Listening to content while exercising

[Eternal Foreigner]

Lately I've been trying to listen to episodes of Inner French while jogging, but I've found that I tend to have trouble focusing on it. While if I listen to it while riding the train, cleaning my apartment, or just walking, I'm able to stay focused much more easily.
It's an interesting problem, because I think listening to something and being only half-focused on it is better than listening to nothing at all. But it might be a better idea to only listen to it when I can give it my full attention.

What's your opinion on trying to listen to content while exercising?

[Le Baron]

What's your opinion on trying to listen to content while exercising?

That it doesn't work for me, because I'm paying more attention to the exercise. I think for it to work the activities have to be habitual things you do where you don't have to put a great deal of mental focus into them. So cleaning the house is done in an habitual manner and sitting in a train requires practically no real distraction at all.

[emk]

What's your opinion on trying to listen to content while exercising?

If you want to study as much as possible for whatever reason, then you need a mix of different activities. For example, I can review my Anki cards while strolling up and down hills. (Open-ear headphones will help with safety.)

If I'm doing something more strenuous, then I can listen to music. If I've studied that music intensively beforehand, then I can actually reinforce a lot of grammar and vocabulary while only paying half attention. Ditto for taking an episode of a TV show that I've watched, stripping it down to a playlist that contains only the dialog, and looping it. Similarly, some kinds of activities involve a mix of extreme effort and rest, and you can do things during the rest period.

Many kinds of study, however, require your full attention. For those, you probably need to make time, or at least limit yourself to walking.

[Cainntear]

Lately I've been trying to listen to episodes of Inner French while jogging, but I've found that I tend to have trouble focusing on it. While if I listen to it while riding the train, cleaning my apartment, or just walking, I'm able to stay focused much more easily.
It's an interesting problem, because I think listening to something and being only half-focused on it is better than listening to nothing at all. But it might be a better idea to only listen to it when I can give it my full attention.

What's your opinion on trying to listen to content while exercising?

My big fear is that I'm worried about letting myself get trained into "zoning out" when listening to stuff I don't understand. I don't want to start trying to listen to something if I know I'm going to struggle to maintain focus, because I'm afraid of making it into a habit.

(Now note that I don't have any academic reasons at all for thinking this -- it's purely a personal opinion and/or fear!!)

Personally, I've always tended to listen to songs when I can't guarantee full attention. It's quite normal for most of us to listen to songs in our own languages without thinking too much about the words and then at some point just sort of "click in" to the song and just realise what it's about and suddenly be drawn to listen.

I find similar things with songs in weaker languages -- something that I do understand grabs my attention and makes me listen to other parts, keen to try to find out more.

Might be worth a try, listening to songs instead of podcasts when you're not likely to concentrate.


Also, when I was doing a lot of work on getting a language good, I tended to buy CD albums of individual artists. I would deliberately learn the lyrics to my favourite song on the album, then deliberately learn the lyrics to another one. Doing that meant that ever time it came on on my MP3 player, I'd naturally pay more attention to the song. I found that after song three or four, I'd often be tuned into the singer's voice that the rest of the album became pretty easy to understand.

[lichtrausch]

Getting a technology setup that would work for me while running turned out to be quite a hassle (I don't like bringing my phone on runs), but I only go running 50min twice a week so it's not a big deal to forego this potential language learning time. And there's something nice about just concentrating on the run and my environment anyway. I do often take a 30 or 40 minute walk while listening to a podcast or audiobook though. On trains I usually read.

[Saim]

I've also found that it's too distracting to listen to anything when working out. My form is also better when I don't listen to anything.

[emk]

Personally, I've always tended to listen to songs when I can't guarantee full attention. It's quite normal for most of us to listen to songs in our own languages without thinking too much about the words and then at some point just sort of "click in" to the song and just realise what it's about and suddenly be drawn to listen.

So I have a couple of crank theories about language learning. One of my favorites is "Comprehension is an earworm plus an epiphany."

What I mean by that is that sometimes I'll hear something lots of times before I understand it. But one day, I'll hear the word or the expression in the right context, and it will suddenly become obvious. After that, it's hard to forget.

There are songs I've heard a thousand times in English without ever understanding all the lyrics. But if I ever sat down and just read those lyrics, I'd be able to match the words to the familiar sounds. No problem at all.

And I think the best I can hope for at a brisk walk is either building new earworms, or rehearsing previous epiphanies until I know them in my sleep. The actual "epiphanies" themselves tend to be most likely when I'm completely focused.

Anyway, that's the best I can explain my crank theory. But like I said, I think that partial attention can be used productively. Just not for everything. It's important to set aside time to do the actual work, too.

[Iversen]

When I walk around or do gardening I don't listen to anything, but I can't see it would be more taxing than listening to music. The condition is that the activity can be done more or less automatically, and one risk could be that you listen so intently to the content that you get run down by a lorry.

[Kraut]

I pull rubber bands that hang in my staircase or work them with my feet while I repeat mini-stories in my head. When it is a story whose content has faded away I read through it during five or ten minutes before I start exercising. Since the story is in my head I can derive all kinds of language exercises from it. This lasts for about 30 minutes every day.

[jeff_lindqvist]

What's your opinion on trying to listen to content while exercising?

I've been listening to target language audio (audiobooks, interviews, podcasts) for the past ... five years now (if not longer). Always while taking my walk. I wouldn't do either activity alone.

Many years ago (2007? 2008?) I went through the two volumes of FSI German while working out.