Headphones - great for listening to a podcast or ten!

Honest Podcast Pruning

Foreign language podcast episodes are fantastic language learning tools. But if you’re anything like me, you end up following far too many programmes to manage.

It’s great, of course, to have lots of choice. But what’s not so great is to get resource overwhelm when you have too many to count. Where to start?

It became pretty much do or die with my podcast list lately. I felt bogged down when I checked my podcast app. It seemed like there were just too many to catch up on. The crux of it: I just wasn’t listening to them any more.

Some pruning was in order.

Podcast Pruning

There’s a little self-honesty strategy you can try to prune your podcasts. Most podcast programmes have a ‘latest podcast’ list, which lists all episodes in order of recency. In iOS it looks like this:

A screenshot of podcasts listed by decency in iOS

The latest podcasts view on iOS

Now, go to play them from the top. No cheating. For each one, if your reaction is a reluctant, groaning must I? or can I just skip this one?, then your heart is probably not really in it. Of course, this isn’t a hard-and-fast acid test. There may be times when we are just not in the mood. But in my experience, that reeeeeally? wince is generally a sign that your interest isn’t fully committed.

So if our hearts aren’t really in it, what are these podcasts doing on our lists in the first place?

Well, it comes down to what we think we should be doing and what we want to be doing. There’s quite normative – even moralistic – sense of what ‘worthwhile’ language learning content is. That’s skewed by lots of outside influences that discount our personal interests. And, with learning, an invested, personal interest is key. There’s little point bashing your head against a brick wall with unmotivating content. Always ask will this content spark my interest beyond language learning?

So, the next time you find yourself avoiding your podcast app, or staring, uninspired, at a list of countless foreign language podcasts you have no desire to plough through, consider an honest podcast pruning!

Headphones - great for listening to a podcast or ten!

Podcast essentials: mining overseas charts

As a podcast junkie, I’m always looking for new sources and recommendations for foreign language programmes. So I was particularly excited to happen across the website iTunesCharts.net recently.

The site provides iTunes charts across a range of regional stores, including France, Germany and Spain. It lists all digital media, including songs, albums and TV programmes. But most usefully for linguaphiles, it compiles charts of the most popular podcasts in each country too.

It is possible to find this information yourself by switching your store region in  iTunes. However, iTunesCharts.net is quicker and easier if you study any of the clutch of ‘mainstream’ languages: French, German, Italian or Spanish.

Listening material that switches you on

The site addresses a common issue for linguists: finding interesting material in the target language. Not dry, sanitised language for learners, but engaging, entertaining programming in topics that grab our attention: the kind of stuff you’d listen to in your native language. And it’s current, up-to-date, regularly published material that can plug you straight into the culture of your target language country.

Here are direct links to some of its national podcast lists:

They are brilliant places to mine for listening material. Additionally, though, they offer a great way of finding out what’s currently popular where your language is spoken.

Podcast your life!

Podcast listening has been a bigger part of my own language learning strategy than ever in recent months. Instead of listening to programmes in my native language, I’ve tried to replace them with similar material in the target language. I don’t watch TV; instead, I make my foreign podcast picks my entertainment. It’s a conscious effort to bring language into my everyday, and not just the bit of my life labelled ‘learning time’. It’s all about living the language, rather than just studying it.

This is a great strategy particularly for languages in maintenance mode – languages you are already proficient in, but want to keep at a good level. German and Spanish will always be my strongest foreign languages, for example, being my degree languages. But through podcasts, I can actually enjoy keeping them strong and fresh.

Stretch yourself

That’s not to say that beginners can’t also gain a lot from a well-chosen podcast. In my own experience, my Norwegian comes on in fits and starts. I’d say I still hover around a B1/B2 in terms of proficiency. However, I love the NRK podcast Språkteigen. It’s a programme about language aimed at native Norwegian listeners, and it really stretches my comprehension.

But despite not being an advanced speaker, the topic switches me on enough to stay focused and enjoy each episode. Being a favourite topic of mine also helps; I can often guess new words from the context. It’s win-win: I regularly improve my Norwegian, and I learn lots about my favourite topic at the same time!

