Jiveworld — Language Learning

This app is special because of the Soundbites I consider myself an advanced student and believe I have outgrown most apps. I take lessons with native speakers online a couple of times a week and generally go around listening to podcasts in Spanish including Radio Ambulate. I understand what the journalists are saying but often get lost with the interviewees. That’s where the Soundbites come in! They are carefully chosen snippets of the story featuring difficult pronunciation or interesting grammatical structure or a piece of cultural context. They are short and fun and motivating. You can listen at different speeds, reveal and hide the words and review a vocabulary list. You get explanation of patterns used with similar examples. They require little time commitment and I return to them every day. The Soundbites alone are worth the price but then you also get the whole stories if Radio Ambulante broken into segments, analyzes and explained. I highly recommend this app. It’s the one you will actually use and improve your Spanish while learning interesting things and having fun.

This app really is amazing for those trying to get comprehensible input. There are so many little features of design in this app that help improve your ability to focus on the dialogue. The fact that interviews are chopped up into 2 to 3 minute sections, that within each 2 to 3 minute segment there are further sections with summaries to orient you to the story. You have access to, but is otherwise hidden away, a full translation of the story, and when you request it, it pops up to that exact spot that corresponds to where you are instead of having to search for it. Having blanked out dashes for your eyes to follow really helps you focus on the audio. I find that when I listen to podcasts while going about my day as soon as the language gets a bit tricky it’s easy to lose focus and then you are lost, but the lines for your eyes follow really helps. Having available the option to keep track of vocabulary that you like as well as to export it to a spaced repetition app is also a very nice feature. There’s just a lot of thought that went into this that makes it very helpful.

Omg, I am SO happy I found this app. Everything about it is amazing, from the stories, the artwork, the design, to the goal progress. It is everything an intermediate learner needs to truly advance. After reading about the philosophy behind this program, it completely makes sense why I've been studying Spanish for years and still struggle to understand natives. This has been missing the whole time! Like one of the other reviewers said, I am also a nurse and nurse practitioner and my patients always say they can understand me during clinic visits, but I get so incredibly frustrated that I can't fully understand them and have to bring in an interpreter to help me (which wastes valuable time). This app makes learning so much more enjoyable and I find myself way more motivated to study with this method. After listening to 1 full story I got so excited and immediately bought the full membership. I take Spanish lessons via Skype with a native speaker at least twice a week but I love that I have this easily at my fingertips if I'm on my break at work or killing time to listen for a few minutes every day. I am so excited to see where my progress will be a few months to a year from now. Thank you so much for your genius in developing this app and thank you to NPR for these amazing stories!! You will not regret buying this app if you're serious about learning Spanish