The French Side of the Web

July 13, 2017 6:55 PM

Hello. I am trying to improve my French, and am currently in a French immersion program. I've been trying for quite some time to find good Francophone websites, but I have no idea where to look! Does anyone have recommendations? Sites like metafilter (lol), The New Inquiry, news websites (that aren't paywalled), also interested in like, where can one find good new Francophone music (sites like tinymixtapes or smth?) thxxx (There are two older threads apropos but they're 10 and 11 years old, respectively, so maybe an update is in order.)
posted by LeviQayin to Writing & Language (12 answers total)

Confession: I lurk the r/france subreddit specifically for passive French practice. Though there are some topics I tread carefully around, the community there doesn't seem at all toxic the way certain other corners of Reddit sometimes are, and the various linked articles might point you to some other good sites to follow for news, etc.

I also like La Blogothèque for music (not just francophone artists, but their writeups are all in French, and their concerts à emporter/take-away shows are often interesting). For background noise I will sometimes put France Inter on the radio.
posted by btfreek at 7:21 PM on July 13, 2017

I'm quite fond of:

http://www.fipradio.fr/
posted by humboldt32 at 7:31 PM on July 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I know this isn't a website recommendation but there are a lot of French magazines available digitally and it's a great way to keep current with the vocabulary for your areas of interest--I especially focus on food and crafts.

Don't overlook podcasts, they are great for keeping up with culture.
posted by padraigin at 7:33 PM on July 13, 2017

You'll have to pay, but reading trashy mags was always my favorite was to practice french. It gives you fun slang and at the end of the day if you just want to look at some pictures that's fine too. Cosmo and vogue were personal favorites
posted by raccoon409 at 7:44 PM on July 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Podcasts are how I keep up with French when I'm not in France. RFI has a bunch of really good ones at different levels, and I love France Inter's Paris et sa région podcast for small soundbites about places of interest in the Paris area.
posted by Tamanna at 8:07 PM on July 13, 2017

My french class has been using videos from CNEWS lately.
posted by curious_yellow at 2:16 AM on July 14, 2017

I can also recommend Radio France International for example "Journal en français facile" and their RFI Savoirs
posted by ironicon at 3:52 AM on July 14, 2017

There was a good question about French music here on the green not too long ago. For reading, I usually just browse Le Monde.
posted by kevinbelt at 4:38 AM on July 14, 2017

Here are two Quebecois news sites: journal de quebec and la presse. Scanning them now, they're Quebec-heavy but also have some international bits.
posted by eisforcool at 6:10 AM on July 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

RFI also does print stories on their site, so that along with France24 are pretty good for reading non-paywall news.
posted by solotoro at 6:50 AM on July 14, 2017

Aside from r/France, there's also r/Montréal and r/Québec.

In terms of podcasts, I like Transfert from Slate France and Les pieds sur terre from France Culture.

France24 streams its French (and English) channel 24/7. It has a BBC/CNN-like tone.

If you have a ebook reader, ebookezvous sells French-language ebooks that you can buy in the US (with a US credit card etc.)
posted by andrewesque at 7:38 AM on July 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also, in terms of Québec newspapers, I prefer Le Devoir.
posted by andrewesque at 7:39 AM on July 14, 2017 [1 favorite]