How to tell where a radio station is from, just by listening
Turn on an unknown radio station and within a minute or two it usually tells you where it is, without ever saying the name of the country. You only need to know which details to listen for.
Language comes first, but it is only the start
The language narrows things down quickly, but many languages are spoken in a lot of places. Spanish alone covers twenty countries; English, French, Arabic and Portuguese are spread across continents. So the useful question is not just "which language?" but "which version of it?"
- Spanish: Spain's presenters use vosotros and the "th" sound for c and z. Argentina and Uruguay say vos and pronounce "ll" and "y" like "sh". Mexican Spanish is clear and fairly slow, with words like ahorita.
- Portuguese: Brazilian Portuguese is open and musical; Portugal's sounds tighter, with many vowels swallowed.
- French: Quebec French has a distinctive nasal sound and English loan words; West African French stations mix in local languages and often play a lot of Afrobeat and coupé-décalé.
- Arabic: news is read in Modern Standard Arabic everywhere, but chat between songs is in the local dialect. Egyptian Arabic is the most widely recognised; Maghrebi Arabic mixes in French.
- English: American, British, Irish, Australian, Indian and Nigerian English are all distinct; listen to how presenters say numbers and the names of days.
When two countries share a language, the clues below usually settle it.
Time, weather and traffic
Presenters announce the time constantly. Compare it with your own clock: the difference is the time zone, which immediately rules out most of the world. A station saying "it's 7 in the morning" while it is evening where you are is on the other side of the planet.
Weather reports give away the climate and the season. Temperatures in Fahrenheit point strongly to the United States. Talk of a heatwave in January means the southern hemisphere. Monsoon rain, snow on the roads, a hurricane warning: each fits only a few places.
Traffic reports are even better, because they name roads, bridges, motorways and neighbourhoods. You may not know every road, but the style of the names helps: "the M25" is British, "the 405" is Los Angeles, "Periférico" is Mexico City.
Adverts are full of clues
Adverts are some of the most local things on the radio. Listen for:
- Prices and currency: euros, pounds, rand, pesos, rupees. The size of the numbers helps too: prices in the thousands for everyday things point to currencies like the Colombian peso or the Indonesian rupiah.
- Phone numbers and websites: the way a number is read out, and web addresses ending in .de, .com.br, .co.za or .ng.
- Brands and shops: supermarket chains, mobile networks and banks are usually national. You do not have to know them all; a name you have never heard of at least tells you it is not your own country.
- Holidays and events: a sale for Diwali, Ramadan, Thanksgiving or a national day.
The music
Music is a strong clue, but not a reliable one on its own: international pop hits play everywhere. Local music is what gives a station away. Cumbia and reggaeton fill Latin American stations; Afrobeats and amapiano dominate much of Africa; K-pop, J-pop, Bollywood film songs, Turkish pop and Brazilian sertanejo each point to their home. Even on a station playing international hits, the local songs between them are the clue.
Also listen for the ratio: a station in a small country often plays more foreign music than one in a large country with a big music industry of its own.
How the station sounds
- Jingles and station names: station identifiers often include a city or a frequency. "Radio Montecarlo", "Capital FM" or a name in a local script all help.
- News bulletins: the headlines name ministers, cities and football clubs. Even a few names can locate a station precisely.
- Calls from listeners: callers say where they are calling from: a town, a district.
- Religious content: a call to prayer, a Sunday service or a reading from a holy text narrows down the region.
A simple order to work in
- Language and, if you can, which version of it.
- The time announced, compared with your own clock.
- The season and the temperatures.
- Prices, phone numbers and web addresses in the adverts.
- Names in the news, traffic and calls.
- Local music between the international hits.
Usually the first two narrow it to a region and one of the others settles the country. If you still cannot decide, lean towards the bigger country in the region: there are simply more stations there.
Practise it
Earshot is built on exactly this skill: a live station starts playing from somewhere on Earth and you put a pin on the globe where you think it is. The stations are real and playing at that moment, so the time, the weather and the adverts are all current. Five new stations every day, the same for every player.