Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey English learners.
This is Connor and you're listening to episode 251 of the Listening Time podcast.
I hope you're doing well.
I hope your English learning is going great.
Today we're going to talk about different resources that help English learners or learners of other languages as well.
I did a YouTube video at full speed about this some time ago.
So I've talked about this before and I've mentioned some of these resources in the past, but This is always a good topic to talk about and I'm sure it will be interesting and relevant to you all, because you're all learning English, of course.
So it's good to know what types of resources that you can use and how you can use them.
And I have a special announcement, actually.
If you live anywhere near Anaheim, California anywhere in Southern California really and you're willing to drive to Anaheim and you want to go to an Easter church service at my church, then please message me on Instagram.
I'll leave the link down below for my Instagram, in case you don't have it, and send me a message and I'll give you some details.
I'd love to meet some of you if you live anywhere near Anaheim and You're looking for a church service to go to on Easter.
And there's also free breakfast that will be served before.
So you'll get free breakfast, good preaching at a church service on Easter.
And you can meet me and we can chat a little bit in English.
So if you're interested in that and you live anywhere near Anaheim or are willing to visit, Drive a little bit to go there.
Send me a message on Instagram and I'll give you more details about that.
And, of course, as always, if you want my advanced podcast episodes, make sure to become a listening time family member.
The link to sign up is down below.
And also check out my US Conversations podcast so you can practice listening to my conversations that I have with other people from around the country.
It's great practice for your listening.
Okay, let's talk about different resources that can help you learn English.
First of all, I want to talk about intermediate content, because I'm learning Greek right now and there is very, very little content available.
For people that aren't absolute beginners, there's very little content compared to in English or French or Spanish or many other languages.
So you should be thankful, as English learners, that you have intermediate content like this podcast or other resources, other podcasts or YouTube channels that help people that aren't just absolute beginners but people who can't just use native content comfortably.
So This type of content, like this podcast, is what I wish I had for Greek.
But there's very little content for modern Greek learners.
Particularly if you're not an absolute beginner, intermediate content is really valuable.
It's really useful because it helps you go from a beginner level to a more advanced level and it gives you that content that's in the middle that will help you progress along your journey.
So, of course, you already have my content, this podcast, my YouTube channel, but there's plenty of other good content for intermediate learners as well.
And that's great.
It Be thankful for it because I wish I had that content.
So, with this intermediate content or other content, maybe you're already starting to use more advanced content, like my advanced episodes or my US
Conversations, podcast or other native-level content, whatever content that you're using, one resource, a type of resource that is really valuable is the transcript.
So not every content has the transcript available unfortunately, but for example, my content has the transcript available and other intermediate content or even advanced content might have the transcript available and you should use it.
I use this as a language learner.
For example, I subscribed to a Greek teacher's Patreon, and so I have access to the transcripts for the different episodes, and I listen multiple times to the same episode using the transcript.
It's a very good tool.
I've talked about this many times before, but it's worth repeating.
Using repetition, especially with the transcript, is a really valuable method, a really good way to familiarize yourself with new words, new phrases, expressions, grammar, and just improve your listening.
And even like your pronunciation.
Just by hearing the same content over and over, it is a really good way to learn.
So I do this.
It helps me learn a lot.
It helps me improve my listening and expand my vocabulary.
So transcripts are a great tool and you should use them.
And maybe you don't have the transcript for a certain type of content.
Maybe it's a YouTube video without a transcript, but you can use the subtitles.
That's like similar to a transcript, but the words are on the screen.
Subtitles are also really helpful and the videos that I make on my YouTube channel they have subtitles and if a video doesn't have the subtitles like on the screen already, then you can use the automated subtitles that YouTube has.
So if you're just using a video to practice your English and it doesn't have subtitles built into the video, you can usually just activate the automated subtitles.
You click on the little button in the bottom right corner of the video.
And some people think that automated subtitles aren't good because they're automated.
They haven't been checked or corrected, but they're good.
Trust me.
They are really good.
Yeah, they're not 100% correct all the time, but they're very good.
You should use them.
Even if they're not absolutely perfect, it's okay.
Like you're still able to benefit from them.
