Using FrenchPod (and SpanishPod) to Get Sentences With Audio

A while ago I received an e-mail from a reader with the question if one should add audio to every sentence. He complained (with reason) that it isn’t easy to get good audio for sentences (you’re often forced to use lame text-to-speech software) and that it’s just a lot of work to add it all to your Anki deck. Now that I’m learning French I’ve become a huge fan of FrenchPod (the same company also produces SpanishPod,which uses exactly the same system). The website is popular because they provide funny podcasts which are short enough to listen to in your spare time and they offers tons of extra materials to paying members.

Personally, I never listen to any of the podcasts, nor do I read the transcripts, do the exercises or use the wordlists. No, the only reason I’m throwing in $29 per month is their Expansion page. The page works really simple; you have a French (or Spanish, if you use SpanishPod) sentence, the English translation beneath, a direct translation of each word if you hover over them with your mouse and audio recorded by a native speaker! Here’s an example:

So first you see the keyword or expression, and the rest speaks for itself. Here’s an example of the extra info you can get for each word:

Now you may think something like; “and how do I download the audio?“. Although Praxis Languages has made an excellent system, there’s no download button to get the audio file for each sentence, and that’s a pity. But by accident I found a way to get all sentences in a textfile, with a direct link to the audio file. I’m not sure how happy FrenchPod/SpanishPod is going to be with this post, but you pay for the audio so I’d like to think you also have the right to download it to your harddrive. So here it goes.

First you need to select all sentences, including the header (in this case mourir de) and copy-paste it into Notepad:

Now you press Ctrl + C and then in Notepad Ctrl + V, which results in (click on image to see it in full size):

Now you can simply copy-paste the url (without the initial ► and final 0) into your browser, and it’ll ask you to download the file. Save it, and you can import it into Anki right away. (You can paste the URL directly into Anki; it’ll download the file and put it on the card) This way I add all sentences of an expansion page (~15 sentences per page) to Anki within 5-10 minutes, which is pretty fast.

Share and Enjoy

Become more motivated!

If you can't get enough of learning tips and advice on how to become more AWESOME, you really have to sign up for the free newsletter. When you do you get Ramses' ebook The Poor Bastard's Guide to Learning Spanish for FREE!

Name

Email Address

_{*We care for your privacy and will never, EVER, share your e-mail address with others.}

The following two tabs change content below.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Ramses

A Spanish teacher by trade, Ramses is a true language learning addict. He started Spanish-Only.com and The Language Dojo, and isn't even thinking about quitting language learning; it's in his blood!

Latest posts by Ramses (see all)

• Use Anki to Kickstart Your Listening Comprehension - April 24, 2015
• What Is the Use of Language Learning? - April 14, 2015
• Science in Language Learning Sucks - November 17, 2014