ipod language learning

I’m a rather busy person these days, and really, who isn’t?  I find it hard to make time for language lessons, but I still really want to improve.  One thing I have been using for the past year that has worked fairly well is my ipod.  It’s compact, convenient, it holds a lot of audio, and it can go just about anywhere.

I love anything that helps me multi-task, and with my lessons on my ipod, I can exercise my body and learn french at the same time!  It’s probably not going to work too well if you are a swimmer, but I find it works great for brisk walks around my neighborhood.

a useful tool

I’ve been using Pimsleur, which is a nice audio program.  My lessons are roughly 30 minutes long.  I have the whole series loaded in a playlist.  I like to go through the lessons two or three times, until the new stuff starts to stick, then move on to the next lesson.  There is a side benefit to this – I have a double motivation to get out there and exercise, and if I skip it, I notice both my fitness and my french suffer.

I’ve also used the ipod when I’ve been waiting – appointments, in line at the post office, etc. – and also in the car.  I plug my ipod into the car audio adapter and make traffic educational!  I’ve also gone through a few language lessons on road trips.  I wouldn’t recommend these kinds of lessons on a plane, it would be annoying to your fellow passengers to hear you chattering away in such close company.

Here are some example of language lessons for ipods incorporating video:

Chinese:

Russian:

But for those times and places that you have free ear time, but are not able to speak freely, try other foreign language audio.  I have podcasts from a french radio station, and also french songs (more on songs coming soon).  Foreign language audio books are another possibility.  You can get into the whole world of video as well.

Variety is good.  The more voices and situations you can hear and comprehend, the better. I don’t understand all of what I hear, but I find it very helpful to learn how the language sounds.  Learning the “melody” of a language is very helpful for my pronunciation and comprehension.

If you have tried using your ipod for language learning, post a comment and share what you did and how it worked.

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