Podcasts in English

Hey English learners–

I had an idea to share some of my favorite podcasts with you, in case you wanted to practice your listening skills. It’s great if you’re on the go! You can listen on the train to work, while you’re cleaning your room, in the bathroom… the world is your oyster. Anyway, I would really recommend the podcast “The Daily” it talks about current events, usually in the United States, from the day before. The podcast is usually around 20-30 minutes long. I also really like a podcast called “Radio Lab” it comes out less frequently, but there are many old episodes you can listen to! It usually explores topics related to science and technology. Finally, I like a podcast called “Lingthusiasm” where two women talk about topics related to, you guessed it, linguistics. It comes out once a month I think.

Let me know in the comments if there are other podcasts you like to listen to!

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I have a recommendation that isn’t necessarily for English learners but is very interesting if you like listening to stories. It’s called StoryCorps. The stories are pretty short and there are lot of different accents to practice your listening skill with!

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If you’re interested in random stories about the Internet, one of my favorites is Reply All (Their “Is Facebook listening to me?” episode got me hooked!). Another very conversational podcast is Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - he interviews celebrities and asks emotional questions that wouldn’t necessarily ever be asked in a regular interview.

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Thanks for sharing this post, Zoe! I’m also a fan of Radio Lab.

I can also recommend the TED Radio Hour podcast - it focuses on one topic for the whole one-hour podcast, but it refers to a number of different TED talks throughout the show. It’s very stimulating and is great for picking up a range of vocabulary on different topics.

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zmsc42, listen to podcasts is a great thing for sure. But I would also consider about watching your favorite films or sitcoms in English, and if you need - enabling subtitles. Talking of online learning, maybe it would be also great to have an English lesson online from resource called Preply. I have read a lot of positive comments and reviews about this resource, and it looks like they have professional linguists in their database.

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I would definitely second your recommendation of “The Daily”. Here’s my additional recommendation:

“Code Switch” is an NPR (National Public Radio, a wonderful producer of American radio and podcasts) that talks about how race affects different parts of society, including politics, pop culture, media, history, etc. Episodes range from 15 to 75 minutes.

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I would recommend “Race Chaser” for any fans of Rupaul’s Drag Race. Two of the ex contestants (Alaska and Willam) go through each episode and discuss it with each other and sometimes give behind the scenes info! Definitely entertaining :slight_smile:

Have you heard? Chatterbug has a new podcast for English learners!

Hot As Ice” is a fiction story about three young flatmates living a somewhat quiet life in London until a mysterious parcel sent to the wrong recipient arrives on their doorstep and completely disrupts their life. At the end of each episode, our hosts go over the key moments of the story and analyse the most important expressions and language structures used by the characters in the story.

If you’re an advanced English learner who wants to boost your skills, or maybe you haven’t practised in a while and you’d like to refresh, check out out Hot As Ice now!

You can listen to the podcast trailer here.

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Hey @ZiRo!
Here are some podcasts that have been recommended by other English tutors and students. Even Chatterbug has their own podcast now! :star_struck:

I’ve also found some other podcasts that might be interesting for you:

:one: Listen and Learn: Their stories are between 1-5 min long. While listening, you can try out your skills by filling in the blanks of the transcript and afterwards answer questions about the content.
:two: BBC Learning English: Here you can choose your English level and listen to stories. Afterwards, you can do some activities to see if you’ve understood the text.
:three: PlayerFM: On this page you can find a list of different podcasts you can check out.

Hope this helps!

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Thank you for your recommendations , they’re very good ! :slightly_smiling_face:

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