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Dear all,

 

I'm planning to put together some free audio podcasts over the coming weeks/months. The idea is that each will be a few minutes long on a particular topic of French learning (so e.g. covering a particular grammar point, vocabulary difficulty etc). Obviously an advantage of the audio podcast format is that you hear pronunciation and can take them with you in cases where you're not in front of a screen, whereas a disavantage is that they're less suitable for covering cases where you really need to see e.g. a table of items, a diagram etc.

 

So, I'm opening this discussion to get feedback on proposed topics for a podcast. If anyone has a topic that they'd like to see covered in a short podcast (I guess typical length will be 5-15 minutes), then I look forward to replies here.

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Computer terminology

 

Tu vs. Vous

 

Bonjour Neil,

             I am really happy to hear that you are going to have this audio podcasts, this would really help tremendously. We do need to hear lots and lots of spoken french be it pronounciaion of particular words or just a sentence of certain words.

            What about some short stories or just some short conversations that may be of interest to us, some words that we need to remember.

              Merci d'avance Neil .

It could be an idea, for short text, to have different podcasts with different accents if you find french people to record them.

I posted a request elsewhere for a list of basic phrases to use on a trip to France.  Things like, "I've only been learning French for two months."  The reason behind this is that in order to practice, I want to force myself into 'conversational situations'.  I don't just mean the typical conversations like checking into a hotel.  But a conversation you could get into with a waiter during a slow time at a cafe. 

 

To be honest, having just started in French, I'm not even sure how people would take to me trying to talk to them.  If I ask a waiter how long he's worked here, will he take offense?  So a few podcasts about starting conversations would be really brilliant!

 

I agree with the other suggestion to have some short stories.  The story could be read through a paragraph at a time, then some of the vocabulary and grammar of that paragraph could be explained.  Then the whole story could be repeated.  I personally would find that format both helpful for learning, and interesting to listen to.

 

I also really like the accent idea.  You could have a paragraph from a book, such as the opening paragraph of the Little Prince, and have it read by people from different places.  "Here is a Quebec accent.  Here it is in a Lyon accent," and so on.  Of course, this is probably a tall order.

Bonjour, I am brand-new here and I love the idea, too! At this stage of my learning anything is helpful! But short stories also would be good, as Jeff described.
Update: thanks for people's suggestions. The podcast idea has not been forgotten -- I've just unfortunately been busy with some other work over the last month or two that I need to try and get finished before the start of term. However, please keep your ideas coming!

I really think you should approach it very differently. As a beginner learning French I think you should just model it on a typical day in a say 2 child family from waking up in the morning.....goodmorning darling, are you still coming home early today, do not wake the girls yet they went to bed late. Ok we still have another 2 hours before their school bus arrives....you understand. Along those lines.

The podcast can continue the next episode with how the family gets ready for the day, the goodbyes and don't forget your homework. then the drive to work, a brief news clip, a phone call on the way to work and so on.

That will be different but may become a big hit especially if you can find a cool title.

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