Educational audio recordings for intermediate English. Modern listening in English

One reader of the Lingualeo blog came up with a cool idea - to write an article with interesting audio recordings in English for beginners. We immediately included it in the plan.

The reason for this haste: we, that it is important to devote time to developing listening skills, to regularly practice understanding English speech. But they also wrote that you need to use audio of your level, where ≈ 80% of the vocabulary is understandable.

Therefore, we have put together simple podcasts and dialogues so that beginners have training materials.

Audio: English for beginners listen online for free

Our article includes 10 audio files for English levels from beginner to pre-intermediate. By listening to recordings of simple dialogues from typical life situations, you will learn to understand English by ear and remember useful phrases to keep the conversation going.

1. Humble Beginnings, or Listening in English for “first graders”

A trip abroad is approaching, and you haven't started learning the English alphabet yet? Does the conversation of foreigners resemble continuous noise with rare fragments of familiar words? Short dialogues from englishspeak.com will help you introduce yourself in English and tell about yourself.

Conclusion: English texts with audio for beginners

We have shared cool listening materials in English, now it's up to you! We prescribe 15 minutes of listening to English speech daily with a gradual increase in difficulty - and success in conquering the English language is guaranteed (if you try the same way in reading, speaking and writing, of course).

By the way, useful information about “pumping” other skills: we have already written, how we have compiled a selection of books for and, shared a list of and talked about the best ways to learn and.

If you also have a topic for a blog article - write in the comments! We will fulfill your wish. 🙂 Bye!

What associations do you have with the word "auditing"? Is this something boring from school? A set of complex exercises for ear training? Endless rewinding of a stuck cassette? Listening has changed a long time ago, and we will prove it. In this article, you will learn: the benefits of listening classes, how to properly learn English from audio materials, what types of podcasts are, is there an award for audio series, and where to look for a spoken radio show.

Why you need to do auditing and is it worth it at all

Many English learners complain that they have a hard time understanding native speakers. If your interlocutor's speech is too fast and full of colloquial and dialectal words, how can everyone get the point? Perhaps you were offered a cup of tea, and you took these words for threats. To avoid embarrassment, you need to practice, even if you do not live abroad or do not visit there regularly.

How exactly to practice? There are many videos available on the Internet. But what to do when there is no video sequence and subtitles? We are accustomed to always rely on these helpers. They can also become a crutch, without which you will not understand speech by ear. Therefore, it is so important to train your perception of speech without pictures and text. Such exercises are called listening.

Where in real life can these skills come in handy? For example, you will have to chat with a person via Skype without a webcam or by phone. Another case: in the museum you will be offered an audio guide in English, but out of habit you will not understand the speaker. The simplest situation: on the way to work, you want to listen to the music of your favorite artist or an audiobook in the original language.

If you want to overcome the auditory barrier, practice modern listening. Podcasts, audio series and radio shows in English will help you.

What are the advantages of audio materials in English

1. You get used to how connected English sounds.

To better understand English-speaking people, you need to listen to their conversations more often. To get started, choose short, slow-paced instructional audio recordings. Then move on to audio material from real conversations of native speakers. Thus, you will learn the features of intonation, pronunciation of sounds, placing stress in words, arranging logical pauses.

2. You listen to modern speech

Many of the materials on which we were engaged in listening at school are morally outdated. They play out irrelevant situations. The vocabulary of the characters is too bookish. As a result, we get unnatural dialogues. Modern listening makes it possible to learn an ever-changing living language.

3. You get used to different accents in English

Pronunciation depends on national characteristics. The English of the Hindu, Chinese and French are quite different by ear. Listen to examples:

Resident of India:

Resident of Burkina Faso (native language - French):

Spanish resident:

Chinese resident:

You can learn to understand any accent well. Listen and get used to different pronunciation features.

4. You will learn how to use new vocabulary correctly

In order for the vocabulary on a new topic to be firmly planted in your mind, it is not enough just to memorize the words. You need to know in what context carriers use them in life. For example, you have mastered. After that, listen to a few podcasts for programmers, so theory is complemented by practice.

5. You learn grammar by doing

Modern listening will teach you to listen to abbreviated grammatical constructions and help you understand the application of rules in context. You can also make sure whether the speakers really use such a difficult time as the Past Perfect Continuous, or whether the teachers tortured you in vain.

6. You train concentration

In the age of smartphone addiction and tabletization, we are accustomed to perceive information visually. But if you want to improve your concentration, then the best challenge for you will be audio materials in English. This is the double work of the brain: to change the usual information channel for a sound one and to process the speech of a foreigner. The more interesting!

