Forums >Gears and Wears>Learning Spanish on the run
Have any of you used an audio program to learn Spanish while you run? I am trying to think of a way to make my running time perhaps a little more productive and to stop listening to the same songs over and over because I'm too lazy to update my iPod. And of course I am very cheap so I'm not looking to spend a ton of money. It's not like being bilingual will help me do anything with my career. I really just wanted to learn for personal development and for the random times I would like to overcome a language barrier. There are SO many programs out there.
I don't half-ass anything
"I have several close friends who have run marathons, a word that is actually derived from two Swahili words: mara, which means 'to die a horrible death' and thon, which means 'for a stupid T-shirt.' Look it up." - Celia Rivenbark, You Can't Drink All Day if You Don't Start in the Morning
run, rest & read
I listen to podcasts when I run on the treadmill. I'm sure there are some learning Spanish podcasts out there. I've also used Pimsleur in the past. It was fine, but nothing stuck for one or two reasons. One of the main reasons was that I had no one to practice well. Talking to yourself has gotta be the worst way to please yourself; there's really almost no gratification. However, if you've got the opportunity to use the language, it completely changes and it's definitely worth putting the time into.
It's Tuesday every day
Eons ago I used tapes (!) and then CDs from "Living Language" to practice languages in my car. You listen to words/phrases/sentences and then repeat. If you don't mind running along talking to yourself, this might work. (OTOH, you'll just look like you're on your phone.)
If you're self-conscious, you could listen to the phrases and repeat them in your head.
Don't run into a tree because you're concentrating so hard :-D
Also, FWIW, www.duolingo.com is a painless way to pick up language skills. Wouldn't work for running - you need to look at a screen - but it's fun otherwise.
--Christine
Awesome
My husband and I used Pimsleur in the car and really liked it for learning pronounciation. They build the words from the emphasized syllable rather than just giving you a whole word or phrase to repeat.
Whenever I'm traveling I try to push myself through a Duolingo tree and it has pain off a ton. I really can't recommend Duolingo enough. The first time I used it, I stopped a few old Portugese ladies from trying to rescue my screaming daughter with "So as formigas! So as formigas," my family stared at me gape-mouthed as if I'd started speaking in tongues. Now I use it before every trip.
...although after Spanish Duolingo tree I found I was better suited to express existential angst than ask for a spoon.
You have come to the right guy. I do this almost every single day. There are so many tools these days that make it so much easier to learn a foreign language, and Spanish especially (if you live in the US, anyway). Let me say to start that I HATE running with a phone, but I started doing so several months ago pretty much just for this reason -- to further immerse myself in Spanish during all my runs. The main "tools" I use these days are the following apps: TuneIn Radio, Spotify, and LibriVox. Do some hunting around and see what kind of Spanish-language music or radio stations you like. You don't have to be stuck with the ranchera style Mexican music that I personally don't like very much at all -- there is a ton of stuff out there including news and talk, etc. On LibriVox I have listened to Grimm's fairy tales multiple times and Alice in Wonderland. The language in these stories is mostly easy, and since you already know some of them it can help with listening and comprehension. Spotify of course has a ton of Spanish-language music. Some people say you shouldn't listen to music to learn a language, and I will say that it presents its own challenges. For example, because music has to maintain meter there are a lot of cases where accented syllables do not land exactly the way they would with spoken Spanish, and this can definitely be confusing when you are learning the language. Nevertheless, I find it enjoyable to listen to music when running, even if it is not "optimal" for language learning. I figure it doesn't hurt! Sometimes I have to listen close for a lyrical phrase that I can later Google, and then I can find the song and the lyrics. Once I've read the lyrics, then when I've heard the song a few times it reinforces the phrases and vocabulary. I think it works for me. Away from running, my favorite app by far is Linguee. There are others, but I like that Linguee provides REAL usage examples, so I think you get a better sense for how a word or phrase is really used by native speakers. Linguee is more of a reference, though, than a language learning app per se. I personally have the significant advantage of having studied Spanish academically back in college. That helps me a LOT. But really I have grown a lot in fluency (especially listening fluency) the last year and a half or so. I'm now volunteering in an English as a second language class for folks in our community, and I am now good enough with the Spanish to converse fairly comfortably. There are still times when I get completely lost, but I stay with it, day after day!!
- Joe
We are fragile creatures on collision with our judgment day.