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Comment by pasmat | Hacker News Reader

I was excited to try this out, but the pace of the videos are way too slow for me.

This is probably good for first time learners, but for me, it was painful

Maybe there could be a speed control? Of course it changes pitch of the sound, but aren’t we already used to listening podcasts on 2x speed anyway

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Speed controls don't normally change the pitch of the sound, eg https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLMediaEl...

I don't understand why people speed up podcasts.

"Consume more, faster!" - yeah, screw that. If I'm listening to something, it has my full and undivided attention, and I want to experience it at the pace it was created for.

>>"I don't understand why people speed up podcasts."

If your goal is to actually understand others, then fwiw, my own thoughts: I personally normally far far prefer articles to podcasts. I can go at my own speed and enjoy the way I want to. If a video or podcast is the only way for me to learn something or experience something, variable speed is the price of entry for me. Podcast or video is NOT a quiet relaxing interesting night with friends, (and most of them are not precisely planned artistic endeavours whose brilliance will be missed at different pace:) . I don't get a say, I don't get to ask questions, to interrupt, to change topic, to go on a tangent. The very basic agency affordance therefore is speed - whether slower or faster. It's not about "consume more faster". It's about pace that works for me the consumer

For lessons specifically, typically they are recorded far slower than holds my attention. Think of all the udemy classes - at recorded pace, I mentally check out after 3 minutes on average :( . So for recorded lessons, if I don't have control over speed, I'm extremely unlikely to make it.

Because most content has people speaking way too slow and it is boring, leads to distraction and hurts comprehension. It costs significant effort to concentrate on something that is too slow, which can easily be avoided by speeding it up. It's not about consuming more, it's about matching my comprehension speed and avoiding distraction.

I listen to them sped up because my comprehension is the same if not better. A lot of content is paced very slowly which is distracting/frustrating.

That's fine for you. I do not have the same experience.

Right.

So that's precisely why variable speed is important - otherwise a recorded lessons will work for one type of learner only. It's crucial to recognize exactly what you mention - different people's experience and preferences differ :). Ability to vary speed doesn't remove your option to listen at default speed, all it does is provide options for others who may have different preferences and different natural pace of speech or listening :).

Yes, so far we’ve made videos for beginner and intermediate students. None for advanced.

It sounds like you would be a good fit for advanced videos or perhaps you should start watching content made for natives (real podcasts, Netflix etc)?

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