Still thinking: Audio Books

So, I'm still contemplating that idea of looking at the design of introductory language text-books as a Masters project. Part of me still really wants to play with the Introduction to Anglo Saxon concept, but lately I've been toying with another "output":

Audio books.

One of my pet peeves with educational material is the fact that they all lock you to something with your eyes. You'll either be locked to a book or a computer screen. You may, if you are lucky, also have the option of trading the computer screen for a TV screen, if you have a DVD as part of your materials.

Generally speaking, though, you have to be in a position to read something or watch something - you never have the freedom to just listen. Even the audiotapes usually come with a workbook, so that you have to read while listening in order to get anything useful out of it.

This is a pain, because there are so many times during the day when one might not be at liberty to read, but could still listen to something. You can listen to something while washing the dishes, but you can't read a book. You can listen to something while driving the car, but you can't watch a DVD. You can listen to something while going for a walk, but you can't work through a series of cleverly created activities on a computer.

And, you know, sometimes you get to a stage when reading things starts to give you a headache and you just can't look at a screen any longer. When I did my undergrad degree, I often found myself at a point where I would have happily paid extra to have audio copies of my textbooks and readings - but such things were only available to students with documented visual disabilities. "My eyes get tired and I sometimes have to walk or drive somewhere" doesn't really get you access to that sort of stuff.

It was the same when I started reading bucket loads of journal articles and books for my post-grad degree.

When I first started looking at language learning, I was looking at "teach yourself" material, which has a much stronger focus on "do this in your car!", but there's a strange element to those "in your car!" packages - they seem to all be trying to brainwash you, rather than teach you. With language learning material there is a very clear line between "learn this language in ten days without having to do any work!" packages and material designed to actually support proper language learning, and sadly most of the audio material that is reasonably stand-alone falls on the wrong side of that line.

I was over the moon when I discovered the joys of podcasts. So much good stuff based on the old radio concept of people listening to things they can't see.

I am particularly enamoured of podcasts like germangrammarpod, which assumes you are an intelligent person who can understand complex ideas when someone explains them in a clear and rational manner, and Italianpod.com, which uses a lot of the strengths of radio to make the audio experience interesting and fun, but makes sure you actually learn a decent range of concepts in the ten minutes provided.

But, and this is an important observation, I think, the podcasts I find most useful are either produced by individuals for their own personal amusement, or as part of a "teach yourself" package. I still haven't come across anything that could be considered a decent introductory "text" for language students that has a stand-alone audio component.

So, maybe I could look into what kind of information is covered in your standard introductory text, and look at what needs to be done to usefully format it for an audio book concept - turn the idea of the undergrad language text package on its head: instead of having a text-based book with some audio accompaniment to augment it, have an audio-based book with some text for augmentation.

The idea being: if you can take the time to look at something while listening, then you could get more out of the package. But if all you can do is listen right now, then you won't be getting less.

Rapuntsel

So, the DVD of Tangled arrived in the mail last week, and I watched it over the weekend. Yes, I spent some unseemly amount of money importing a DVD I could have bought on special from any given music shop or department store in town – but if I’d bought it locally I wouldn’t have been able to get the language options I wanted. You see, by ordering it from Estonia, I get the Estonian options. This magically converts the movie into a learning opportunity.

As the animation was dubbed in Estonian, I had the option of switching the language settings around so I could listen to the English version while watching Estonian subtitles, then flip them to listen to the Estonian version while watching the English subtitles. I have found this to be an enjoyable and useful way to engage in a spot of vocabulary reinforcement (and pick up some nuances regarding turns-of-phrase) with the few DVDs I have that offer me the chance to do this language swapping schtick with German, and I’ve been wanting the chance to do it with Estonian as well.

I’ve got some Estonian DVDs, but they aren’t dubbed in English, so I can really only get the language balance one-way. When I was ordering some books from Estonia recently, the ad for Tangled was all over the place, and I thought a Disney animation might be a good addition to my shipment.

I’m kind of impressed that someone would go to the bother of translating all of the songs into Estonian (and Lithuanian and Latvian, on this DVD). I know Disney usually has their animated movies dubbed into a ridiculous number of languages, but the fact that they would do it for the tiny languages is pretty impressive – especially when you realise that a large number of the people who speak those languages also speak one of the more popular ones. I guess the fact that it’s a kids’ movie means you want the kids to be able to engage in it without having to go through too much schooling first.

Anyway, I thought the movie was brilliant. It has been an awfully long time since I have seen a Disney film that had me wanting to watch it again immediately. This movie, on the other hand, had me willing to switch over the languages and watch it again the very next day – and I still loved it. It could have been because the Alan Menkin sound track was tapping into the same part of my brain that has stored away fond feelings for The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, but I thought the movie seemed like a return to form.

No, scratch that, I thought it seemed like a good story well told – which just happens to be something Disney used to do very well.

It did feel a lot like Beauty and the Beast in places. I watched that film again last year, and found myself impressed with how well it was done, and how well it stood up to the test of time. Sometimes the films you watched as a child don’t age well, but B&tB really was something of a masterpiece. Tangled seemed to catch that same vibe and mix it with a bit of the fun banter from Aladdin - and I’m not just saying that because I kept finding the love song from Tangled bled into A Whole New World when I was humming the tune later.

In the past six months I’ve encountered two retellings of the Rapunzel story - Tangled (obviously) and the graphic novel Rapunzel’s Revenge, by Hale, Hale and Hale. Both were a whole lot of fun, and both are now firmly on my “favourites” lists. It’s always interesting to see what happens when two things touching on the same themes are developed at the same time (the lead-up to the publication of the book and the production of the movie would preclude the creators of either knowing about what was happening with the other version).

For example, both versions ditch the prince in favour of a thief. Both feature a magical flower as the source of Gothel’s power. Both imply that Rapunzel is capable of using her hair as a whip (but only one makes the logical assumption that she might have to plat it first). And both versions make it quite clear that there are exactly three books in the tower – I thought that was a bit odd.

The Disney version stayed close to the traditional version of the fairy tale but did a fair bit of tweaking (and did a better job of explaining why Gothel wanted the child in the first place), while the Hales’ book started with a tweaked version of the tale and then went off on a wild tangent. I thought encountering both versions might make me think less of one of them, but they both rock on their own merits.

Oh, and I now know that the Estonian way to say “I can’t believe I did this!” is “Unbelievable, that this I have done!” (or, to be more precise, “Uskumatu, et seda tegin!”) – which has reinforced vocabulary I know, but shown me how to use it more correctly. And, I now know the Estonian word for “rider” is “ratsur” – which is completely new vocabulary. See: learning stuff. Sounds like a good reason to watch it again…