Podcàsts

A new use and value of podcasts: Brushing up on your foreign language. I just subscribed to Schlaflos in München, a podcast by Annik Rubens, a pseudonym for a German journalist with a charming — no, sexy — voice. I know that for Americans, the notion of sexy German is oxymoronic, but at the end, when she says the German ciao — “Tchuss!” — you just want to kvell. It’s a helluva lot better than listening to language tapes, all bleached of personality and charm, not to mention relevance and currency. Her ‘casts are brief and fun and I almost understand some of them.