7. You expand your horizons

You can select podcasts, audio series, and radio shows based on your interests. Learn a new trend in the profession or a popular slang word - flash in front of friends and colleagues.

8. You study where it suits you.

Whether you're driving, on a treadmill, on a plane or at the beach, you can still keep practicing English. There would be a desire, but ears and equipment will follow.

A moment of wisdom from the character of the film Quentin Tarantino.

You "d be surprised what happens if people just listen... without succumbing to all that pain and anger.

You'd be surprised what happens if people just listen... without giving in to all the pain and anger.

How to learn English from audio materials

1. Choose the right level of engaging material

Has it ever happened to you that someone played a recording from an American comedian's stand-up, and you, understanding at best a couple of words, still politely giggled? It happens with many. Stand-ups are characterized by a lot of slang and complex puns. It is better to put them aside for a while and choose audio materials of your level.

2. Find the best podcast experience for you

You can simply listen to audio recordings in your spare time, or use another tactic:

• Listen to the audio material and try to understand as much information as possible from it. If this is difficult to do, try to capture the main idea of ​​the entry.
• Find the text of the entry, read it and translate all the unfamiliar phrases for you.
• Turn on the audio recording again and try to catch the text you already know by ear.
• Retell what you heard to friends, family or yourself in the mirror, trying to imitate the speaker's speech.

This tactic is not as time consuming as it seems. You will spend 15-20 minutes to analyze a five-minute audio material.

3. Understand unfamiliar words and grammatical structures

Work with new material. We met unfamiliar vocabulary, look for it in compatibility dictionaries, new constructions in grammar books. After that, try to make some sentences with them.

4. Make things harder

Let's say you've started to easily understand the speech of the leading entry-level educational podcasts. It's great, but you can't rest on your laurels. Choose more complex materials, throw yourself new challenges. This is how you can progress.

Listen to how the same news sounds, adapted for beginners, intermediate level people and unadapted for advanced level:

First level:

Average level:

High level:

Modern listening materials

Podcasts

A podcast is one or a whole series of audio files. Educational podcasts cover a wide variety of topics. Author's non-adapted podcasts are devoted to one topic and are released on a regular basis. Listen to the movie podcast trailer to see what we're offering.

Educational podcasts:

• LearnEnglish Podcasts - 10-15 minute podcasts for levels and from the British Council. The site contains materials with simple vocabulary, but a fairly fast pace of speech. Any podcast and transcript (text) can be downloaded for free. Each audio recording is accompanied by a test and several tasks with which you can check how well you understood what you heard. In addition to podcasts on general topics, here you will find materials for learning business English.
• Luke's ENGLISH Podcast - podcasts from English teacher and part-time stand-up comedian Luke Thompson. Since 2009, his website has accumulated 490 episodes with transcripts. At the end of each issue you will find a useful vocabulary, sometimes - grammatical constructions from the lesson.
• Voice of America Learning English - American podcasts adapted for language learning. Here you will find the latest political, cultural and scientific news, short stories, origin stories of idioms. The pace of the speakers is moderate and will allow you to make out all the words. In addition, the most necessary vocabulary is highlighted in transcripts and placed in a separate list of Words in This Story.
• Business English Pod - Business English podcasts that teach you how to speak on the phone, make presentations, increase sales and more. You can listen to podcasts for free, but for many audio recordings, transcripts, tests, and other materials are available only with the purchase of a subscription.
• Hellenic American Union - themed podcasts with pdf files that you can download freely. Each file contains a transcript, images, a glossary, and key exercises.

Unadapted podcasts:

• BBC Podcasts - Podcasts from 5 to 60 minutes long for level and above. You can download all audio materials for free. But each entry has a kind of expiration date, after which it is removed from the site.
• TED Radio Hour and Ted Talks Daily are projects based on famous conferences and educational videos from TED Talks. Each issue consists of one or more interviews on a common topic.
• iHeartRadio - here you can find thematic podcasts collected from different portals.
• Player FM is a platform that collects podcasts on any topic that you might think of.
• Radio Wolfgang is not just podcasts, but a whole community of people creating a new media format. Participants propose topics of interest to them and choose the best ones by voting. Podcasts are developed on the winning topics. There is a lot of documentary and scientific material, entertainment content and stories of individuals.
• On the Podcast Awards site, you can find the best non-adapted podcasts.