And I use them all the time.
I've used them for different languages.
And most of the videos that I watch they don't have like corrected subtitles that the YouTuber has put there.
No, it's just the automated ones, but they work great for me.
So I think you should use them as well.
So transcripts and subtitles or the automated YouTube subtitles are really good tools.
Another resource that is really important for language learners is translators.
So which ones do I use?
Well, I use a combination of two translators.
I use Google Translate and Word Reference.
So some people make fun of Google translate that it's not very good.
It's good.
Okay.
It's gotten better over the years.
Uh yeah, it's not perfect, because it doesn't always have the exact context um, that you have, let's say, in your mind and it's just translating one sentence that you put in there and it doesn't have the wider context, so it doesn't know how exactly to translate it sometimes, but it's good.
Google Translate is good, especially for English And I use it all the time.
And like I said, I also use another translator, which is word reference.
So let me tell you how I do this.
So with Google Translate, I translate phrases and full sentences.
This is mainly how I use it.
So I use it for that.
But for individual words, I usually use Word Reference, which is a great translator.
It gives you all the different possible translations for that word, or many of the possible translations for that word.
So the way I use these together for example, like I use them a lot when I am writing or translating into my target language, or when I'm practicing my speaking by myself
So I will type a full sentence into Google Translate, or maybe a full paragraph, something that I want to be able to say in the language I'm learning.
And I see what Google Translate gives me, and then I corroborate this, meaning I check this with another resource to make sure it's good.
I corroborate this by looking up some of the individual words with word reference, because maybe Google Translate gives me a full sentence that looks good, but there's a word in there that I'm not quite familiar with, and so i look up that word on word reference and i see what the translation is in my language, in english, and then what i like to do is i like to click on that same word on word reference in my language, and then it will give me the translation in the language i'm learning, And then sometimes I see that it gives me different words from the word that Google Translate gave me.
So, even though it's a correct translation and even word reference gives me like the translation into English of that word and it's correct, when i actually look up the english word maybe there are other words that word reference would prefer to use for that word.
I hope that you understood that.
You followed me there.
It's kind of a way of seeing which words are more used or are more exact, precise for what i want to say.
So i like to use This combination.
I like to translate full sentences or phrases with Google Translate and then check some of the individual words with word reference.
I see the reverse translation to see if that word really is the most precise word that I want.
And so this works great for me.
And it's even better if you're learning English, probably because with English like, it even includes the pronunciation more often on word reference.
There's just better resources for English learners than for learners of other languages, like Greek, for example.
I have used the translator DeepL before and I think it's really good as well, but I just prefer using this combination of Google Translate and Word Reference right now.
But I think I used DeepL when I was translating my e-book, if I remember correctly.
So I have used that other one, but...
Nowadays, I just prefer this combination, like I said.
Another resource that I use that I've talked about a lot, but I like to repeat this because it's a very good resource.
It's the website link, L-I-N-G-Q, link.com.
This is great for reading.
There's also audio as well, but I use it primarily for reading and I pay for the premium version.
It's worth it.
If you have the free version, it's not really worth it.
In my opinion, you need to pay for the premium version.
And when you have the premium version, you have a whole library of texts in all these different languages.
Like you can learn multiple languages on this website and these texts are at different levels and you can even import your own texts.
Like you can import a news article that you want to read in english, for example, and you can import that text, you can copy and paste it, and so if you want to use material that is not already on the website, you can just import your own, you can just upload your own and then Now it's on the website.
And the way that it works is that you have a text and there's a built-in translator with multiple definitions for every word in the text.
So you don't have to keep looking up different words online and keep translating and copying and pasting.
You can just click on the word and it will tell you different possible definitions or, I should say, translations in your language of that word.
It's really, really useful, because one of the hardest things about reading in a foreign language is that it's just so hard to constantly look up all the new words, especially because when you read, there tend to be a lot of new words.
We encounter a lot of new words when we are engaged with the written form of a language, because there's often more formal words or very specific adjectives used or words, And not all the texts on this website are like originally in written form.
Sometimes they're just transcripts of audio.
So that's good as well.
