11 Reasons Why the Real Life English Podcast Will Change the Way You Learn English

Are you looking for ways to learn English that don’t take any time to do?

Would you like to improve your listening skills?

Are you looking for ways to learn English that are FUN?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then the Real Life English Podcasts are going to change your life.

Expressions about Happiness
Click here to view the show notes for this podcast

1. Have FUN

Many ESL podcast are boring and way too serious.

We focus on making the Real Life English Podcasts as entertaining and as light as possible while still giving you valuable information.

We tell jokes and have fun while following a structure that makes the learning quick and painless. We don’t talk about one subject for too long. For example, each episode we have a small grammar tip, but we only spend a minute or two talking about it.

2. Learn How Natives Actually Speak

Many listening exercises that ESL learners do are scripted readings that don’t resemble real-life conversations. They tend to be slowed down, enunciated extremely well, and they don’t use any sound morphing (how natives cut and mix their words together—like gonna and wanna).

In the Real Life English Podcasts, me and Chad talk naturally. Everything is unscripted and is as unedited as possible. This’ll help you learn to understand English, the way it’s naturally spoken. You’ll also realize how common it is for even native speakers to make mistakes.

3. Learn English Anytime, Anywhere

One of the best parts about learning through audio is that you can learn anywhere. Your 40-minute commute to and from work can now turn into an English class. The 20 minutes it takes you to shop, cook, or walk your dog can now turn into an English class.

4. Improve Your Comprehension by Listening to Native Speakers

Many non-native English speakers say that they have trouble with listening comprehension. If you want to improve your listening comprehension… you need to practice listening! Amazing, right?

Even if you don’t understand everything that’s being said, or even if you hardly understand anything at all, you’re still learning. You don’t need to understand everything. Not listening to podcasts because you don’t understand everything is just an excuse.

Even if you understand nothing, your brain is still learning to identify the different sounds, phonetics, tones, and rhythm of the language.

The more you listen to people speaking in English, the easier it will be to converse with natives.

After listening to native English speaking podcasts, you’ll notice yourself having a much easier time understanding native speakers, and new words may come out of your mouth that make you think, “Where did I learn that word?”

5. Learn Real Life English Vocab

During the Real Life English Podcasts, whenever me or Chad naturally say a word or phrase that we think might be difficult for ESL learners to understand, we quickly define it for you and give you a few examples of how the word can be used.

Also, we listen to the podcast after we record it and write down the definition of any other words that we think might be difficult for non-native English speakers and give them to you in the text of the section of the show notes called Words to Know.

These aren’t words we think  you should know. These are words we ACTUALLY use when we have a normal conversation.

6. Learn the Differences Between American and British English

Because I’m from the United States and Chad is from Australia, we naturally get into discussions about the differences between American and British/Australian English.

You get to hear the different ways that Australians and Americans pronounce different words and also the different phrases and expressions they use.

Sometimes I’ll say something that Chad doesn’t know, or he’ll say something that I don’t know, like busking (which we talked about in Episode 13 – Expressions related to Happiness).

If you’re one of the people who have trouble understanding the Australian accent, then have no fear, Chad’s Australian accent is mild.

7. Learn 5 New Expressions

The main material covered in the podcasts are the five expressions that Chad posts in the Facebook page and group every week.

There are tons of idiomatic expressions that are commonly used in English, and they can be quite difficult to learn by yourself as they aren’t found in regular dictionaries.

These expressions always cover a specific theme, like happiness. We give many definitions of each expression, say if it reminds us of any similar expressions, and then give you examples of how you can use it.

8. Get Your Questions Answered

Every podcast we answer a question or two from our community on Twitter. These questions are usually related to grammar. We’ve answered questions like “what’s the difference between ‘get up’ and ‘wake up,'” “when do use ‘shall’?” and “the difference between ‘only’ and ‘just’.”

If there’s something you’d like us to answer on the podcast, please tweet us @reallifeeng.

9. Learn a Cool, Quick Tip

Each episode we end with a quick tip to help you improve your English. This could be anything from the amazing vocabulary learning tool of Anki [link], to the thought-provoking videos (with subtitles and transcripts for 20+ languages) of TED [link].

These resources are designed to help you learn how to become an English for Life learner and get you excited about learning English. For more information on how to become an English for Life learner, check out this video on How to Become an English for Life Learner.

10. Stay Up-to-Date with the News

We start every podcast with a few jokes, then talking about what’s happening in the Real Life English Community.

You’ll be first to know about new projects we’re working on, Real Life English events, what parts of the world we plan to have our parties at next, and any other information we think our listeners would benefit from.

11. It’s FREE

One of the best parts about the Real Life English Podcast is that it’s completely free. You can download from our website or from iTunes and it won’t cost you a single penny.

So what are you waiting for?

Subscribe to us on iTunes and start revolutionizing your English with the Real Life English Podcasts.

Or if you don’t like iTunes, click here to download the podcasts directly from our site.

You can also listen to one of our recent podcasts here:

Expressions about Happiness

To view the show notes, like the Words (vocabulary) to Know click here.