Monday, November 17, 2008

CNN vs. French Programming

The election has been over for a couple of weeks now which means that I'm slowly becoming unglued to CNN Europe. Whereas before I would watch the news hopeful for the outcome of the election I'm now left depressed hearing all the talk of recession and a possible depression.As a result I've decided to watch more French television to immerse myself in the culture and once again try to improve my French. Some of you may remember my earlier failed attempts to watch French TV, but this time I assured myself that it would be better now that I can understand some of what is actually being said depending on the programming.

So the other night I'm sitting on the couch channel surfing and before my eyes I see group of naked men and women sitting around a pool (this should have been my cue to change the channel but I was intrigued). The camera then pans to this woman in the background with crazy in her eyes. She picks up a sharp object, walks over to a nude gentleman sitting alongside the
pool, and goes Lorena Bobbit on him. WHAT? This is what you call prime time television in France? You'll be happy to know THAT was my cue to finally change the channel. Not quite the kind of imagery that I wanted to be left with before going to bed. Maybe watching
CNN Europe exclusively is not such a bad thing.

4 comments:

wcs said...

I wonder what that was about? How bizarre...

David in Setouchi said...

What show and what channel was that?

Unknown said...

Salut l'étrangère,

I'm born and raised in France and now live in the States since 2 years.
TV is the definitely the best way to learn French faster as long as you don't watch English programming ;-)

David in Setouchi said...

I agree with Stéphane.
Once you got a basic knowledge of a language, the best way to improve your oral understanding is TV.
For many reasons.
The main one is that TV won't slow down for you or adapt its language for you just like many people do.
It makes understanding harder in the short run, but it's the best way in the longer.