But yeah, as I was saying, you have this built-in translator so you can just click on any word and it tells you what the different translations are and you can save your preferred translation so that if you encounter that word again and you click on it, it will tell you which translation you chose for that word.
And not only does it have a built in translator, but it also color coats the words meaning.
It turns them into a specific color, depending on whether or not you have already seen that word.
So if you have already seen that word and you didn't need to look up the translation, then it's just the normal word.
But if you have already seen that word and you had to look up the translation, you had to click on it to see the translation.
Then it turns that word yellow.
And then maybe if you see that word again and you see that it's yellow, and then you remember like oh,
I know what that word means.
It means blah, blah, blah.
And then you can click on it and put that you already know that word now, and then it will just become a regular word.
And then if you haven't seen a word before, if it's a new word, then it will be in blue.
So there's this system of colors, of normal words, yellow words and blue words, so that you can see which words you have already looked up, which words you already know, which words are new.
It's a cool system. i think and i use this to read in foreign languages sometimes i import things sometimes i just read the lessons that are there the different texts that are already on the website and it's just a great way to read it's a really good tool so i always recommend this because it just facilitates the reading process in another language so you should definitely check that out that's link l-i-n-g-q and one other resource that i have already mentioned before is anki or anki i don't know how people prefer to pronounce it but this is a flashcard app I use it specifically for French right now because I'm trying to fill in specific gaps in my speech of things that I have tried to say but I couldn't say.
And then I create a flashcard for that particular word or phrase that I wasn't able to say.
And I don't save like single words as flashcards usually.
I usually create a phrase or a sentence with that word inside it.
And usually it's the phrase or sentence that I tried to say but I couldn't say correctly, because there was a word that I couldn't say, or maybe there was a grammar concept that I didn't quite know.
And then I save that phrase or that sentence as a flashcard And I review these every day.
It doesn't take too long.
And the way that Anki or other flashcard apps often work is that they have this space repetition system where they show you the words or the phrases the flashcard when you're about to forget it maybe.
So it's like a specific time and it calculates this so that you're seeing the cards and reviewing the cards that you should probably review now because you're going to forget them soon if you don't possibly.
So I can't explain exactly how it works, but there's a system behind it and it shows you the cards at the optimal time.
So I think these are great tools and I know many people don't like flashcards.
I honestly didn't like flashcards in the past.
But this tool has actually been very useful for me.
There have been many times when I am talking to my French tutor and I say something that I learned from one of these flashcards.
So they work for me, even though I wasn't originally a big fan of flashcards.
They have been useful for me at this level in my French learning.
So I don't use this. at all levels of learning.
Like.
I don't use these flashcards for Greek right now, but in the future I probably will or I might use them the way I'm using them for French right now.
I might apply that same technique to Greek.
I'll see.
But I like Anki and I like the fact that you can review these whenever you want.
Maybe you're waiting in line.
Maybe you're doing something where you just have to kind of wait for something and instead of just doing nothing, you can review these flashcards.
And one note that I'll give about using flashcards like this is that this type of memorization works best for me when I'm actually gonna try to say these words afterwards or say these phrases afterwards.
So if I look for opportunities to say these phrases when I am talking to my French tutor or talking to myself,
This is how I can really solidify these new phrases in my head, in my mind.
So when you do flashcards, it's great to do them with the intent of actually saying these phrases, these sentences, your own speech later on it will help reinforce these things in your mind.
So those were some of the resources I wanted to talk about.
There are others, of course, but those are some of the ones that I use and hopefully this episode gave you some ideas about how you can use some of these resources.
Or, As I mentioned in the beginning of the episode, if you live anywhere near Anaheim California, and you want to go to an Easter church service at my church and you want free breakfast and you want to chat with me a little bit in English, then please send me a message on Instagram.
The link is down below.
It would be great to meet some of you.
So please send me a message if you're interested in that.
And of course, check out my advanced podcast episodes by becoming a Listening Time family member.
That link is down below.
And then you also have the link down below for my U.S.
Conversations podcast in which I talk to different people from around the country at full speed.
It's great practice for your listening.
All right.
Thank you all for listening to this episode.
And I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
