Immersion in French language: Les Voisins du 12 bis

A police check for Zirek, and news from Awa: Rosa and Billie make a bold decision.

In a block of flats in Paris a small group of neighbours enjoy friendly relations. Billie, a young foreign student is welcomed by Rosa, the doyenne of the group. She gets to grips with life in Paris with Zirek, a private car hire driver, Amir, a young florist from Afghanistan, Diane, Pierre and their three children. Les voisins du 12 bis, a bilingual radio story in 13 episodes for immersive listening to learn French in everyday situations.

Scenario: Alexandra Lazarescou

Dialogues: Anne Claude Romarie et Mariannick Bellot

Original sound tracks: Ommm

A Radio France Internationale programme co-produced with France Éducation international, with the support of the French culture ministry.

Every week, you will find bilingual podcasts, exercises and educational sheets on RFI Savoirs and a comic on Instagram to learn French with Billie.

A postman in a hurry, a mistake in the address... but where is the recipient of the package?

In a block of flats in Paris a small group of neighbours enjoy friendly relations. Billie, a young foreign student is welcomed by Rosa, the doyenne of the group. She gets to grips with life in Paris with Zirek, a private car hire driver, Amir, a young florist from Afghanistan, Diane, Pierre and their three children. Les voisins du 12 bis, a bilingual radio story in 13 episodes for immersive listening to learn French in everyday situations.

Scenario: Alexandra Lazarescou

Dialogues: Anne Claude Romarie et Mariannick Bellot

Original sound tracks: Ommm

A Radio France Internationale programme coproduced with France Éducation international, with the support of the French culture ministry.

Every week, you will find bilingual podcasts, exercises and educational sheets on RFI Savoirs and a comic on Instagram to learn French with Billie.

Billie's arrival at 12 bis rue de Paradis is disrupted by a transport strike and a medical emergency.

In a block of flats in Paris a small group of neighbours enjoy friendly relations. Billie, a young foreign student is welcomed by Rosa, the doyenne of the group. She gets to grips with life in Paris with Zirek, a private car hire driver, Amir, a young florist from Afghanistan, Diane, Pierre and their three children. Les voisins du 12 bis, a bilingual radio story in 13 episodes for immersive listening to learn French in everyday situations.

Scenario: Alexandra Lazarescou

Dialogues: Anne Claude Romarie et Mariannick Bellot

Original sound tracks: Ommm

A Radio France Internationale programme coproduced with France Éducation international, with the support of the French culture ministry.

Every week, you will find bilingual podcasts, exercises and educational sheets on RFI Savoirs and a comic on Instagram to learn French with Billie.

"Les voisins du 12 bis" (The neighbours from 12B) is a new bilingual story for immersive listening to familiarise yourself with the French language. The first episode of the podcast will be online on Wednesday 7 October.   

In a block of flats in Paris, a small group of neighbours have become friends. Zirek, the Kurdish doctor who now works as a private car hire driver; Diane and Pierre, who just have had another child; Amir, the young afghan florist, and Billie who is exploring Parisian student life with the help of Rosa, her compatriot, who has lived in the French capital for more than 40 years.

Les voisins du 12 bis is a podcast in 13 episodes and tells the story of Rosa, Billie and their neighbours to find young Awa, whose voice and songs wowed them.

Listen in to a new episode every Wednesday.

You can also subscribe to the podcasts on: Soundcloud, Deezer, Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts.

And for optimal listening use headphones!

Les voisins du 12 bis allows you to:

• Follow the story through cartoon pictures on Instagram
• Learn French on Le français facile avec RFI through exercises (answers provided) based on each episode 
• Teach French with the use of the educational sheets you will find on Le français facile avec RFI to practice basic communication skills in French learnt through each episode. All activities have been devised for learner and intermediary levels, as well as low literacy adult learners. Booklets you can print are available for those who wish to use the teaching material for newly arrived immigrants.

Les voisins du 12 bis 

A Radio France Internationale programme coproduced with France Éducation international, with the support of the French culture ministry.

Scenario: Alexandra Lazarescou

Dialogues: Anne Claude Romarie et Mariannick Bellot

Original sound tracks: Ommm

French voices: Chloé Sitbon, Olivier Blond, Ahmet Zirek, Omid Rawendah

Illustrations: Julina Jean-Joseph

Production: Raphaël Cousseau, Joël Hermant, Naosi Nazem

Editorial and educational supervision: Julien Cousseau et Agnès Foyer

Educational material: Emilie Kasazian et Mathias van der Meulen

Overall supervision: Lidwien van Dixhoorn

French-English version:  

Adapted by: Arnab Béranger

Voices: Nirupama Nityanandan, Tulika Srivastava