iPod resources for advanced English learners or anyone who understands English.

There was an interesting article in today's National Post by Robert Fulford where he discusses some very interesting podcast services on a variety of subjects. Here are the links to the podcasts. It is less trouble for everyone if I find the links and put them here. One of the benefits of the internet. We can easily do things for each other.

Melvyn Bragg

New Yorker

Scientific American

Selected shorts

New York Review of Books

Hardcore History

Philosophers Zone

National Post

I would love to see a list of similar resources for other languages. I am already using some great resources for Portuguese(TSF) , (Cafe Brasil ,)Spanish (COPE) and Russian (Echo Moskvi). There are no doubt others. The problem is always the lack of transcripts for those people who cannot quite follow along. Maybe one day these sites will realize the benefits of providing transcripts.

Anyone out there with some more good podcasts in different languages?

Comments

[Shawn]

A good Spanish resource is Notes in Spanish. They offer podcasts averaging about fifteen minutes more or less at the beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels (the beginner level has some english in it). They also offer transcripts for a fee, which I havn't tried.

[Sven]

Hello Steve Kaufmann. thanks for the information. there is only one thing . i cant open the suggestions. i get one error. it is only availaple for american people ? thanks in advance

[Steve Kaufmann]

Sven, I had not realized that the links did not work. I went and googled them and put up the links. What are the leading serious podcasts in German or other languages that you know about?

[john]

Le magazine de la presse internationale: a great resource for listening to french (although it's not a podcast) is a weekly news programme called 'Kiosque'. It features journalists from several different countries - but the language they have in common is french and you will hear it spoken in many accents. The content is really interesting too, which as you know is the main thing.
The video changes weekly and is online at http://www.tv5.org/TV5Site/kiosque/

Bonnie

[William]

Personally, I love National Public Radio's (NPR), "Talk of the Nation" and "Fresh Air" -- both about a variety of subjects related to American life (politics, the arts, TV, books, culture, history, music...etc). Since it usually consists of interviews (and listener call-ins on "talk of the Nation"), it might be appropriate for advanced learners, although some subjects might require quite a bit of background knowledge about American life.

http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=5

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=13

[Sven]

Hello Steve Kaufmann, thank you for your support. Now i can find your interesting links and its very good podcasts. Which podcasts do I prefer personally ? Hm...
For german : It's my mother so i dont need any special ones.. I will look at the internet and then i give you some ideas which ones are good for german learners.
For french : Coffee Preak French ( starter and intermediate ) and yours LINQ ( i find the conversations very well :) Radio Canada
For english : Effortless English and of course yours LINQ
For japanese : Effortless Japanese
For spanish : I haven't look for such podcasts. The same also for Italian. I have used the old way to learn these language. And you can imagine my level is weak for this reason.
If I find some new podcasts I will let you know.
It's a pity that you dont visit Germany or France. It would pe a dream of me meeting you personally .. you have a very good system for learning.. I love it ..
Do you have an idea for improving writing skills in english and french ?
Wish you a nice day in Europe !!

[mario goffredo]

Hi Steve thanks for your great work for all of us who are learning english and other languages.
I often use podcasts in order to improve my english knowledge. Of course I follow Your pod because i agree with your "philosophy" of teaching and in this sense I want to point out another great english pod that is Luke's English podcast. It is available on Itunes of course.Luke is a British teacher. His podcast is brilliant and stimulating ! Do you wnow him and what do you think about?
Thanks
Mario Goffredo from Trieste Italia

[Steve Kaufmann]

I am more interested in podcasts which are intended for native speakers. I prefer to listen to such podcasts in the languages that I am learning. I will do another list of all the podcasts that we have at LingQ that are in natural language, and not spoken slowly for learners. They all have transcripts and can all be studied using the LingQ system. I find this more effective than listening to content designed for learners, once we are at least at an intermediate level.

[Steve Kaufmann]

The next time I visit Germany I will let you know, Sven and thanks for the nice comments.

[lyzazel]

For people who can afford it and learn English, I can't recommend taking courses from the Teaching Company (teach12.com) enough. They have courses on virtually all major topics and I would absolutely still take them even if I was a native speaker. The courses have helped me a lot to improve my English.

I wish there was something like that in other languages as well.

[Vera]

As you know, I created some documents with helpful informations for learners of German. One document include information about podcasts (with and without transcript), and where you can find German podcasts: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgpj8nz7_10gk7d6fgn

[Hans-Peter]

Steve, thanks a lot for the podcast services links (and your whole blog which I read regularly).

There are so many possibilities today - but how do I select “input” (texts, podcasts, tv, movies) that fits my current level, i.e. that is both challenging and not discouraging?
Beside all organisational aspects this is IMHO the greatest problem for an “input” method learner.

