This tool turns a two-column spreadsheet into a structured audio drill. The audio plays a prompt, pauses so you can respond aloud, plays the correct answer, then pauses again so you can repeat it. That cycle — hear, respond, correct, repeat — keeps you actively producing language rather than passively listening, a principle behind structured oral drills still widely used in language instruction.1
It's easier to hear it than to describe it — listen to a student working through a drill to hear how it sounds in practice. Notice how he makes an attempt, then the correct answer is given allowing him to correct mistakes.
Each row of your spreadsheet becomes one drill cycle. The example spreadsheet generates this audio file. "..." represents a pause for the student to respond:
audio: "já, učitelka" ...
audio: "moje učitelka" ...
audio: "já, kamarád" ...
audio: "můj kamarád" ...
etc.
A transcript including the student's vocalization would be:
audio: "já, učitelka"
student: "moje učitelka"
audio: "moje učitelka"
student: "moje učitelka"
audio: "já, kamarád"
student: "můj kamarád"
audio: "můj kamarád"
student: "můj kamarád"
etc.
The tool works for any language pair — the examples on this page cover Czech, Spanish, German, English, and Japanese to give a sense of the range of drills possible.
Adjust the pause length in the dropdown to match the difficulty — longer pauses for longer phrases, shorter for fluent review.
1. Pronunciation drill
Put the same word or phrase in both columns. The prompt introduces it, the audio models
the correct pronunciation for you to imitate.
| Prompt | Answer |
|---|---|
| Matěj | Matěj |
| třistatřicettři | třistatřicettři |
2. Substitution drill
The classic grammar drill. The prompt gives a cue (pronoun + noun), the answer is the
correct inflected form. Works for gender agreement, possessives, verb endings, and more.
| Prompt (English → Spanish) | Answer |
|---|---|
| yo, hablar | yo hablo |
| tú, hablar | tú hablas |
| ella, hablar | ella habla |
| nosotros, hablar | nosotros hablamos |
This example drills present tense -ar verb conjugation in Spanish. The same format works equally well for Czech case endings, German adjective agreement, or any other pattern-based grammar point.
3. Verb conjugation drill
The prompt gives an infinitive and a pronoun, the answer gives the conjugated form.
Run through an entire conjugation table systematically. Here a Spanish speaker drills
English irregular verbs:
| Prompt (Spanish) | Answer (English) |
|---|---|
| ir, yo, presente | I go |
| ir, él, presente | he goes |
| ir, yo, pasado | I went |
| ir, ellos, pasado | they went |
Setting the prompt language to Spanish and the answer language to English means the cues are read aloud in Spanish, keeping the learner anchored in their native language while producing English output.
4. Translation flashcards
Set the prompt language to your native language and the answer language to your target
language. Works like audio flashcards — hear the prompt in your language, produce the
response in the target language. Here a Japanese speaker drills everyday English phrases:
| Prompt (Japanese) | Answer (English) |
|---|---|
| 私は飲んでいます | I am drinking |
| どこから来ましたか | Where are you from? |
| コーヒーをください | I'd like a coffee, please |
| いくらですか | How much does it cost? |
The prompt and answer can be in completely different languages and scripts — the tool handles them independently. This also works in reverse: set the prompt to English and the answer to Japanese to drill production rather than comprehension.
5. Question and answer drill
The prompt is a question plus a cue in brackets telling you the expected content.
The answer is the natural response using that content. The learner focuses on producing
the correct grammatical form, not guessing what to say. Here an English speaker drills
German question patterns and case endings:
| Prompt (English → German) | Answer |
|---|---|
| Woher kommst du? [England] | Ich komme aus England |
| Was machst du? [arbeiten] | Ich arbeite |
| Wie heißt du? [Jan] | Ich heiße Jan |
| Was möchtest du? [Kaffee] | Ich möchte einen Kaffee |
The bracketed cue tells you what content to use — your job is to produce the grammatically correct sentence. Notice the last example requires the learner to apply the correct accusative article (einen) even though the cue gives the nominative form. This makes it an effective drill for case endings in context.
6. Pyramid drill
Build up a longer phrase from the end, adding one chunk at a time. By the time you reach
the full sentence you've said every part of it multiple times. Useful for intonation,
rhythm, and memorizing longer utterances. In a pyramid drill both columns are identical —
set a longer pause to give yourself time to say the longer chunks.
| Prompt | Answer |
|---|---|
| Matěje | Matěje |
| pro Matěje | pro Matěje |
| kávu pro Matěje | kávu pro Matěje |
| Potřebujeme kávu pro Matěje | Potřebujeme kávu pro Matěje |
Listen to a student working through a pyramid drill. Note how the pause is longer to allow time for the full phrase. The spreadsheet used to generate this drill is also available. Among other things, he still needs to work on the "ě" in Matěje.
7. Dialog memorization
Each row is one line of a scripted conversation. The prompt is the preceding line that
cues you, the answer is the line you need to produce. Set both prompt and answer language
to Spanish. Work through the whole dialog until every line is automatic.
| Prompt (Spanish) | Answer (Spanish) |
|---|---|
| Buenos días, ¿qué desea? | Quisiera un café con leche, por favor |
| ¿Algo más? | No gracias, ¿cuánto es? |
| Son dos euros, por favor | Aquí tiene, gracias |
Both columns are in Spanish — you hear the other person's line, produce your response, then hear the correct version to compare. Work through the same dialog repeatedly until it becomes automatic.
[ and ] keys to adjust speed in small increments while listening. Slowing the audio to 75–80% can help with difficult pronunciation before working up to full speed.spanish-present-tense-lesson2.xlsx produces
spanish-present-tense-lesson2.mp3.1 Structured oral drills in the prompt-pause-response format were developed as a core technique of the audio-lingual method, widely adopted in language instruction from the 1950s onward, including by the U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI) for intensive diplomatic language training. While pure audio-lingualism has been largely superseded by communicative approaches, drilling of grammatical structures remains a component of most modern methods. The value of active production over passive exposure is supported by second language acquisition (SLA) research, notably Merrill Swain's Output Hypothesis, which argues that being pushed to produce language causes learners to notice gaps in their grammatical knowledge that comprehensible input alone may not reveal (Swain, 1985). Swain, M. (1985). Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development. In S. Gass & C. Madden (Eds.), Input in second language acquisition (pp. 235–253). Rowley, MA: Newbury House. For an accessible overview of second language acquisition research and classroom instruction, including the role of structured practice, see: Lightbown, P. & Spada, N. (2021). How Languages are Learned (5th ed.). Oxford University Press.
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