Audio series

In our country, few people know about audio series, but they are extremely popular abroad. Short and long audio dramas, just like their video counterparts, come out for whole seasons and gather a lot of fans. Most of them are freely available. The only but - rare audio serials are supplied with transcripts. Therefore, such materials are usually suitable for students with an Intermediate level and above. Keep in mind that some shows have age and other restrictions. Warnings sound at the beginning of each episode.

Best Audio Dramas:

• Bronzeville is a stylish series about Chicago in the 40s. One of the main roles is voiced by Laurence Fishburne, aka Morpheus from The Matrix. What we have: a specific African-American accent to train your ear and amazing jazz music as a bonus. You can listen to all episodes by following this link. And the trailer for the series.
• Wooden Overcoats is a British Podcast Awards winner, a British series about the rivalry between two undertakers. Almost Bezenchuk and "Nymph", only in the English way. You can listen to the trailer.
• The Once and Future Nerd is an award-winning fantasy television series. The audio drama is interesting in that each release is accompanied by a script in pdf. You can listen to the trailer for the series by clicking on the link.
• Our Fair City is a post-apocalyptic audio drama with short episodes of 10-15 minutes. The creators continue to release new seasons, the first two of them are accompanied by transcripts. As a bonus, comics are included with the series.

• MarsCorp is a comedy series about the Red Planet. Twelve episodes of 40-45 minutes.

• We're alive is one of the best survival horror series. Over 60 million downloads, awards for best production, screenplay and acting. You can listen to the trailer.
• The Truth - short novels 10-20 minutes long from theater figures from New York. The audio drama has been around for 20 years. You can listen to the trailer for the series by clicking on the link.

Audio series selections:

• Check out the Audio Verse Awards website for a list of the best audio dramas from the past year.
• On Twitter, the hashtag #AudioDramaSunday is responsible for a selection of the most notable audio series.
• You can select a series based on a short trailer on the Audio Drama Production Podcast.
• Look for news, teasers and short reviews of serial novelties at Audiotainment News.
• You will find quite a lot of audio dramas on the already familiar Player FM.

radio show

Radio broadcasts are not only a source of new music. There are many worthy author's talk shows on foreign radio channels. Professional journalists with good diction create high-quality content that is convenient for learning spoken English. As with audio dramas, radio shows rarely contain transcripts, so this type of modern listening is suitable for the Intermediate level and above.

Top radio stations:

• BBC Radio is a British radio station for everyone who learns English. Here you will find a variety of gear for every taste. BBC Radio 4 is a separate product of the BBC, not aimed at broadcasting music, but about discussing the broadest topics: food, travel, book reviews, etc. BBC Ulster (Ulster - a city in Northern Ireland) and other local BBC divisions will give you an idea about English dialects. The Irish differ from the English in a specific pronunciation, their dialect is quite difficult to understand out of habit. But the presenters, as professionals in their field, speak better than most citizens, so we advise you to train on their radio show.
• Bloomberg Radio is an American business radio station. The best portal for learning English about business and finance. 2700 journalists from 120 countries select the latest materials for you 24/7. You can select and listen to the program in the Shows tab.
• ABC Radio is an Australian radio station with programs divided into categories: news, community affairs, entertainment, culture, science, etc. Each episode lasts from 6 minutes to one hour, contains interviews with different personalities and the presenter's point of view on the issue. is a popular American radio show with transcripts. Each issue is dedicated to a specific topic. It is revealed through various stories and situations that happened to real people in the real world. our online English school.

Our Intermediate English courses provide users with a unique audio-learning English experience. This approach will "pump" listening and help to cope with phonetic difficulties in pronunciation. The program provides a language base that will allow you to pass an interview, write an application, draw up a resume and even read an unadapted text.

Our English courses "for advanced" are accompanied by interesting exercises for the development of different skills - students will be able to replenish their vocabulary with a couple of thousand more words, learn a few more verb tenses and passive voice, read a lot of texts and write dictations. Listening to English speech is at least 50% of the training time.

❶ You have already learned English at school, in courses, via Skype or at a university, but you do not have confidence in your knowledge;

❷ You feel a language barrier, despite a good vocabulary and knowledge of grammar;

❸ You confuse grammatical structures, use many words incorrectly;

❹ Possess a meager active vocabulary of up to 1000 words.

Fluency in English opens many doors and new opportunities. People learn pre-intermediate level of English in order to communicate, read books in the original, travel and feel comfortable anywhere in the world.

