A language learners’ forum

Let's make lists people. Let the recommendations flow freely. Movies, books, podcasts, series, favorite youtubers, anything goes.

I'll start with a list of my favorite French movies, and by the way when I look at it now, this is a pretty good reason why I should get my shit together and bring my Spanish to a sufficiently high level so that I can get around to start learning French as soon as possible.

Top 20, in no particular order.

Pickpocket - Robert Bresson - 1959
Beau travail - Claire Denis - 1999
À nos amours - Maurice Pialat - 1983
Cœur fidèle - Jean Epstein - 1923
Au hasard Balthazar - Robert Bresson - 1966
La passion de Jeanne d'Arc - Carl Theodor Dreyer - 1928
Le genou de Claire - Eric Rohmer - 1970
Les enfants du paradis - Marcel Carné - 1945
Le diable probablement - Robert Bresson - 1977
Le gamin au vélo - Frères Dardenne - 2011
Il se peut que la beauté ait renforcé notre résolution - Philippe Grandrieux - 2011
Ménilmontant - Dimitri Kirsanoff - 1926
Les salauds - Claire Denis - 2013
Van Gogh - Maurice Pialat - 1991
Quatre nuits d'un rêveur - Robert Bresson - 1971
La chute de la maison Usher - Jean Epstein - 1928
Deux jours, une nuit - Frères Dardenne - 2014
Mouchette - Robert Bresson - 1967
Finis terræ - Jean Epstein - 1929
La pianiste - Michael Haneke - 2001

Keep them coming!

Audio list for intermediate level French learners:

Signè Furax - Francis Blanche, Pierre Dac.
Bon Baisers de Partout - Pierre Dac, Louis Rognoni.

Google people Google people.



Short, no?

Those radio feuilletons seem awesome. You lucky French students, such an immensity of great resources.

Here are my favorite Spanish podcasts:

Carne cruda by Javier "Crudo" Gallego
Radio Ambulante by Daniel Alarcón et al
El gran apagón by some folks over at Podium Podcast

I listen to them as often as I can.

Visual Politik- a Spanish language channel about world politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EiX4Ug ... oqPzDRP0QE .

Theodisce wrote:Visual Politik- a Spanish language channel about world politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EiX4Ug ... oqPzDRP0QE .

Excellent channel--thanks mucho!

Tomás wrote:

Theodisce wrote:Visual Politik- a Spanish language channel about world politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EiX4Ug ... oqPzDRP0QE .

Excellent channel--thanks mucho!

Ditto, thanks a lot. Subscribed.

Who says a list can't contain one single item?

Nice thread. Here are a few things that come to mind:

1. ‘Language learning’ apps I that I actually manage to use almost daily

- Radio FM - radio stations from countries worldwide. Stations are tagged with the usual content they carry and can be ‘favourited’ for quick access.
- Google Translate - regardless of what I happen to be reading, I can translate a word with a few clicks. Also have to have while watching something.
- Linguee - Like Google translate but tends to do a better job with phrases and also gives multiple examples of how a word/ phrase is used using info on the net.
- Feedly - Great for taking accessing all the blogs/news sites/ random sites within one place. It saves me time from jumping from site to site in search of something to read that interests me.
- ReadLang - Like to use it for intensive reading. I like that, with a single click, I can create flashcards of unknown words for later review complete with its original context.
- Google Docs - Easy to share and maintain documents with exchange partners and tutors (when I work use to work with them).
- HelloTalk/Skype/WhatsApp - Friends, conversation partners and associates.
- Pandora
- Spotify


2. A few YouTube Channels I Frequent

So many here but I’ll stick to a few. I tend to enjoy talking economics and politics and these first 6 channels reflect that a bit. For other topics of interest, I just search as my curiosity dictates.

- Ted en español/ Tedx Talks - Two different channels but they practically share the same concept.
- Platzi - Many interesting videos but I like ‘Platzi Live’
- Pulso de la República - One guy’s take on the latest news from Mexico and the US. He’s a comedian and doesn’t always use the most formal language. Apart from his bi-weekly podcast style broadcasts, he often posts interesting interviews
- HBOenlatinoAmerica[/i] - It’s basically a promotion site for HBO Latino but they upload 30 minute segments from their weekly program, ‘Chumel con Chumel Torres’. He has a style of his own but his show reminds me of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”, “The Colbert Report” or “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”. I don’t bother with the channel’s other stuff.
- [i]Visual Politik - Mentioned earlier in this forum but, for me, it still qualifies as ‘frequented’.
- Magic Markers - Ask questions and then illustrate their point using markers.
- Gente de confianza[/i] - There are two types ofos uploaded on this channel:

[i]Diario de Confianza, which is broadcasted live Monday thru Friday 6 PM EST. It’s a recap of the day’s n Mexico with a commentary of sorts

Gente de Confianza, Three friends basically get together, turn on the camera and start talking. Topic varies.

