# Trying to learn a language? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 30, 2020, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-learn-a-language/924337 "2020-10-30T18:39:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-learn-a-language/924337/1 "2020-10-30T18:39:51Z")
I know there are other threads with similar things, but we just discovered the [Slow News website](https://www.newsinslow.com/) while looking to expand our Spanish studies. We went through both of the Great Courses Spanish programs, which are excellent, but the Slow News in Spanish is news reporting at a pace that allows non-fluent speakers to perhaps follow what is being said. The website also has German, Italian and French. You can also follow what is being said in the written part, which has idiomatic expressions highlighted for translation. In addition to the news portion, there are other sections on other topics, as well as a course section in verb conjugations, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-learn-a-language/924337/2 "2020-10-30T20:38:24Z")
I’ve never seen that, but it sounds worthwhile - if you study language at a university they have special tape recorders that allow you to slow things down. It makes a big difference. There are a lot of good resources for learning Spanish. One that I like is a soap opera, called Destinos, made by educational foundations and available for free on the web. It uses intermediate language and, in particular, introduces different accents: Italian-inflected Argentinian, rapid Cuban, suave Colombian, colourful Puerto Rican and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-learn-a-language/924337/3 "2020-10-30T20:49:09Z")
One feature of the news items is that you can play it at 1/2, full, or 1.5 speed. You can also listen to individual sentences, then record yourself saying the sentence for comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-learn-a-language/924337/4 "2020-10-30T21:40:42Z")
Sounds like a great resource. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2020, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-learn-a-language/924337/5 "2020-10-30T23:16:11Z")
Many thanks for the link. ---
**Author:** ![Tabco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tabco/32/7644_2.png) [@Tabco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabco)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2020, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-learn-a-language/924337/6 "2020-10-31T06:03:51Z")
I totally remember watching _Destinos_ in Spanish class when I was in high school. My friend and I just couldn’t get over this one scene where an elderly man said “sí, sí, mis hijos.” I used to watch Univision at home with closed captioning on (in Spanish) and that helped me a lot to connect the spoken sounds with the written words, especially with me being hearing impaired.