Can you give some advice? Thanks in advance.

Hans-Peter from Germany

[Vera]

Hallo Hans-Peter,

bei LingQ findet man jede Menge Podcasts und andere interessante Beiträge. Die Beiträge sind klassifiziert nach Niveau. Besonders gut ist aber, dass LingQ sich merkt, welche Worte man schon gelernt hat. In der Bibliothekssuche sieht man dann die Anzahl oder den Prozentsatz der neuen Wörter eines Beitrages. Bei den ersten 10-20 Texten, ist dieser Wert noch nicht so aussagekräftig, da LingQ nur die Worte berücksichtigen kann, die in den bei LingQ bearbeiteten Beiträgen schon vorkamen. Aber mit der Anzahl der bearbeiteten Beiträge stimmt das immer besser mit dem tatsächlichen Wissen überein.

Ansonsten hilft nur ausprobieren. In der Regel ist es so, dass sich das Niveau innerhalb einer Podcastserie sich nicht dramatisch ändert.

Viel wichtiger ist aber, dass man Inhalte aussucht, die einem gefallen und die einen interessieren! Das ist für mich der positivste Aspekt des inputbasierten Lernens.

Viel Spaß beim Lernen!

[Steve Kaufmann]

I totally agree with Vera's comments.

One of the advantages of LingQ is that so much of the searching for input is already done for you. There is lots of content there and it is graded for difficulty. In many cases we are able to obtain permission from podcasters to use their material in our Library. Vera has done this for some leading German language podcasts,a and she has produced the transcripts herself. Our German language resources are quite amazing.

On the other hand, there are podcasts that we cannot import into LingQ or where transcripts are not available. If there are transcripts members can still import them into LingQ for their own use and see what the % of new words is and judge the difficulty.

However, the key is interest. I find that I tend to concentrate on one source at a time.Then as my interest changes, I go on to something else.

[Nathan]

The Goethe Institute and Deutsche Welle are the two best sources (that I know of) for German podcasts that I've found. I especially enjoy the Goethe Institute's Popcast.

Voice of America also has good podcasts for many languages, including Special English. I've listened to their Cambodian podcasts.

[Vera]

Hi Nathan, No question that Deutsche Welle and Goethe Institute offers great sources. No wonder because they get a lot of money as you can read on the website of Goethe Institute: "Dafür gewährt die öffentliche Hand eine großzügige Zuwendung." The tax payers pay for the service. Unfortunately they give not the permission to use their materials on LingQ. Goethe Institute wants to earn money itself.

I listened to Popcast that you mentioned. The speaker spoke English, and some of the songs come without lyric or only a few words. I think it's fine if you like it and you should listen to podcasts that you like, but do you have the feeling it helps you with your learning?

I created a document with more useful sources of German: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgpj8nz7_7dmvbh6hr Did you checked it? By the way, all German radio stations offer interesting podcasts. Or check the portals with podcasts.

[Nathan]

You are right that the popcast has too much English and not enough lyrical music, but it usually does introduce some German performers who are singing in German. I often don't know where to look for new stuff, but once I've found it (through Popcast or anywhere else), I can use youtube, TubeRadio.fm or another service to find more from that performer.

So indirectly, yes, Popcast does help me with my German.

[Donald]

For Spanish, I like BBC Mundo. They put out a roughly 15 minute international news broadcast every day. A nice way to get your news in the morning.

[Nathan]

I looked at your list. I'd have liked to see more links to authentic materials (such as links to the radio stations you mentioned) rather than just to dictionary and grammar sights. Those are useful but etwas langweilig, nicht wahr?

[Steve Kaufmann]

Nathan,

I make typos because I am old. What are grammar sights?

As to what you would like to see in terms of German resources, there are a lot of great podcast at LingQ, most of which have been sourced by Vera, the transcript provided by Vera, and permission obtained from the podcaster by Vera. All of us at LingQ use these thanks to Vera's efforts. Her list of German language resources is used by a lot of people.

Now if you would like to see more links to authentic materials, I would suggest that you look for them yourself and then be so kind as to share them with others, here or elsewhere.

[Vera]

Hi Nathan,
sorry, it was the wrong Link. The correct Link to the sources is http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgpj8nz7_10gk7d6fgn

[Vera]

Steve, I created a lot of documents, and the first Link that I posted was the Link to a document with some helping tools. The second Link is the correct Link. In this document are Links to podcasts, podcasts portals, news papers, books etc.

[Esther W]

Thanks for your valuable information. These are my favoriate sites:
http://www.spanishpodcast.org/
http://teachinglearningspanish.blogspot.com/
http://teresasanchez.biz/podcast/

^^ I really love language! Spanish, English and Chinese.
I would like to know more about French and Russian. ^^