Vloggers

A while back, I found I could understand most formal Spanish (minus vocabulary, etc) but I would struggle to understand if I were to meet someone (primarily from Mexico) not prepared to speak with me ‘on my level’. I decided to seek out vloggers as a way to expose myself to less formal, ‘everyday’ Spanish around A2/B1 and although I tend to frequent other videos now, I’ll still watch a vlog if the title seems particularly interesting.
The videos are relatively short and their topics vary but are usually light in nature. However, some use stronger language than others.

- NoMeReinventes
- Brunoacme
- SandyCoben
- MexiVlogs - A collection of vloggers. No longer updated.
- Benshorts
- Hola, Soy German
- Enchufetv - doesn't exactly contain vlogs. Here there’s more a mix of short skits; fun in nature.
- Si Fuera - A bit like Eschufutv, but from Spain.

Channels that helped me most with grammar

I frequented these channels as a beginner. On their channel, I’d search for the grammar point I was having trouble with or happened to be studying on my own. My tutors were great, but sometimes it helped having grammar explained from the perspective of someone who spoke my language.

- Professor Jason
- The Spanish Dude (formerly, Gringo Español)
- Señor Jordan
- Lightspeed Spanish
- Language Transfer
- Agustin Iruela
- The Spanish Blog
- Fundéu Español Urgente

I’m learning Spanish, by the way. Also, most of these channels are maintained by Latin Americans.

the1whoknocks wrote:I’m learning Spanish, by the way. Also, most of these channels are maintained by Latin Americans.

An impressive and very useful list. I see a couple of episodes of VideoEle have helpful subtitles in Spanish. I assume they all must have subtitles.
A couple of misleading links, maybe? Magic Markers brought up a show for kids, and Eschufutv came up on Youtube with 'No results."
Nevertheless, a fine list of resources. Thanks.

MorkTheFiddle wrote:

the1whoknocks wrote:I’m learning Spanish, by the way. Also, most of these channels are maintained by Latin Americans.

An impressive and very useful list. I see a couple of episodes of VideoEle have helpful subtitles in Spanish. I assume they all must have subtitles.
A couple of misleading links, maybe? Magic Markers brought up a show for kids, and Eschufutv came up on Youtube with 'No results."
Nevertheless, a fine list of resources. Thanks.

Maybe it's enchufetv? It fits the description. The channel Magic Markers seems to be what he says it is. They answer a question while drawing an illustration of what they're talking about. I didn't think it was necessarily for kids, at least not small ones, but I didn't watch a lot of it yet.

Brun Ugle wrote:

MorkTheFiddle wrote:

the1whoknocks wrote:I’m learning Spanish, by the way. Also, most of these channels are maintained by Latin Americans.

An impressive and very useful list. I see a couple of episodes of VideoEle have helpful subtitles in Spanish. I assume they all must have subtitles.
A couple of misleading links, maybe? Magic Markers brought up a show for kids, and Eschufutv came up on Youtube with 'No results."
Nevertheless, a fine list of resources. Thanks.

Maybe it's enchufetv? It fits the description. The channel Magic Markers seems to be what he says it is. They answer a question while drawing an illustration of what they're talking about. I didn't think it was necessarily for kids, at least not small ones, but I didn't watch a lot of it yet.

Yup, I meant enchufetv. Thanks for asking about this. I’ll update the original post to reflect the correction.

I’m not sure if all episodes of VideoEle (videos on Agustin Iruela’s channel) have Spanish subtitles but I seem to remember that at least most of them did. There’s also a website with exercises and downloadable documents designed to be used in conjunction with the videos. I didn’t spend too much time with these, but they seemed well designed.

At first glance, the videos ‘Magic Markers’ posts definitely seem like they were made with children in mind. At least, that’s what I thought when my tutor first introduced me to the channel. Still, they do a good job at exploring social questions in bite-sized segments; usually within 4-10 minutes.

Around early B1, my tutor introduced these videos into our sessions since I enjoy talking about economics, politics and other random things. I’d choose a video, and we’d use them as a basis for conversation and from there, segway to other articles, YouTube videos or discussion topics. My job was basically to, as best I could, express my understanding of the video and the impression it left me with while extracting useful vocabulary.

Thanks again for the comments.