Usually, the download for the audio is at the top, but wherever, it’s got to be easy to find.

What I like to do is scan the text to see how hard it is comparatively. Then I make sure I’m not going to be too distracted by other things. Then I get straight to trying to read it with the audio in the background. Every time I don’t get something, or get lost or out of sync – I pause the audio and backtrack to the point I got lost. So if I’m just not getting something, I add that something to a growing list of things to go over after I’ve read through the text the first time. The next step is where I write down the words and their meaning a few times, because writing things helps my memory.

THEN I’ll reread the material at a later date with the audio, theoretically armed with my new knowledge and it should be easier to read. It usually isn’t, but looking everything up again gets it that much closer to learned. The third time I re-read something, I’m usually sick of looking things up, so if I don’t know something very well – tough, I’m contexting it and moving on.

Now, this is a pretty casual approach and I’m sure I should be making SRS entries with these words or something, but I really like reading more than making SRS entries so I don’t often get around to that. It also depends on how interesting the content is. If I get bored I’m going to wander off and not re-read it at all. Or if it’s too hard and I don’t have enough context to ‘read’ while still skipping words here and there, I’ll put it aside for later. That’s what happened with my Japanese copy of Harry Potter, sadly. OMG the weirdest things are so not child level reading in that – and the katakana on the British words that didn’t get translated into kanji for some reason like “mantle” I spent far too much time trying to puzzle out words that weren’t even Japanese and just gave up without finishing the second chapter.

If I could read something without the English help page, I’d try reading it aloud myself and then listen to the audio portion to see if I was pronouncing things well or not. Perhaps even use my own recording features to record myself so I couldn’t cheat along the way. Work on my pronunciation of Japanese and get a feel how familiar phrases are said by different people. I would love it if there was a section where common phrases were said by 5-10 different people, so we could hear how the same sentence may sound slightly different when said by different people. Perhaps I could find a way of saying it that is correct, but feels natural for myself. I mean in English there are a lot of ways to greet someone familiarly, not everyone says “Hello” some say “Howdy y’all” or “Hiya” – but all are perfectly valid in casual conversation.

It would be nice to have video of people interacting in simple situations – like seeing how a new student would greet their new teacher vs greeting another student vs greeting a parent. Have maybe some 5 minute conversations where we see video and audio of interactions. I really liked those in my French class.

If my pronunciation was fairly good, then I’d go with the hardest part for me – listening to what is being said in the audio, and trying to translate it out into English on my own, then compare my translations with the translations online – see how close mine are. Did I really understand what was being said? Having a feature that would allow us to slow down or speed up the audio would be nice as well. Some of us may not be able to understand the speech at full speed, so slowing it to half speed or 3/4 speed may be nice for us.

It would be fun to also have pictures or something and then an audio that asks us a question about the picture. For example, show us a picture of (from left to right) a pencil, ball, and apple. Then have the audio ask us “What is to the left of the ball?” (In Japanese of course) and we have to come up with the answer. Then be able to reveal the answer which would have the option of being given in English written, Japanese written, or Japanese audio – or maybe all 3 – so we can check our own answers. Picture of people doing things, pictures that ask us to identify objects or feelings people may be having or where they are or are going. Stuff like that. Get us to come up with answers to questions based on a fake situation.