Language Podcasts - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

**joe7f** · 11-04-2007, 06:32 PM

Hey guys and gals I am taking a Chinese course at school and the teacher had us listen to a conversation off Chinesepod.com. The approach is fairly nice. Instead of just getting a phrase a day, they give you a dialogue every day (at various levels) and along with a PDF of the translations, pinyin and characters. It is free for just the audio, or you pay something like 8 bucks a month for the PDFs.

When I saw the same group (Praxis) had this for Spanish (Spanishsense.com) it got me thinking that they may have this for other languages and would be a good alternative to CDs.

I found another site similar (Japanesepod101.com) for Japanese. Anyone else subscribe to something like this for German, French, Italian, Arabic etc? I know those are a lot of languages to learn but I am a polyglotten for punishment

--Joey

**DC_Jessica** · 02-03-2008, 09:48 AM

I didn't get a job quick enough to sign up for my next level of Arabic, so I've been toying with Rosetta Stone (maybe after a few paychecks) and something to listen to on my ipod. But I came across these two in particular that are good. And FREE!

Arabic Podclass
This one is neat because you can listen to actual Arabic. One of my big problems with learning languages, is that if you start slow, you really only learn how to understand if people speak slowly to you. Because I started with HS German, I still have a steep learning curve when I get used to a native speaker's speed. And because he uses a lot of newscasts, etc. you can get used to MSA. (PS hate people whinging about having to learn MSA...if you're an Arab specialist, you MUST start with MSA unless you know for sure that someday you want to live in Syria or Morocco or something, there's nowhere else to start but MSA!!)

ArabicPod.net
I'm in LOVE with this one, and I've only listened to a few. I definitely recommend Beginner #37 "Mouse in the House." It's great because they have short dialogue that they repeat and deconstruct so you know what each piece means. AND they have a sense of humor. And sound like Ali G. This one is also good because the dialogue is in colloquial Arabic, so they drop the endings. Getting used to talking like that is important, because some (a small percentage, but some) Arabic speakers get all high-horsey on you because "oh yes, you can tell what a beginner you are because nobody speaks Arabic like that!"

**offhegoes03** · 04-13-2008, 07:28 PM

iTunes has all sorts of free podcasts. Go to the iTunes store. Then click the link to Podcasts. Click Education under categories. Under the "More Education" header, there is a link to Language Courses. I tried downloading one of the french podcasts called "SurvivalPhrases - French." So far it's been pretty nice and I've been phonetically writing out how to say certain phrases. It's definitely worth checking out to see what other languages they have.

**NitemareHippieGirl** · 04-15-2008, 07:49 AM

I wish I had thought of searching Itunes before buying those overpriced language cds. I've already used them all up and now they're useless! I did a search of Itunes free language podcasts in French and found a great program called Coffee Break French, 15 minute long conversations that really break it down for you. Super cool. Podcasts are so great!

**joe7f** · 04-15-2008, 08:05 AM

In the two examples I mentioned earlier (Chinesepod and Spanishpod) they will tailor their lesson to current events. Chinesepod is doing a lot of olympic based ones and Spanishpod has done a few US Politics ones.

It is a little more interesting than just language CDs, although I still think they serve the role of getting you up to a borderline functional level.

--Joey

**NitemareHippieGirl** · 04-15-2008, 08:14 AM

That's why they work so well when you're pairing them with a class. I can just search all the free podcasts for themes that work with what we're covering in class and use the podcast to review and add suplemental vocabulary. And it's definitely nice to get language for current events. Our French text is already out of date even though it's only a couple of years old. With podcasts you can get conversational language instead of stuffy textbook language.

**offhegoes03** · 04-18-2008, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NitemareHippieGirl

I wish I had thought of searching Itunes before buying those overpriced language cds. I've already used them all up and now they're useless! I did a search of Itunes free language podcasts in French and found a great program called Coffee Break French, 15 minute long conversations that really break it down for you. Super cool. Podcasts are so great!

Thanks so much for recommending the Coffee Break French. It's really well done and they really make sure to reinforce the vocab over and over again.