You can buy a starter course for a language, or borrow one at the library.
Teach Yourself, Colloquial, Assimil, Pimsleur, these are just a few. To go
further in a language, there is an abundance of content on the web,
podcasts, radio stations and the like. At first you have to listen
repeatedly to a limit range of content, but in time, as you understand
better,  you do not listen as often and instead cover more and more
interesting content. I do not worry about how to pronounce things until I
have been listening for at least 6 months or more.

For my Russian I have enjoyed audio books, and right now especially enjoy a
wonderful source of radio interviews complete with transcripts. both of
which are available for free download daily.

Much of this kind of content is available in our language libraries at
LingQ, and anything that is not free of copyright can be still imported into
t he system for pesonal use, but cannot be shared.

The Internet and the MP3 player have exploded the opportunities for finding
sound content and carrying it with you. Language labs have been made
obsolete.

Steve Kaufmann
www.lingq.com

On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 6:55 AM, Andrea Wilder <andreawilder at comcast.net>wrote:


> Steve--"Listening to recordings," what ones are you listening to?

>  Programs?  Radio?

> Thanks!

>

> Andrea :)

>

> On Jan 18, 2009, at 7:06 PM, Steve Kaufmann wrote:

>

> Tom,

>

> Do you recommend different writing systems for each regional accent?  In

> French this would mean a  Quebecois writing system,a Parisian writing

> system, a Toulouse writing system, or in English a Texas writing system, a

> London writing system, a Boston writing system, a Yorkshire writing system

> and all the shades of difference in between.

>

> Listening to recordings is more useful. I have studied 12 languages and

> only rely on the sound. I never use any phonetic script. I do not trust

> them. I trust what I hear, and then I connect that to the script that I see.

>

> I admire your enthusiasm but I do not  understand the usefulness of

> truespel.

>

> Steve Kaufmann

> www.lingq.com

>

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