Exploring the world of podcasts...

PODCASTS...somewhere I’ve already heard of them, but this is certainly the first time I get in touch with this new tool Sarah suggested to us! Well, I have to say that searching for some interesting podcasts at first took me a lot of time because I couldn't easily find, open and download the podcasts I wanted to listen to, maybe because of my old computer... but finally, guys, I got it! :-D

Exploring the search engines Google, Odeo and del.icio.us, I was really struck by the number of podcasts I found and I must confess that it was very hard for me to choose only three of them…anyway, I hope you find them interesting and useful for your English learning! ;-)

The first website I chose to visit is betteratenglish because it’s very well-organized and clear: podcasts are divided into sections according to categories, topics and levels, so even an inexpert learner can easily find what he/she is searching for! Besides, the latest podcasts are separated from the less recent ones, which you can find under the section archives..so if you miss an episode of a podcast you were particularly interested in, you can immediately find it by simply clicking on the link!
I chose to click on Real English conversations and I listened to an informal discussion about television between a British and an American English Native speaker, in particular dealing with tv commercials: I found it very useful because through a simple dialogue I've learnt important differences between British ad American English (such as talking about advertising, Americans say commercials while British people say adverts) as well as phrasal verbs I didn’t know (i.e. to go about, put up with, see through it) and idioms, like don’t get me started, which means that if you start talking about a certain topic, nobody will be able to stop you!

Moreover, besides podcasts concerning everyday situations, you can also find those dealing with business English: I listened to some of them (try this just for curiosity’s sake!) and I must say that despite what I thought, they can be understood without any difficulty and very useful to enlarge our business vocabulary as well! ;-)

To listen to more informal podcasts, from this website I went to www.china232.com, which was created by two American guys: even though it’s not as complete and well-organized as the first one, I really liked it because there are a lot of interesting and funny podcasts: each of them include the transcript of the podcasts added with explanations of complicated words and expressions as well as further discussions about the topic! This way, they perfectly combine fun with learning! For example, I listened to a conversation about vacation plans, which tells the problem of a guy who wants to postpone his trip to Hawaii but the travel agent refused permission, saying that the trip was non-refundable and non-transferable. I think this podcast is very useful because there are very clear explanations of the words and idioms with plenty of examples taken from everyday language (for example to explain the meaning of the expression to bend the rules and something came up). Moreover, for each podcast a further discussion about the topic is provided, so that you can get a deeper understanding of the situation and know a little bit more about American culture. What else could you want??! ;-)

Finally, the third website I visited was eslpod.com: it offers a wide variety of interesting and informal podcasts dealing with common situations which can be easily understood by any kind of learners. Among them I chose to listen to this, in which husband and wife have a discussion about the character of their neighbor: by simply listening to this brief conversation I’ve learnt a lot of new sayings and words, such as to shoot the breeze (i.e. to have a conversation in an informal way), busybody (i.e. a person who is too interested in what other people are doing) and to be entitled to something (i.e. to have the right to do something). Besides, the fact that they speak very slow helped me a lot to have a more complete understanding!

Let me know what you think about the three podcasts I chose,
See you soon!
bye