ItalianPod launched yesterday, joining ChinesePod, SpanishPod, and FrenchPod in the Praxis Language family of language products. Catherine and Marco have been a joy to work with, and their energy comes through in the podcasts (check out their first lesson, You Need a Girlfriend — it’s fantastic).
Having them around is enough to make me want to learn at least a little Italian, so I have been, working their lessons into my study. After reading this post on All Japanese All the Time and doing some research into how Rosetta Stone works (and has become successful) for work, I wanted to try incorporating images into my Anki flashcards to see how it affected recall, and decided to start with Italian.
So far I’m enjoying the addition — while it is time consuming, I think combining mediums is important when learning, and it certainly makes reviewing my flashcards more enjoyable (I crack up every time I see that poor cat). I’m adding photos to all (or at least most — some concepts just don’t lend themselves well to being represented by images) of my flashcards, and I should know in a few months whether or not it improves recall enough to offset the time it takes to create the cards (my gut says it does, though).