Glisten · Language Podcasts

One of the most important things you can do in gaining mastery of another language is extensive listening and speaking practice. Over the years, I have used various apps and other devices to improve my listening and speaking skills. And, out of all of them, the one I have found the most useful and the most enjoyable to use is Glisten. It is a fantastic app for improving your listening comprehension, pronunciation, and overall fluency. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I’ve spent years studying a few languages in endless ways. This app provides the best features to develop actual comfort and confidence in a language you are studying. It allows a variety of ways to listen and read at the same time. It has a bunch of different ‘workout’ methods. It’s super convenient, using easily available podcasts right from within the app. You can also set it to Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced, and switch whenever you want. I love this app! It’s what I’ve been searching for—a way to use “comprehensible input” (the most highly regarded method in language learning today), without any struggle, and for it to be fun—being able to change workout styles whenever you feel like it—keeps the whole process fresh. I hope more and more people get excited about this app, so that the developer will keep working on it. I’m using it on both iPhone and iPad, so that’s excellent too. Absolutely recommend this if you really want to develop you language ability!

I teach/learn Spanish through hosting the Medical Spanish Podcast, and I just tried this application out, and I love it. The transcription is auto generated, so there will be a few errors, but they’re rare. It’s an awesome way to immerse yourself in Spanish, and be able to repeat things and see the transcript when needed. If you hear a phrase or word you want to add to your vocabulary, you can easily go back and find it, listen to it again and you can even copy it and paste it into a note for later reference. Love it! Bravo!