French With Panache

I love this podcast. I wish they did a new one weekly.

Un podcast très facile à suivre et très intéressant. Violaine et Nathan choisissent des sujets courants et pertinents à ceux qui parlent français comme deuxième langue, qu’ils vivent France ou ailleurs. J’anticipe chaque episode nouveau. Bonne continuation!

The two hosts speak at a great speed for advanced learners and stay on topic. I’ve found myself able to concentrate and understand while doing the dishes or walking my dog. Great discovery! Thank you.

As an American living in France for over 5 years, I am super motivated to continually improve my French. I think the best way to do this is to take in as much of the language as possible by listening and reading every day. I am at the stage (B1 working on B2) where my goal is to understand real spoken French, rather than the excellent ‘slow French’ podcasts I’ve listened to to get me this far. This podcast is just a bit more advanced, with two people speaking a bit faster, and a bit more naturally than fully scripted podcasts or audio books. Nathan and Violaine have a nice rapport, with pleasant but very different voices, so your brain needs to work just a bit harder to follow them as they chat. I really appreciate the transcripts they provide on their website (starting with episode 11.) The transcripts are pretty much word for word accurate, which is great, and probably a lot of extra work to get right. Culturally, from my perspective as a foreigner living in France, I think Nathan and Violaine are very French, which for me, just adds to the pleasure because I’m a believer in the whole French way of life and way of thinking and living, and you will get a little taste of that by getting to know these two nice people. In short, I highly recommend this podcast.