Are you looking for more ways to immerse yourself in French? Podcasts are a great way to implement French into your everyday life. It’s especially important to engage with the language outside the classroom. Whether you’re taking a walk around the canyon, getting lunch in Commons, or trying to fall asleep, a podcast can add a lot more French exposure to your life. It’s a simple way to improve your French comprehension, vocabulary, and cultural knowledge. At the same time, it can be difficult to find the right one. For beginning to intermediate students, I have a recommendation for you: The Duolingo French Podcast!
Continue reading “The Duolingo French Podcast: Découvrez l’histoire de Joséphine Baker”Beginner Arabic Youtube
Are you beginning to learn Arabic and in need of some fun and easy media to help boost your vocabulary? Look no further… !يالله
- All About Me
Tareq and Shireen are learning how to be kind and considerate friends! Tune in if you’re looking to fill your vocabulary with wholesome terms about friendship and sharing.
Arabic retellings of classic fairytales using simple language and helpful subtitles.
3. Totally Spies! Arabic
Subtitled episodes of Totally Spies! dubbed in Arabic! Ideal if you need something more sophisticated than fairytales.
4. Obayd Fox
Obayd Fox is a British Youtuber living in Saudi Arabia. As a fellow Arabic learner (albeit an advanced one), he tends to speak slightly more slowly than a native, and he usually uses الفصه 🙂
5. Learn Arabic with Khasu
Khasu is also an Arabic learner and a very talented teacher. His channel includes roleplays, skits, vocab lessons, and breakdowns of grammatical concepts.
The Blue Caftan: A Moving Arabic Film
Last month, I saw one of the most moving films. I went into it completely blind—my friends had asked if I wanted to come along to a film festival and I said yes, knowing nothing about what film we’d be watching. Before the show started, commentators talked a bit about Morocco, and the history of the film festival we were at, The Cascade Festival of African Films.
Continue reading “The Blue Caftan: A Moving Arabic Film”Terrace House: Your Next Binge
Interested in improving your Japanese and watching reality tv at the same time? Terrace House has you covered. Beginning in 2012, the Terrace House series quickly gained international attention for its ‘calm and relaxed atmosphere’–uncommon on most reality tv show franchises. It’s even been described as a “reality show for people who hate reality shows”.
Continue reading “Terrace House: Your Next Binge”Radio Ambulante
Radio Ambulante is an award-winning podcast series which tells Latin American stories, covering a range of issues from immigration to bee-keeping. They have thousands of episodes to choose from, allowing listeners to filter by country, topic, and length. Most episodes are both in Spanish and English, which makes Radio Ambulante suitable for both beginners and advanced Spanish students.
Memrise App
This app seems really easy to use and is pretty enjoyable. The strong point here is that it uses visual and conceptual mnemonic strategies to help people retain information. I think this would be an easily accessible app, as the basic version is free for both android and ios, but there is also a pro version that produces better results and has unlimited access to all of the learning modes.
ArchChinese
ArchChinese is an online dictionary that allows users to search for words and get definitions, possible phrases, and animated stroke order for characters. The interface is easy to use and is ideal for someone who is beginning to study Chinese.
Mango Languages
Mango is great for anyone learning any language — unlike Duolingo, you can take a specific lesson in any order you wish. Use the Reed library login (instructions on the Language Lab website) for free access. It also has more fun lessons, such as ones that teach you Russian slang!
Algarabía
Algarabía is a Mexico City-based magazine with a distinct quirky and ironic style. They publish pieces on science, language, history, art, and, according to their website, “little explored aspects of cotidianity.” Examples of their articles (which can be found on their website) include “Position Changes in Erotic Art”, “People don’t know how to drink coffee”, and “The Science on Cursing”. Better suited for advanced Spanish learners, articles in this magazine are characterized by playful yet accessible prose. Their series on etymologies is particularly good; sometimes poignant, often hilarious, always informative.
Radio, Podcasts, and other Audio – Media Resources 4
Welcome to the fourth installment of our media resources series! This post features a collection of audio resources suitable to a variety of skill-levels in the languages supported at Reed.
Arabic
Radio Aswat
This Moroccan radio station broadcasts news, cultural programming and sports in Arabic. Programs are available to stream live or to listen to later. The website also includes Arabic-language news stories.
Radio Sawa
This American-funded radio service has radio programs on topics from across the Arabic-speaking world. Programming includes music and news stories. Many programs are available to listen to online at any time, or you can stream live radio.
Airing Pods
These podcasts are perfect for beginners looking to listen to more of the language. They are free and downloadable through iTunes. Try out Survival Phrases!
BBC Xtra
The BBC has a daily 2-hr posting of Arabic culture and trending events. They speak slowly enough that intermediate learners could follow along, but would also be suitable for advanced learners.
Chinese
Slow Chinese
Slow Chinese podcasts are stories and commentary by native Mandarin speakers read at a slower pace. Accompanying transcripts make these podcasts useful for intermediate to advanced students interested in working on comprehension and reading. Podcasts are available for download, or you can subscribe to Slow Chinese on iTunes.
French
RFI
The international voice of French radio, RFI offers streaming and archived programming that is interesting to French speakers and learners outside of France. In addition to regular programming, RFI also offers a variety of audio options for French teachers and learners under RFI Savoirs. The website may start streaming immediately when you access it.
Radio France
Listen to French news, cultural, or music programming live online. There are a wide range of programs to choose from, as well as print stories with accompanying audio and video.
German
Deutsche Welle
Deutsche Welle is an international German news source, with both broadcast and written stories. In addition to offering news from a German perspective in dozens of languages, including both German and English, Deutsche Welle also provides resources for German language learners. They offer several podcasts, including Deutsch im Fokus, which explores spoken German idioms and vocabulary, and Top-Thema, news stories in simplified German with accompanying transcripts.
Russian
Russian Podcast
This is a language learning podcast appropriate for beginners to advanced students who want to review. Paid subscriptions provide transcripts of episodes, but the podcasts are free to listen to, and they also include free PDFs with vocabulary and other information.
Spanish
Radio Ambulante
Radio Ambulante is an award-winning podcast of stories from Latin America. The high production value and interesting subject matter make these stories compelling. Radio Ambulante is a good resource for intermediate and upper level Spanish learners. Translations are also available for many episodes.
La Rosa de los Vientos
This is a classic Spanish podcast. It is about mysteries of all kinds.
La Parroquia
This is one of the best podcasts about comedy–it really gets Spanish humor!