Y’all probably already know about these, but I recently purchased an MD recorder (Sony MD walkman) and it’s just wonderful for language study:
**You can pull audio off the Internet (using an analog to digital cable connection out of your computer’s earphone jack) and record it on the MD, adding track divisions as you like. I usually put a new track between each paragraph, so that I can repeat easily without having to go through a lot of other stuff.
**You can begin from the beginning of any track easily, see the title of the track on the remote, and also “rewind” a few seconds to repeat somethign if you want. There’s also a pause button on the remote.
**Rechargable batteries: last all day for me listening pretty much whenever I’m walking around or on public transport, plus an evening session in McDonald’s or something.
**Just far more flexible than using cassettes. I’ll probably convert most of what I have on cassette to MD, as I’d probably even listen to it that way.
The only disadvantage I can see is that you cannot save the files back to your computer if you recorded them using the MD recorder analog to digital in the first place (or if somebody knows a way to do this, please let me know). MP3s can of course be moved back and forth. Getting some Chinese songs in MP3 might be another cool way to learn stuff.
Anyway, I know I’m way behind the curve but I’m so pleased with it!
Terry