Hi everyone. If you're like me, then sometimes you want people to slow down. In my quest to develop my speaking and listening skills, and my skills of associating the written word with the spoken word, I am now forcing some people to slow down. Here's what I mean.
If you have audio files that have someone talking a mile a minute, you can slow them down with Audacity. You can download it here:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/. It's free. Take your mp3 or other compatible file, upload it into the program. Select the passage you wish to slow down, or the whole file. Then click Effect, then Change Speed. I like cutting the speed by 30% (so -30%). But now your person sounds like an ogre. Solution: now increase the pitch by about the same percentage. Voila, you have a slower speaker.
Obviously I recommend listening to speakers in real time, naturally, but just as you start playing an instrument by plunking away, and starting slow, so do the ears and the tongue need a slow pace once in a while. Enjoy!
