#25 How to Learn English with Podcasts｜English with Neil

Hello, listeners, and welcome back to the English with Neil podcast.

This is your host, Neil Humphrey.

And today I'm going to teach you how you can improve the four areas of language using podcasts.

Now, podcasts are a great way to improve your listening and comprehension skills, but you can also use podcasts to improve your pronunciation, reading and writing skills.

So by the end of today's episode, you will learn how to use podcasts to improve your listening speaking, reading and writing skills in English.

So without further ado, let's get started.

So first I'd like to talk about the first area of language.

And that is listening.

Podcasts are one of the easiest ways to improve your listening skills, because you have the opportunity to listen to native speakers speak about various topics in English.

And I like to use podcasts for learning languages for two reasons.

One, because you get a good variety of the speed of how English is spoken.

So with any language, We know that there are people who speak slowly, people who speak at a normal speed and people who speak very fast.

And the good thing about podcasts are that you get a good variety of different speakers.

I think I speak at a pretty normal speed, but I've listened to other English podcasts where the host is speaking very fast.

And some people might enjoy that if they want to listen to faster English.

You might hear fast English when you're watching movies or watching something on TV or a YouTuber.

So if you really want to improve your listening skills in the speed area, you might listen to a podcast where the host is speaking fast.

Another reason why I like podcasts for improving your listening is because you get a good variety of English that is spoken from different parts of the world.

So if you're listening to my podcast, you are listening to American English.

I was born and raised in California so I guess you can say I have a California accent.

But if you are listening from an American speaker from, let's say Texas, they might pronounce words a little differently.

That's the good thing.

That's a good thing for you as a listener.

You can listen to English from different parts of a country or different parts of the world.

For example, American English, British English, Australian English, New Zealand English, Malaysian English.

English from Singapore, so we know that English is an international language.

However, words are pronounced differently depending on the consonants or the area, So this is a good thing for you as a learner.

You get a good variety of different sounds and different speeds when you listen to English podcasts.

So that's one way we can improve that first area is listening.

Now the second area is we can improve our pronunciation skills.

So we can use this technique or this method called shadowing.

And you use shadowing to help you pronounce words like native speakers.

So shadowing is just a word basically meaning to listen and repeat.

So you'll listen to a sentence and then you'll repeat it back.

You'll listen to another sentence and you'll repeat it back.

That's called shadowing.

And this is a great way to... pronounce words like native speakers.

So let's say, for example, you are using my podcast.

You would basically listen to me and repeat it in your own words.

You can also do this with British English.

If you want to learn The British accent, you will listen to a podcaster who is from Britain or England and you will repeat the words how they pronounce it.

And this is a great way to improve your pronunciation skills using podcasts.

The third area. is the area of reading.

Now you might think, Neil, how can you improve your reading skills with podcasts?

Well, the great thing is, on most podcast applications, including YouTube, you can use something called a transcript, which is a text of the words that the host is saying.

So if you sign up to my membership at englishwithnealcom, there's a transcript of every episode so you can see in written form everything that I say.

And you can follow along as you listen to the podcast.

So you want to use the transcript to learn new vocabulary words and learn how to use words in context.

So it's kind of hard to learn new words, for example using a dictionary, because you only have the single word.

But when you use a transcript, you can see how that word is used in regular speech And then you can go OK, I know how to use this word now and I can use it in a different way, in my way.

So this is a great way for improving your reading skills is by using a transcript.

And I also want to just throw in a little bonus.

If you're learning a new word.

Let's say you learn a word like procrastination and you go.

What does procrastination mean?

I don't really understand it.

A good thing you can do now is you go to Google.

Go to Google.com.

Type in the word that the new vocabulary word, let's say procrastination.

You type in procrastination space sentence examples.

And then Google will give you a list of words that are used with procrastination.

And then you can see in further context how to use the word procrastination or the new word that you learn.

So this is something that is very helpful when learning.

Especially English, is to type in in Google the word space sentence examples and then you can see a whole list of sentences with the new words that you're learning.

So this is a great way to improve your reading skills with podcasts is by using transcripts.

Okay.

And the last area that I want to talk about is writing.

Neil, if podcasts, if you listen to a podcast, how do you improve your writing skills?

Well, this is great.

That's a great question.

You listen to the podcast and you're going to write a summary about what you listen to.

So you listen to the podcast.

You're going to take out a sheet of paper and you're going to write today, i learned about blah blah, blah.

What did you learn about?

Maybe you listen to a podcast about the world cup.

So on your paper, you can say today I learned about the World Cup.

It seems that these two teams are in the finals and I think this team is going to win because they have good defense, or I think this team will win because they have a strong offense.

And this is a great way to improve your writing skills with podcasts is by writing a summary in your own words about what you learned.

And so those are some tips or some methods that you can use to improve your English skills with podcasts.

Let me repeat them one more time.

So for listening, you can listen to different speakers from different parts of the world.

That's how you're going to improve your listening skills.

Number two, pronunciation, you're going to use shadowing and you're going to.

Listen to the host and then repeat back what they said.

That's how you're going to improve your pronunciation.

The next one, reading.

You're going to improve your reading skills by using a podcast transcript and you're going to learn new words and how they're used in context.

And the last area writing.

You're going to improve your writing skills by writing a summary about what you learned.

And those are some ways that you can use podcasts to improve these four areas of language.

So incorporate these study methods into your daily habit and you're going to see your English progress every single week.

So I hope that helped today, guys.

Thank you again for listening to the English with Neil podcast.

I look forward to speaking with you in episode 26 next week, everyone.

Take care and talk to you soon.

Peace.

[如何利用播客全面提升英語的聽、說、讀、寫能力]-[#25 How to Learn English with Podcasts]

📋 Summary

利用播客提升英語能力的全面指南

一、聽力（Listening）：體驗多樣化的語速與口音

二、發音（Pronunciation）：運用「影子跟讀法」

三、閱讀（Reading）：透過逐字稿深化語境學習

四、寫作（Writing）：撰寫總結以鞏固記憶

結語

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[如何利用播客全面提升英語的聽、說、讀、寫能力]-[#25 How to Learn English with Podcasts]

📋 Summary

利用播客提升英語能力的全面指南

一、 聽力（Listening）：體驗多樣化的語速與口音

二、 發音（Pronunciation）：運用「影子跟讀法」

三、 閱讀（Reading）：透過逐字稿深化語境學習

四、 寫作（Writing）：撰寫總結以鞏固記憶

結語

用 ListenLeap 深度學習