Agronesia

I read Steve Pavlina’s article Overclock Your Audio Learning a while back. Basically, he advocates playing audio materials at a faster-than-usual speed.

This can be accomplished by players such as Windows Media Player. In version 11, you can change the speed from View - Enhancements - Play Speed Settings. By clicking Fast, the speed will be brought to 1.4x. You can start from there and increase it gradually until you can’t handle anything faster.

I myself listen to the podcast japanesepod101.com. For the Japanese dialogue on the beginning, I still use normal speed. However for the English explanations, I apply this method.

It works! At 1.4x, I can still comprehend the talk very much. Of course I was first uncomfortable hearing Peter and others speak at an unnatural speed, but after some while I didn’t really mind.

If you listen to podcasts, try to use this listening technique. You can really save time if you’ve mastered the high speeds.