Comments on: Which podcast level is right for you?

By: ben

ben — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:33:38 +0000

Thanks Kathy – you must have our voices going around in your head all day!

By: Kathy

Kathy — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 21:52:58 +0000

I find that the intermediate level is about right for me, but I can understand quite a bit of the Advanced ones as well. I’ve discovered, though, that they’re all very helpful, and I listen to them all! I learn new things and interesting tidbits in the beginner’s podcasts and I increase my listening and comprehensin skills in the intermmediate and advanced podcasts. They’re all great and I recommend them all for everyone!

By: Martin

Martin — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 12:09:01 +0000

My wife and I were complete beginners with Spanish in September last year. We did a night class at the local school, then started to listen to NiS beginners courses when they arrived. These suited us perfectly. Lately we’ve started listening to the Intermediate podcasts, with varying degrees of understanding. But we’re surprised to find that we understood about 70-80% of the last one (El Solitario), so we must be making progress!

By: Palmer

Palmer — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 23:14:29 +0000

To echo what guiri just said, I have felt very comfortable with the intermediate podcasts after maybe six months of listening to them. The advanced podcasts sometimes have sentences and phrases which leave me in the dark, but I often get the basic idea of what’s being discussed upon repeated replays and having gotten used to Marina’s and Ben’s voices. I am understanding them better than before. And the beginner’s podcasts are easy, but I usually find a word or two of colloquial terminology which I had not heard before. I have taken a few tests from various internet sites which offer placement levels and they have usually resulted in intermediate+, which is what I had imagined from what I understand of the Notes In Spanish podcasts.
And, Guiri, I love your analogy of the Matrix bullets. Perfect! I can now see those “bullets” like never before. They’re getting slower and slower!

By: yosoyguiri

yosoyguiri — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 16:50:22 +0000

This advice rings true with me!

I’ve started with the intermediate podcasts having listened and found I was missing a bit too much of the advanced podcasts and finding the beginner podcasts a little too basic for me!

I’ve been working my way through the “back catalogue” of podcasts, tackling one each morning on my commute to work. The way I approach it is to listen once to try and catch things with my ear and then a second time with the worksheet to make sure I can follow everything! Then I try and learn the vocabulary on the sheets (it’s a fairly long commute!!) The result has been fantastic!

After two weeks of listening every morning I found myself being able to understand my girlfriend’s Spanish mother (on the phone) almost perfectly. I can only describe the experience as like “bullet time” on the Matrix. The words were coming at me at the same pace as normal, but somehow I felt like I had so much more time to digest them!!

Recently I tried listening to a couple of the advanced podcasts and found them much more manageable after having trained my ear on the intermediate level. Once I’ve finished the intermediate back catalogue I plan to move up to the past episodes of the advanced!

Keep up the great work, guys!