shop owner who'd never written anything before could produce such a great work of art, and with the help of the man's daughter (played by Camille Cottin) begins to investigate the man's life. The story is basically a whodunnit that wouldn't be out of place on Murder She Wrote, but the fact that it's a literary mystery rather than a murder mystery gives it a fresh twist. Fun, but the story seemed a bit slight to support a whole movie. In fact, I'd rather see this made as a TV series where these two characters team up to solve a different literature-related mystery every week.

Jour Polaire
I'm three episodes into this crime series in which a French cop (Leïla Bekhti) travels above the Arctic Circle to solve a bizzare crime in which the victim is a French national. Since the show is set in Sweden, I was a bit worried when I ordered the DVDs that there wouldn't be much French. Indeed, most of the dialogue is either Swedish or English, but luckily there's a separate audio track where everything is dubbed into French. Even more miraculously, there's an accurate subtitle track for the French dub! The show itself is... pretty weird, but compelling enough so far that I want to see what happens next. Also, I really want the maroon jacket that the lead wears throughout.

Un Homme pressé
The second movie in the Fabrice Luchini boxset. He plays a high-powered auto executive who has a stroke and loses much of his memory and language ability. He has to work with a speech therapist (played by Leïla Bekhti) to regain his French and learn what's really important in life. In the wrong hands, this could have been a schmaltzy tear-jerker, but it was handled with such a deft touch that I found myself genuinely moved by the end.

One issue for French learners is that after his stroke (which I found out is called Accident vasculaire cérébral in French, or "AVC"), the main character has difficulty speaking without switching sound and syllables around (for example, he says "cimer" for "merci"). Probably not a good model for French learners, but it is kind of interesting trying to puzzle out what he's trying to say.

In other news, I'm almost done with the Spanish series I'm watching dubbed into French (sans sous-titres). In looking for a replacement on Netflix, I've hit on The Good Wife, a legal show with 7 seasons of more than 20 episodes each. I'm halfway through the first season, and I'd say I can understand about 10~20% of the dialogue at best. The good thing about a legal show is that there's lots of talking, but the bad thing is that most of this talking involves people sitting in conference rooms, where there are no visual clues to help you follow the story. However, I'm (just barely) able to follow the stories, so I'm going to power through and see if my comprehension improves.

[katsu]

More stuff from my DVD pile:

L'hermine
The next movie in my Fabrice Luchini boxset. He plays the lead judge (technically, "president of the court") on a murder case. This starts out as a legal drama, but gradually shifts to being about the judge's relationship with one of the jurors on the case, played by Danish actress Sidse Babett Knudsen. As a side note, her French sounded perfect to me, but in the movie they explain that her character is originally from Denmark, so she must have a residual Danish accent that's noticeable to native speakers. A lovely little movie, with very clear, easy-to-understand French. It was particularly interesting to me as someone who knows nothing about the French legal system. I liked the fact that the jurors sat behind the same desk as the judge, and that they were able to ask questions of witnesses.

Jour Polaire
Just finished this crime drama I mentioned in my previous post. It was... OK. I liked the fact that in addition to the basic crime story they tried to address the status of the indigenous Sami people in modern Sweden, but it was kind of clumsily handled. Lots of gorgeous Swedish scenery, though, and a great performance from Leïla Bekhti, who apparently didn't even speak English when she got the part.

Le Sens de la Fête
A kind of screwball comedy from director Olivier Nakache, best known for the oft-recommended-to-French-learners movie Intouchables. The main character is a harried wedding planner, and the entire movie takes place over the course of a wedding reception held at a French chateau. This is quite funny, as everything that can goes wrong does, although because of the screwball pacing the French is quite fast and full of slang. There's one quite touching scene near the end, involving the bride and groom dancing, which all by itself is worth the price of admission.

Turning to Netflix, I've also watched the Norwegian series Home for Christmas with the French dub. I highly recommend this, in any language, to anyone who likes romantic comedies. I'm also 17 episodes into the first season of The Good Wife, which puts the amount of non-subtitled French content I've watched at just shy of 20 hours. If I make it to the end of The Good Wife, this number should be well over 100, and I hope there will be a noticeable improvement in my listening by then. The fact that I can understand just about anything so long as it has French subtitles suggests that the language itself is not the problem--I just need to train my ear to match the sounds to the words I know.

[Lawyer&Mom]

I’ve heard good things about The Good Wife. Nice to know there is a French dub on Netflix. I promise your comprehension will improve! One trick is to find a recap in English to read *after* you watch the episode, so you can keep up with the storyline and be better prepared to follow the next episode. The Good Wife was such a popular show there must be recaps.

[katsu]

I’ve heard good things about The Good Wife. Nice to know there is a French dub on Netflix. I promise your comprehension will improve! One trick is to find a recap in English to read *after* you watch the episode, so you can keep up with the storyline and be better prepared to follow the next episode. The Good Wife was such a popular show there must be recaps.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement. I'm getting addicted to the show, so I should be able to get through at least the next few seasons.

I wish I could explain exactly how much of these shows I understand, so that future me can look back at this post and measure how much progress I made, but it varies so much from scene to scene. When the main character's talking to her kids, I get almost everything. Lawyers sitting around the office gossiping: around half. But the courtroom scenes can vary from "able to follow" to "no idea what's going on". But I do feel I'm understanding more and more, not because my French is getting better but because I'm getting used to the show and the characters.

In an attempt to quantify my level, I took some online Dialang tests. I know you can't take these results too seriously, but I thought it might be a useful benchmark--I can take the same tests in a year or so and compare the results. Anyway here they are:

Listening: B2
Reading: C2 (spits out coffee)
Structures: B1
Vocabulary: B1

I'm not sure what's going on with the absurdly high reading score (I found it harder than the listening), but otherwise it feels about right. Of course, my speaking remains at a solid A1 level, so that's something I'll need to work on down the road.