If you like this feeling of freedom, now you can expand your horizons and learn English online to improve the knowledge you have previously learned. Thanks to audio texts with subtle humor, you can easily master the grammar and be able to replenish your vocabulary. At the same time, the perception of sounding speech, the correct pronunciation of words and entire structures are honed, writing and translation skills are trained.

Training with a course "Intermediate - Pre-intermediate" will bring, in addition to benefits, great pleasure!

What does the course include?

The course "Intermediate - Pre-intermediate" consists of 46 lessons. This is not just an English course for beginners, but a comprehensive methodology. Lessons are arranged according to the principle “from simple to complex”. You gradually immerse yourself in new topics and very soon feel the result. After completing this course, you begin a deeper study of the language.

Each lesson includes 5 interactive exercises. They are aimed at improving basic skills: listening, reading, writing, vocabulary, translation and correct pronunciation. One lesson a day allows you to improve knowledge. You will notice progress as you go through the training, you will feel a surge of energy and a desire to continue moving towards your goal. Feel how much easier it becomes to write, read and speak!

Grammar load. You will learn the most common tenses of the English verb. Group tenses are actively used in the course Simple, Present Continuous and Present Perfect. In some lessons there are constructions with a passive voice. You will get to know English participle and gerund. Learn to build conditional sentences correctly. Continue learning modal verbs. Consolidate the knowledge gained at the initial stage.

As a lexical load in the course "Intermediate - Pre-intermediate" are given 1500-2000 most frequently used words. You will learn word forms, some idioms and phrasal verbs. The simulator, which you can also find on our website, will help you work out listening and pronunciation of more complex words.

After completing Pre-intermediate training, you will be able to replenish your vocabulary by at least 600 new words. Learning English is methodologically structured in such a way that you gradually enrich your vocabulary, as well as memorize the use and spelling of words in different speech situations. Each lesson is additional words in the piggy bank of your vocabulary.

We recommend that you devote at least 30 minutes a day. This time will be enough to learn all the necessary material. Regular practice is the key to success. Complete the "Intermediate - PRE-INTERMADIATE" course, doing 30 minutes daily! And continue to learn English with Lim-English in a format that is comfortable for you!

Course objectives: to listen to English and understand it

Deepen your knowledge of basic conversational topics

You already know a lot, but something is missing for you to start active communication? The main goal of the "Intermediate - PRE-INTERMEDIATE" course is immersion in new topics. You will learn to understand announcements in public places, labels on products. You will be able to write personal letters or postcards, read and retell short texts. You will learn to express your thoughts and opinions on various issues.

Improve knowledge of grammar

Is your speech boring and monotonous? Until you learn how to use new, more complex grammatical structures - passive voice, modal verbs, conditional sentences, and more - it's hard to talk about developing language skills. Therefore, in this course, examples of more complex structures are considered, the knowledge of which will give you confidence and greatly diversify your speech.

Comprehensive Skills Training

The uniqueness of the teaching method in Lim-English is that in each lesson all the necessary skills for knowledge of the English language are trained. Unlike many courses, our English courses train listening comprehension as well as writing, reading, translation, pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. Only complex training makes training effective.

What will you get with an Intermediate English course?

Recognition of new grammatical categories.

At this level, many simple rules have already been mastered and well practiced, it's time for more difficult topics - passive voice, conditional sentences and modal verbs. These and some other topics are among the 46 lessons with English voice acting.

Improving speaking and writing skills.

Pre-intermediate level of English assumes speech skills higher than at the so-called "survival level". Therefore, the methodologists during the lessons deepen the knowledge of students on standard topics and include in the study some more rare topics and expressions to them. The course will be a real gift for those who want to not only practice writing, but also listen to English in order to work with phonetic aspects.

An integrated approach to skills development.

During the course, students take more than 40 lessons, and each such lesson is not just a rule with examples, but also a set of exercises with which you can practice writing, speaking, listening, reading, and the same task trains at once 2 or 3 skills.

Well "Intermediate - Pre-intermediate" - this is what will help you!

How to take the course?

The first step for a novice student is registration on the resource. Next, we recommend taking a test that compares your expectations and real skills.

If the results confirm that you need a Pre-intermediate, choose it and start listening to English with its unusual phonetic system in parallel and doing the tasks suggested by the authors. They are aimed at developing several skills at once, none of them will be forgotten.

Can I take this course?

Course Difficulty Level:
AVERAGE

To take an English language course for the intermediate level, beginner or intermediate knowledge of English is required. This course is for those who already have basic knowledge and want to move on. Feel free to start training, and the result will not keep you waiting!