The iTunesCharts.net site is a real goldmine for the linguist. I now have more podcasts than I can fill my spare time with, but it’s always good to have choices! I hope you find something useful in there too.

 

Podcasts can be a perfect gateway to your own interests in the target language culture

Perfect podcast picks for language learners

The podcast has been a wonderful invention for the linguaphile. Just ten, twenty years ago, language aficionados would need all manner of equipment to tune in to overseas broadcasts. These days, thousands of them are just a click and a download away. All you need is a pair of headphones to immerse yourself in your foreign language, whenever, wherever.

However, as with many facets of modern life, the problem is often too much choice. How do you set about finding suitable native language podcasts as a learner? Some material might seem linguistically beyond your level, for example. And the topic matter is not always guaranteed to switch on your interest, either. News and current affairs programmes in French, for instance, may provide scant fun if you have enough of politics in your regular exposure to home news.

Personal interest as motivator

The best strategy comes in combining both those needs: accessibility and interest. If you hit upon some foreign-language content you are really interested in, a couple of magical things happen:

  1. You feel more motivated to focus on the language through personal interest
  2. You use your existing knowledge of the topic to make educated guesses about the language you don’t know

In short, if current affairs are not your thing, avoid the news podcasts. Even excellent learner resources like Deutsche Welle’s News in Slow German will be useless if you don’t get excited by the news. But if you’re learning French and love Motocross, then you’ll try really hard to get all the details from anything you find on the site Moto Verte!

I’ve seen the personal passion-motivator work for reading, too; as a language teacher, I’d regularly bring in target language magazines I’d picked up abroad. Suddenly, kids who were hard to reach in German class were poring over complicated texts in computer and football magazines, intrigued by the content. What’s more, they were managing to understand it through sheer determination. Personal interest sparks learning – almost by stealth.

Starting point: national broadcasters

When hunting podcasts, you do have to do a little digging to unearth the interesting content hiding behind the ubiquitous current affairs programmes. Fortunately, national broadcasters all over the world create heaps of it, on all sorts of topics. One of the best places to start on the search for the perfect podcast is by finding out the national broadcaster in your target language country; the Wikipedia list at this link is an excellent place to start.

After finding out which organisation produces content in your country of interest, you could just check out their website. Broadcaster websites aren’t always the easiest to navigate, though. And they can be a little overwhelming if you’re still not very confident in the language.

Instead, head to iTunes (or your podcast app of choice), and search for the broadcaster name under podcasts. It should throw out lots of options, like this search under Spanish broadcaster RTVE:

Podcast search on iTunes for RTVE, the Spanish national broadcaster

Podcast search on iTunes for RTVE, the Spanish national broadcaster

Some broadcasters are better than others, admittedly. Spanish learners are in luck, as RTVE has programmes from all walks of life. I love food (come on, who doesn’t?!) as well as health and fitness topics, so one of my personal favourites is weekly journal Alimento y salud (Food and Health). These are fields that many of us know a lot about from our own lives. So even when the language is fast and furious, I can usually fill the gaps with an educated guess.

The format is lively, too; recently, the programme ran a fascinating feature on space cuisine for orbiting astronauts. Great for individual learners, but also worth considering as an interesting listening task for classes!

Off the beaten podcast path

Podcast hunting is perfect for sourcing free, engaging material for off-the-beaten-path languages, too. This can be a major boon, given that listening material specifically for learners can be prohibitively expensive. The student CD to accompany the intermediate Norwegian course Stein på stein, for example, is over £20 – and that’s not including postage from Norway. Instead, a bit of mining can uncover a wealth of listening material for no cost at all.

That free material can be challenging, for sure. After all, it’s intended for native speakers, first and foremost. But if you hit on something you love, it can really switch you on to the target language.

As a Norwegian learner, I’m lucky that Norwegian broadcaster NRK has a great range of special interest programmes. One in particular – Språkteigen – is all about the quirks of language. I honestly can’t think of a better programme for a language geek to be practising Norwegian with!

Podcasts are an invaluable, immersive resource for language learners. I hope some of the tips above provide a good starting point for your own mining. And maybe, along the way, you’ll hit that gem – the foreign language podcast that you become a real fan of. There are few better ways of getting really switched on to your target language culture!