Advanced (C1) French resources

Woman listening to the radio
I love listening to French podcasts ! But Jane, that doesn't exists yet. Wikipedia Commons

Some of my students asked for advanced resources that they can use to have a serious immersion in the French language that’s used by natives.

So, which radios, YouTube channels, podcasts, books, movies, and newspapers do I recommend if you already speak French so well? Let’s dive in.

Don’t forget to come back regularly as I update this list!

YouTube channels

Let’s start by these since people often like watching YouTube. There are tons of YouTube content in French and it’s just a matter of finding what you enjoy. Here are a few that might suit most tastes:

  • Society/Politics: Data Gueule is a concept of super short, quick and comprehensive videos on a subversive political topic. They use data to highlights all their key points and the videos are followed by interviews in French. Very interesting channel!
  • Society/Politics: Thinkerview is about multiple no-cut hour longs interviews with politicians, journalists and other about French politics. It’s known to be hard to tell which political orientation the channel follow.
  • History: Dave Sheik
  • Video games: UnDropDansLaMare makes intelligent content about video games and their effect on society.
  • Video games sound design: New Wave by Kago HyperBrother
  • Medicine: Medifact
  • Knots craftmanship: Noeuds Marins Par Marsala

Because there’s so much interesting science and philosophy channels, I am putting them here:

  • Science/Ethics/Philosophy/Statistics: Science4all, I love this channel, LĂŞ is able to simplify the most complicated thing without losing any of the original meaning. If you want to feel smart, way to go!
  • Philosophy: Monsieur Phi
  • Vulgarization: Jamy Gourmaud was one of the anchors of the famouse vulgarization show C’est pas sorcier that stopped airing some time ago, he now runs his own YouTube channel.
  • Psychology: Psykocouac talks about advanced psychology in his own weird and quirky way.
  • Vulgarization: e-penser
  • Epistemology: Hygiène Mentale

More on the comedy side:

Podcasts

If you have an Android phone, I advise you to download the free and open-source app AntennaPod. You can subscribe and download the podcasts automatically to listen to them after. All the podcasts I list are available in the app.

  • Philosophy and Ethics: Axiome is a podcast held by LĂŞ and Monsieur Phi which I already mentioned above, for those who like the podcast format.
  • Reportage: Les Pieds sur terre
  • Sexuality: Les Couilles sur la table is known for talking in detail and openly about contemporary masculinities. For both sex!

Books

Books recommendation can be hard to give as tastes are so wide. I’ll update here when I have more time.

Movies

I recommend Intouchables with Omar Sy to most of my students. Not because I personally like it, but because the actor is one of the most famous French actor who went on to pursue an international career (X-Men) after and because it’s the highest grossing French movie outside of France.

I’ll add more movies in the next days.

Newspaper

Most French news medias are owned by the same people (eg. Xavier Niel), so I’ll try here to list independant and diverse news sources.

Hebdomadaires ou plus (weekly or more)

  • Public Eye is a Swiss NGO that investigates corporate activities and their damages : “Regarder lĂ  oĂą d’autres voudraient que leurs activitĂ©s restent dans l’ombre, dĂ©noncer les mĂ©faits et proposer des mesures concrètes pour y remĂ©dier.” Free.
  • Courrier International, international news. Their slogan is “Le regard des autres”. They mainly publish foreign articles translated in French. *Paid..

Quotidiens

  • Le Monde. Both Le Monde and Courrier International are owned by Groupe Le Monde (of which Xavier Niel has a 80% share). Paid.
  • LibĂ©ration has been going strong for some time. “Le Libé” was fonded in 1972 by scholars including Jean-Paul Sartre, it’s one of the most known left-leaning daily newspaper in France. It’s right-leaning alternative could be Le Figaro. Paid.

Others

These might be boring and/or hard to get online, so read these if you’re really interested in the subject they cover.

Swiss newspaper

Here’s what I recommended to a student who asked me about newspaper I read in Switzerland:

La RTS est la Radio Télévision Suisse. Ils ont un site d’information continue rtsinfo.ch

Sinon, Le Temps est un quotidien généraliste. Heidi.news est un autre entièrement en ligne qui appartient à la même fondation et qui parle plus de science.

Le Courrier est plus progressiste et entièrement indépendant. Les articles sont plus longs, variés et de fond, mais l’abonnement est plus cher.

J’aime bien La Couleur des jours, qui est un mensuel littéraire, mais il n’est pas en ligne :/

Conclusion

That’s it for today! I hope that you’ll have enough with this for days to come.

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