I'm not at the stage where I can listen to it since it's such a fast language. I've been reading LeMonde newspaper and trying to decipher it that way. I live in Canada but the French here is quite different in each region; Quebec, Acadian, Métis. Duolingo French course is France French not Canadian French I think it's standard French aka Parisan.
There are podcasts for learning such as "Coffee Break French". Basically they start with very basic french and build up. This can be good for starting to learn to listen to french.
Regarding the differences between Canadian and France French, are there that many differences that it would make it difficult to understand someone from another region?
In addition to what others have said I can only offer anecdotal evidence.
I have friends and former coworkers some from Quebec, some from New Brunswick all fluently bilingual. We've all worked with people from France on projects and my Acadian friends remarked they couldn't understand a word the people from France said.
Although the reverse of that a friend went to northern France on vacation. When he was there he said everyone asked him where he was from he told them New Brunswick Canada. From what I understand Acadian (French dialect of New Brunswick, Canada) is older and closer to northern France than the Quebec dialect. I'm not sure if my friend meant the regional dialect or standard Parisian French, I'm pretty sure he meant the former.
And this may be totally wrong but I believe the southern France dialect (Occitan) is quite different than the north. I've had to call Monaco (I know it's not France) and I was surprised at just the accent of the French person speaking English. I've been around French all my life but southern France to me sounds like stereotypical cartoon French like Pepe LePew.
The entire history of standard French for their language is quite interesting. It's not been accepted for as long as you may think and there are many dialects.
edit:
I think Canadian French has a lot of slang not used in France which makes it hard to understand. Kind of like a Cockney from England coming to the US, sure you can understand his language but not the meaning the way he uses words.
Native French here. One day I was in a place with 4 people from Québec speaking with each other. I could understand perfectly three of them, then it took me 15 minutes to understand the last one was speaking French too and not a foreign language. So, accent could vary quite a bit between region and people but most of the time it’s similar enough that there is no problem.
