Mac Audio for Language Learning: Anki, Podcasts, Video

You're studying a language on your Mac. Anki plays pronunciation audio for your flashcards. A podcast in your target language runs in the background for immersion. You open a YouTube grammar lesson in the browser. Now three sources play at once, each at a different natural volume, and macOS gives you one slider for all of them. The pronunciation clips are too quiet to catch, the podcast is too loud, and the video is somewhere in between.

Why language study audio gets messy

Language learning uses several kinds of audio at once:

• Flashcard apps play short clips, often recorded at very different levels
• Podcast apps stream continuous speech
• Video lessons mix speech with music and sound effects
• Dictionaries pronounce words on demand

None of these are matched to each other. The usual workaround is to pause everything except what you're actively using, but that defeats the immersion approach many learners like: keeping target-language audio playing softly while you do other study work.

What you can do with built-in controls

• Use in-app volume where it exists. The YouTube player and most music and video players have their own slider. Lower the loud source there and leave the system volume high.
• Keep the system volume as your master. Set it for the quietest thing you need to hear (usually the flashcard clips), then turn the others down inside their apps.
• Silence distractions. Turn on a Focus mode, or turn off sounds for chat apps in System Settings > Notifications, so pings don't interrupt a review session.

The limit: some apps have no volume control of their own, and you can't make one quiet app louder than 100% with the system slider alone.

Layered audio with per-app volume

SoundDial adds a volume slider for each running app, from the menu bar. You set each app to the level you want and keep several sources running in a comfortable mix.

During active study

• Anki: 100%, or boosted up to 200% if the clips are quiet
• Podcast app: 20 to 30%, soft background immersion
• Browser (video lessons): 80%, clear while you watch, easy to lower while you review cards
• Dictionary app: 90%, so pronunciations are audible on demand
• Slack or Messages: muted

During passive immersion

• Podcast or radio stream: a comfortable listening level
• Everything else: muted or very low

When you move from active study to immersion, open the menu-bar panel and adjust the few sliders that matter. Mute is one click per app. If you switch often, save each mix as a profile (for example "Study" and "Immersion") and click its chip in the panel to apply it to the apps that are running.

A few details worth knowing:

• Boost goes up to 200% per app, which helps with quietly recorded flashcard decks; there's no limiter, so raise it in small steps
• It works per app, not per browser tab, so all tabs of one browser share a slider
• macOS 14.2 or later

If you also follow lectures or classes on your Mac, see Mac audio setup for online classes and lectures. For quiet clips in general, see boosting a quiet app on Mac.

Get it

SoundDial, a per-app volume mixer for Mac costs €14.99 one-time purchase on the Mac App Store, no subscription.

Get SoundDial on the Mac App Store.