How audiobooks helped me live in my second language
Reading time: 4 min
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Struggling with the language
In the beginning, there was the radio.
Before audiobooks, before podcasts, before YouTube and Spotify, I listened to the radio.
Picture this; back in 2017 I was 27 years old, had never worked a day in my life, was living in a foreign country barely speaking the language, and struggling with the expectations of being an adult while expending 95% of my energies trying to understand the jokes of the people around me.
It was exhausting.
Commuting was horrible. I was always late, always surprised by the frankly predictable traffic and, as if I wasn’t odd enough, I didn’t particularly enjoy music.
I know, I know. I’m trying to remedy, but bear with me.
My biggest priority during the first months in the workforce was getting up to speed with the language.
I’m good under pressure, so I smashed the interview, but the day-to-day was completely different. Noise, multiple people speaking at the same time, idioms, jokes based on British tv shows from the seventies, accents and actually trying to do some work in the meantime was an absolute nightmare.
But I’m an athlete, or, at least, I used to be, so I knew I had to warm up if I wanted to improve my performance.
Warming up your ears and brain
One day, I stumbled upon BBC Radio 5. It was the time of Brexit talks, a simpler time, before Covid, invasions, and Venezuelan-level inflation, and to my utter surprise, I enjoyed listening to politicians being interviewed.
It was useful in two ways.
First of all, as I said, it would warm up my ears and brain to a day full of English, and I must admit it really helped with my understanding—though speaking was an entirely different beast—but it would also give me something to talk about at the coffee machine.
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Marvellous, right?
Week after week, though, it became a little repetitive. Being able to understand the radio was satisfying, but I’m not a political type of person, and what those politicians said didn’t really interest me.
That’s when I realised podcasts were a thing.
I explored both the most popular and the obscure ones, and found out that I’m not big on interviews in general. Joe Rogan, Tim Ferris, those guys don’t do it for me. Slowly but steadily, I noticed I was gravitating towards fiction podcasts.
And, what’s better than a novel if you like fiction?
Still, I had to wait another few months before I made the connection.
The wonderful world of audiobooks
The perfect opportunity presented itself when I was sent to Ireland on a business trip. Because I drove there—a nice 10-hour trip—I decided to download Audible and use their introductory offer, which back then was 3 free months.
Funnily enough, my first few audiobooks were not novels. I picked non-fiction books instead, and it worked wonders.
Non-fiction educational books are easier to understand when compared to literature, which helped. Plus, I had been a student my entire life; listening had always been my main method of learning (during my master’s degree I had up to 9 hours of lectures a day), so audiobooks threw me back to a more familiar life; a life in which I knew I could succeed.
And I never looked back.
Now I listen to all sorts of audiobooks.
I’ve listened to Hemingway and Brandon Sanderson, James Clear and Cal Newport, Jane Austen and John Green, and with a toddler taking up all my time and energy, audiobooks are a fantastic method to try books or authors I’m not 100% sure I’m going to like.
I’m not saying they are the perfect alternative to physical books, because they’re not, but believe me when I say they are a great implementation.
Alla prossima
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