One of the main features of Arabic Pod 101 is their audio lessons. On the website, you can see which lessons are audio lessons by looking for the headphones symbol. The audio lessons vary in time but all of the times are displayed on the menu for the Arabic season.
Arabic Pod 101 has a big library of audio lessons and each lesson can also be downloaded in a podcast format so that you can use on the go. You can download by clicking on the down button near the top of the screen.
When you start the audio lesson online you can change the speed of the audio lesson on the bottom menu so you can go from slow (50% of the actual speed) to 3 x the actual speed if you’re doing super well!
The menu also allows you to pause the audio at any time and if you press the ? button, you can see the keyboard shortcuts that control the audio.
The audio lessons on Arabic Pod 101 don’t all start the same way but they often begin with an Arabic dialogue before it is introduced and explained in English. In the audio lessons, there are clear directions explaining which type of Arabic you are going to learn and why this is useful. There are some differences, regarding the format of the audio lessons, as the levels change on Arabic Pod 101.
In Absolute Beginner lessons, most of the audio is in English; there are two speakers (a native English speaker and a native Arabic speaker). The native English teacher usually starts the lesson and at the end the Arabic speaker reviews the new words with you. The vocabulary is quite simple but essential, basic words such as “Thank You” etc. Learning Arabic words without context is very difficult so the teachers are important to always try and give a context or another sentence with that Arabic word to help you learn.
The advanced Arabic audio lessons are different to the beginning levels as they tend to only have native level Arabic speakers as hosts. As there are so many Arabic speaking countries around the world, some of the Advanced audio lessons discuss in Arabic places and famous locations like Casablanca and the Nile River.
On top of the podcast, there is an audio review option. The audio reviews are audio files where the new Arabic vocabulary is pronounced slowly to help you get the pronunciation right. You can also download PDFs with the script of the audio you are listening to and this way you can improve your Arabic listening skills, since you’ll not only understand what is being said but also you’ll know how to say it. The more that you can listen and understand, the more that you will be able to speak. Listening is very important when learning any language, especially with a difficult language like Arabic.
Another great thing about the Arabic Pod 101 audio lessons is that the teacher giving the class is not always the same, this way you’ll get used to different accents (although as you’d expect, they all speak standard Arabic). You definitely won’t have that problem with Arabic Pod 101, since you’ll be learning from and hearing different teachers.
