not quite an audiobook.
Having just last week finished listening to The Diamond Age in audio format, and then having downloaded a promotional copy of the (abridged) The Areas of My Expertise from iTunes as read by the author (otherwise known as John Hodgman, aka. “PC” from the popular Mac and PC commercials) in a way only the author could, I stumbled upon the interested problem of what to listen to next as I fill the twenty minutes (each way) of my commute (each day.) 
(Enough brackets by the way?)
Circumstances as they are, I stumbled upon the recordings of Michel Thomas the other day and pondered the fact that “maybe I’m NOT filling my brain with enough information lately” and perhaps I should cram German language lessons into my day somewhere. I loaded the CDs onto my iPod and listened to the first three tracks this morning.
Anybody heard of this guy? It seems all very intriguing… and if I can increase my fluency even a bit whilst driving to and from work, maybe it’s worth it.
In the meantime, if I finally get a grasp on German, perhaps I can take a look at picking up the French version in a few months. Then maybe Spanish or Italian. I’d still like to learn a little Mandarin if anyone knows a good instructor, by the way.
Short of moving and immersing yourself in the language, here are some resources for learning German.
I ate breakfast listening to this podcast many times:
Learning German with the news
Slowly Spoken News Reports
Every day, you can find the 10:00 a.m. newscast from Deutsche Welle’s German Service here — read slowly and clearly articulated just for German learners. This exclusive Deutsche Welle online offer is available as an audio file (MP3) and as a text file.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,2142,2469,00.html
More DWelle podcasts:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,2142,9541,00.html
Podcasts and Videocasts from heute.de, the daily news show:
http://www.heute.de/ZDFheute/infoservices_podcast/0,4624,,00.html
Online DEEN dictionaries
http://dict.leo.org/
http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/
(free) Online German courses, as mp3+pdf files
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,2142,2547,00.html
You can also look into renting some DVDs that are in German, but have English subtitles (or alternate audio tracks). That is a more relaxing way to learn the language. If you watch a movie that you have already seen and know the plot of, then it may be easier to figure out the dialogue.
You might like this one:
link
Or pick a good comedy. Just beware of the one where the accent or the language is part of the joke…
link
(actually, that one might be interesting. Some of the Asterix DVDs have audio tracks such as “Berlinish”, “Bayernisch” and “Koelnisch”)
Thanks! The slowly spoken news link caught my attention for sure. I’ll check out the others as well.
the slowly spoken news report is quite funny for native speakers to listen to, as they find it soooo slowwwww. But for learners, it is good as they take the time to read a 2 minute newscast over 4 minutes, and don’t try to speak at 200 words per minute to fit in the typical radio news format.