The thing is, the dialogue has to be short to really stick to your brain!

Like, less than a minute.

Repetition is key, and if the text is too long, it’s not repeated enough.

To me, it’s not mind-numbing until I can “sing along” because I know it by heart. And then I move on to the next, slightly harder, text.

You don’t have to always listen to it actively, you can put it in while doing other work.

Some language self-learner books are better than others.

I'd really like to give this method a go. I'm trying to learn French and struggling with the listening component. Do you have any sources for dialogues that you used?

I used the Langenscheidt and PONS courses for Polish in the past. But I think they are only available in German.

Ah okay. I think most of the dialogues from the books I'm thinking of were between 3-5 minutes. Something shorter might work better, indeed.