At the moment, there are already a great many different audio courses designed to be listened to in the car.

Leaving aside the question of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of this technique, we have compiled for you a selection of several such audio materials. Listen and improve your English on the way to work.

Before downloading this or that course, we highly recommend that you at least briefly understand what English audio courses are in a car, what you can expect from them, and what you should not.

Let's start with the fact that, in our opinion, such audio courses can never replace a full-fledged teaching of the English language. Let's be honest, in our teaching practice we have not yet met a single person who would learn to speak English only by listening to such courses in the car on the way to work.

"Classes" in English according to this method are severely limited by several obvious factors.

Firstly, due to objective reasons, you cannot concentrate 100% on learning English, because forced to drive a car in parallel, assess the situation on the roads, etc. Therefore, from time to time you will be forced to “give out” the process for a couple of minutes and then return to the material you listened to again.

Secondly, by doing this, you activate only one of several channels for perceiving information, namely, the auditory one. That is, even when you hear a word, you don’t know how it is spelled, you don’t see its transcription, and you probably won’t be able to write it on paper without errors later. This no longer allows us to talk about an adequate process of learning a language.

Let it not seem to you that we are only opponents of such courses. It must be admitted that the methodology of English courses in a car has its undeniable advantages:

1) You can listen to the material every day for at least 30-60 minutes, without additional organization of time for classes. It's objectively convenient.

2) Listening to the material several times in the car, you willy-nilly begin to memorize it. The material is, as it were, recorded in the subcortex of your brain.

Practice shows that the most effective result from such courses can be obtained in addition to basic English education at a language school or with a teacher (such training should be basic anyway!).

That is, going through a topic with a teacher, you then fix it by listening in the car. In this case, with a certain system of training, a good result is guaranteed.

Here is a selection of some of these courses that can help you learn the language. Go ahead, try it, download it to your flash drives, listen. Perhaps for you it will become an indispensable support in English classes.

1) 1C. Driving English (audio course)

1C English driving - Part 1

1C - English driving - Part 2

So, 6 best sites for listening in English (levelspre— intermediate, intermediate)

Let’s say you’re already good at simple audiobooks and crave variety. Your listening level is not very high yet, but you have already achieved some success, and if not yet, then you will achieve it in the very near future, and then this material will definitely come in handy for you;) What else can you listen to in English besides audiobooks? That's exactly what we're going to talk about today. And we will focus not so much on audio materials in general, but on on sites useful for English learners.

Fortunately, those days when only dull textbooks were at the service of learners of English (German, French, etc.) are long gone. In stores there are a lot of multi-colored books of different formats, thicknesses and colors, a lot of manuals, dictionaries, reference books, audio courses, CDs, etc. Now there is a completely different problem: how to choose from all this variety of manuals that are right for you.

But language learning has changed even more thanks to the Internet. No paper manual by itself will fill your ears with living English, and with its help you will still LEARN language. And the English-language Internet makes it possible for the language get used to and language DIGEST. Feel the difference? It is not far from habituation and assimilation to successful use of the language!

Previously, all those who learned English had almost no opportunity to listen to live English speech. The maximum that was available: hackneyed records in English, English-language music and the English speech of the teacher, which usually did not draw on a “worthy example”. 😉 It was also possible to “catch” an English-language radio station, but the sound quality often left much to be desired, so this option was not suitable for beginners, and “advanced” was not always suitable.

But then, as I said, everything magically changed :) Now everyone who learns English and has access to the Internet has superpowers. The days of "slave" dependence on a teacher and worn-out records are over, and finally there is an opportunity to listen to LIVE English.

The modern “beginner Englishman” can be amazingly independent of everyone: from teachers, from textbooks, from a dull school or university English language program ... The only thing you should not refuse under any circumstances (unless you have moved to an English-speaking country) is English-speaking Internet.;) It gives such opportunities that it would be a sin not to use.

So, what sites can be useful to "listeners" levelspre— intermediate, intermediate and a little higher? (Let me remind you that this is not the level at which you write grammar tests, but the level at which you are able to listen. We wrote about this here). Below you will find a "basic" list. In subsequent posts, it will be expanded and supplemented, although these six sites, in truth, will last you for a long time. We will take a leisurely walk through each of these resources later. For now, here's some general information:

In the very near future, a similar list for level listeners will appear on Upper— intermediate and Advanced.

Happy listening!-)