Structured Beginner Materials with Extensive Audio Recordings

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RyanSmallwood
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Structured Beginner Materials with Extensive Audio Recordings

Postby RyanSmallwood » Tue Feb 23, 2021 7:49 pm

So when I first go into language learning, I tended to focus on the more standardized beginner courses like Assimil, Linguaphone, Colloquial, TY, etc. but in my experience a lot of these fall short in terms of audio content with only ~2-4 hours typically, which is especially noticeable when studying more distantly related languages, which I found courses like FSI, DLI, and CIIL much more helpful for (I usually use audacity to automatically remove the silences so I can also use them as just pure input and not just drills).

Additionally I realized a lot of language specific materials were often much more extensive and interesting than a lot of standard format options. Stuff like French in Action (~26 hours with some pauses) and though I haven't personally used it I assume Destinos for Spanish is similar and there's another ~20 hour course for Sanskrit on youtube. For Latin LLPSI (almost 8 hours + supplemental courses), and Latin Via Ovid (~12 hours with silences removed, though still some English instruction/translations).

I'd be curious to know if there are other beginner materials out there that have extensive audio but also manage to be more interesting than FSI & DLI type courses. I don't think I'd count stuff like the Pod101 courses which kind of just keep adding content randomly that don't really build off each other or introduce you to the main features of the language in a structured way, but if anyone has had positive experiences with these kind of materials it would be interesting to know.

Personally I usually can get by with FSI and Listening-Reading, or just scavenging lots of beginner audio from different sources, but its nice to have a really well structured and extensive beginner course sometimes. Also I often like to recommend materials to new language learners and it can be helpful to just be able to point to 1 really good structured resource before they learn to how to find suitable materials for themselves at their level.

It'd be nice to know what additional options are out there for other languages, especially some of the ones that are more distant from English. So if you know of others, please drop some info about them below, like how many hours of audio, and any other info about your experiences with them or things you've heard from others.
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Beli Tsar
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Re: Structured Beginner Materials with Extensive Audio Recordings

Postby Beli Tsar » Tue Feb 23, 2021 9:14 pm

RyanSmallwood wrote: Latin Via Ovid (~12 hours with silences removed, though still some English instruction/translation.

Not a contribution to the thread, but twelve hours of Latin audio? Seriously? Is the audio still available? I have had a search and found little, and what little there is at absurd prices.
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RyanSmallwood
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Re: Structured Beginner Materials with Extensive Audio Recordings

Postby RyanSmallwood » Tue Feb 23, 2021 9:40 pm

Beli Tsar wrote:
RyanSmallwood wrote: Latin Via Ovid (~12 hours with silences removed, though still some English instruction/translation.

Not a contribution to the thread, but twelve hours of Latin audio? Seriously? Is the audio still available? I have had a search and found little, and what little there is at absurd prices.


Yeah, Wayne State University Press sells it on USB, though its pretty expensive, I got it during a big sale they were having. Some of the audio files are a bit noisy and I had to clean them up myself and some of the readers haven't lost their native accent fully, but all the readings are by academics at least.

Though you can also find lots of good Latin audio on youtube from Satura Lanx and Luke Ranieri's channel ScorpioMartianus (and more on his Patreon) and both have an accurate and natural sounding pronunciation from what I can tell. Evan der Millner's Patreon, Latinum, has probably the largest catalog I'm aware of, though his readings are in a slower more exaggerated style. Also the user bedwere on librivox is a native Italian speaker that has done some huge recordings in ecclesiastical pronunciation including Augustine's City of God and Confessions.
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Beli Tsar
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Posts: 384
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:59 pm
Languages: English (N), Ancient Greek (intermediate reading), Latin (Beginner) Farsi (Beginner), Biblical Hebrew (Beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9548
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Re: Structured Beginner Materials with Extensive Audio Recordings

Postby Beli Tsar » Wed Feb 24, 2021 4:01 pm

RyanSmallwood wrote:
Beli Tsar wrote:
RyanSmallwood wrote: Latin Via Ovid (~12 hours with silences removed, though still some English instruction/translation.

Not a contribution to the thread, but twelve hours of Latin audio? Seriously? Is the audio still available? I have had a search and found little, and what little there is at absurd prices.


Yeah, Wayne State University Press sells it on USB, though its pretty expensive, I got it during a big sale they were having. Some of the audio files are a bit noisy and I had to clean them up myself and some of the readers haven't lost their native accent fully, but all the readings are by academics at least.

Thanks - I'll keep my eyes open for another sale, then. £10/hour is a bit much!
RyanSmallwood wrote:Though you can also find lots of good Latin audio on youtube from Satura Lanx and Luke Ranieri's channel ScorpioMartianus (and more on his Patreon) and both have an accurate and natural sounding pronunciation from what I can tell. Evan der Millner's Patreon, Latinum, has probably the largest catalog I'm aware of, though his readings are in a slower more exaggerated style. Also the user bedwere on librivox is a native Italian speaker that has done some huge recordings in ecclesiastical pronunciation including Augustine's City of God and Confessions.

Yes, there's an amazing selection available now! I'm really enjoying both ScorpioMartianus and Satura Lanx.
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