Audio resources for a beginner?

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irondoom New member
Registered: 2013-02-18 Posts: 4

Hi,

To give you a sense of my level, I'm just finishing up Heisig's Kana book now and about to move on to RTK.  So very much a newbie at this point.  I've realized that I have some time during the day that I could use to listen to audio, ether passive or active, and I'm looking for some resources that would be good for my level.

I spend about 30-45 minutes in the gym before work most days and another 30 minutes walking my dog after work.  So in total about an hour of time that I could spend listening to something.  I can't give 100% attention during these times, but I could still probably do some active learning.  Especially if it's something episodic that I could repeat a few times to pick up parts where I had to stop listening (e.g. my dog chases a squirrel, etc.).

So if anyone has any ideas, either web based that allow you to download lessons or that I could stream over my phone, some audio lessons (Pimsleur's, Rosetta stone) that you recommend for my level, or maybe even just some good basic Japanese podcasts or something that I could use for immersion, please let me know!

Really looking for a number of suggestions so that I can switch things up, maybe some things that can help my studies at my current level and some things that I could eventually grow into.

Last edited by irondoom (2013 February 18, 2:39 pm)

doghands Member
From: Oahu, HI Registered: 2010-10-26 Posts: 12

Have you looked into Assimil? It has accompanied audio with parallel text. So you can do a lesson at home, and listen to the learned lesson while walking your dog.

lauri_ranta Member
Registered: 2012-03-31 Posts: 139 Website

You can use Audio Lesson Studio to create sound lessons for Core 2000 vocabulary or sentences. The original sound files can be downloaded from this thread.

The sound files that come with Genki I and II can mostly be listened without looking at the workbooks or textbooks. Then there's also the VocabULearn books, which should be easy to find from torrent sites.

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irondoom New member
Registered: 2013-02-18 Posts: 4

Ah great!  Thanks for the pointers.  I will check them out when I am at home.  I had actually never heard of any of those.  I have heard of the pimsleur and rosetta stone lessons, though the seem to be looked down on,  and I was also thinking about checking out http://iknow.jp/ for the free trial just to get an idea of what they do.

RawToast お巡りさん
From: UK Registered: 2012-09-03 Posts: 431 Website

Michael Thomas is pretty good as well. Starts off very easy as well.

irondoom New member
Registered: 2013-02-18 Posts: 4

Great! Thanks again everyone....quite a few suggestions and exactly what I was looking for!

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