Our French Radio Faves

One of the easiest ways for me to make a language rich environment is to put on some songs. As an introvert, I sometimes keep the house/car too quiet. My routine now is to put on radio.net and tune into these awesome, kid-friendly stations. It helps teach me French nursery rhymes (comptines) and children’s songs that I never heard growing up, so that I can sing them later with Mon Cœur – how chouette (slang – nice/great)!

Radio Barbouillots – I love this station – it has fun sing songy songs. It’s self-labelled as an eclectic and entertaining radio stations with everything from jazz to berceuses (lullabies) to world music (think golden oldies). There aren’t too many comptines (nursery rhymes), but they have goofy, zany songs, like Pour Être au Maillot by the group Zut! They switch to lullaby-type music around 7-8 am EST and again around 3-4 pm EST. There are occasional breaks called “Culture à Papa” which gives information on any given French culture topic. When I want “le fun” I put on Radio Barbouillots, but when I want 100% French comptines for Mon Cœur, I put on…

Chante France Comptines or Allzic Comptines: These are both excellent stations that have the classic French comptines – the counting, ABC, and other various kids’ songs that are well-known by French children.

Radio Pomme d’Api – it’s another radio similar to Radio Barbouillots, a “kid’s radio station that parents listen to, too.” At 4:15 PM EST, they have a story time every day which is always nice to catch. I love both Barbouillots and Pomme d’Api for their mix of music and culture. Sometimes I feel like I’m listening to an American oldie station (which I love, by the way), so when I can’t remember that I’m listening to a French station, I make a switch…

Another fun new site we’ve just discovered is Radio Enfant, which has a fun mix of French children’s songs, interesting new/pop American songs and has an energy about it – we choose this station when we want to dance and feel silly.

Happy listening! Merci beaucoup for reading this post! Do you have questions or suggestions for a post? Email me at mamansmonde(at)gmail(dot)com.

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