Postby PeterMollenburg » Thu Mar 21, 2024 2:12 am
A while ago I decided to get back into kayaking in a serious way...
Early on I realised that given I was planning to do this activity around 5 times a week (sometimes more, sometimes less) and each session would be at least an hour usually, it'd be a good idea to listen to language 'stuff'.
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These three paragraphs aren't completely relevant to the thread but speak of my personal experience working out what hardware was suitable for listening while kayaking (skip if you please).
Given I'm on the water (large lake with 2 small rivers that feed into it) and there's a risk of falling in (haven't done so yet in past 2 years - I'm not doing white water kayaking, but flatwater marathon kayaking), I need to ensure a waterproof system. I got onto a system sold by Underwater Audio (no kickbacks here for me with any companies discussed, just mentioning it), which is a fully enclosed waterproof wired headphone set-up that attaches via to a small ipod, and marketed predominantly at swimmers. So I used this set up while kayaking for a good 12 months clipping the little ipod onto my hat (instead of a swimming cap), but got tired of having to connect to my computer to put new content on the ipod fairly frequently. My phone was old and not waterproof. I didn't want to use bluetooth set-ups either (long story). My phone then died when it was ironically affected by water (heavy rains, outside digging an emergency drain)....
I bought a new phone, waterproof apparently, but not wanting to risk it, I bought a waterproof 'pocket' we'll call it, to take the phone with me while kayaking. Still refusing to use bluetooth (I like to make things difficult for myself), the case has a wired 3.5mm outlet on the back for headphones and is designed for the phone to be plugged into a wired 3.5mm connector inside the case that feeds to the outside connection thereby not compromising the water-tight design. New pockets/cases like this assume the user will use bluetooth, so I bought this old case specifically for it's wired capability but designed for older, smaller phones. I cut a hole in the bottom of the case creating the space needed with the convertor attached and feeding back inside to the wired system. I resealed the cut thoroughly and tested successfully afterwards while submerged. Now I don't have to resync constantly and I now have access to my phone's massive library of podcasts, music and other language content with (yes I'm backwards apparently) wired headphones! I turn it to flight mode (I'm not out to make or receive calls) and get on my way.
I connected the Underwater Audio waterproof headphones directly to my phone (instead of the ipod) now stowed away and protected in my lifejacket should I succumb to an eventful situation and end up in the water. The Underwater Audio headphones, given they are designed for swimmers really block out the vast majority of surrounding otherwise audible sound. Despite being in relatively quiet areas, I got tired of not being able to hear much around me. I like clearly hearing the paddle blades enter the water, as well as a bit of nature and a possible speedboat approaching on the rare occasion (even if most of the time I can see them, or at least hear them as they get much closer). With this in mind, lately I've resorted to using my old AfterSHOKZ (now known as SHOKZ) bone-conduction wired headphones connected to my phone while kayaking. Now I can listen to whatever I like and hear what goes on around me.
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Back on topic. I have a few languages on the go at different levels. For Norwegian it's slow learning content. For Dutch it's faster learning content or maybe a straight-forward podcast. For French it's full podcasts of various types. I can't take in as much while kayaking compared to sitting down at home, especially if I'm doing an intense session, but even for those sessions it's a bonus to be listening to something in a TL than nothing at all. I also much prefer focused intense study but as these exercise sessions will happen regardless, it's a bonus to listen to something. I can be out on the water for up to 3 hours on the rare occasion (2 hours 15min a couple of days back), which is a lot of time for listening and it especially helps pass the time on deliberately slow endurance sessions.
Nevertheless, I've found myself ditching the audio altogether sometimes, listening to English podcasts (couldn't find the same really interesting content in French) or getting nostalgic for the 90s hip-hop and listening to 2pac tracks on random. But hey, sometimes I need a little sanity and I'm not going to pressure myself to learn at every moment when the main objective is to progress in a sport.
In summary, if safety is an issue, look at bone conduction (SHOKZ or something similar) headphones, if you're really frustrated with listening/learning content in your TL while exercising, just don't do it, keep your sanity, but if you can do it (some of the time, all of the time, at random) you are increasing your exposure to the language where you otherwise wouldn't have any - I often count a 1 hour session as 15 or 20 minutes of listening time when tracking my learning time even if I had it playing for the full hour, as it depends on my focus level and I know that 15 minutes of focused listening during an hour of excercise still counts as something.
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