Tips and Tweaks: Make Your Best Spanish Podcast by Using Less Work.

Do you enjoy listening to podcasts as much as I do? Many of us spend quite a bit of time listening to them. Today we are blessed by a proliferation of topics and an increasing number of podcasts in languages other than English.

I listen to all sorts of podcasts in four languages. There are more and more podcasts all the time. Even two years ago there weren't many in Spanish let alone Italian or Portuguese. Now there multiple directories of podcasts in more than a hundred languages.

This means that there is a lot more choice. With choice, the standards against which we measure how badly we want to listen to a given podcast tend to rise. In other words we get pickier. We listen to the best spanish podcasts we can find.

For example, over the past five or six years I have been trying to develop my Spanish listening comprehension. At first I would listen to anything in Spanish in hopes that I might understand something. I listened to topics in which I had absolutely no interest; I listened to songs in styles I would never consider were the lyrics in English; I watched Spanish language movies on VHS. Why VHS? Because DVD's often have multiple language tracks and if I got caught up in the movie, I would cheat by turning off the Spanish track and turning on the English one.

Fortunately these efforts have paid off. Now my ear is a lot keener and I can follow most conversations. And just as I can tell in a few seconds whether I want to watch a given a video in English on Youtube, I can now tell if I have any interest in a Spanish podcast's topic or whether I want to spend time listening to that particular podcaster.

In other words I am listening to many podcas, not as an exercise, but because I have an interest in the actual content of the podcast.

More and more, podcasts are being listened to by people from all over the globe. People like to listen to podcasts in their native language. However, there are hundreds of thousands of people who listen to podcasts in a language that is not their native tongue.

What does this mean to the podcaster? My guess is that most podcasters, other than language-teaching podcasters, don't realize how many non-native speakers listen to their podcasts. I suspect too, that if they are aware of this market they might not have considered what to do with the opportunity.

A Very Simple Tweak.

I listened to one Spanish podcaster who had interesting content that was exceptionally well presented. But... He ran a tuneless background music track tha, but alas, I am not a native speaker and the background sound distracted me and made it difficult to focus on and follow the excellent dialogue.

I listened to the podcast a few times as I usually do to catch more detail. However, I couldn't mentally block out that background murmur which was the same on every podcast on that site. This was a fatal flaw to my ear and consequently after listening to five episodes several times, I took it off my Listen To list and haven't been back.

This podcast could be a great podcast. . The only tweak this podcast needs in order to cast an even wider net, is to turn off the background music or at least turn down the levels on the music track.

Thus without slowing down his rate of delivery; without using simpler grammatical structures or frequent rephrasing; and without changing one word of vocabulary, this podcaster, with absolutely no extra effort could make his podcast a Best Spanish Podcast for a broader spectrum of listeners.

Best Spanish Podcast Sites: Desde el Baño

Podcasts are an excellent way to keep your Spanish skills tuned up. There are many podcasts available but for the language learner not all podcasts are created equal.

Here is a sweet little treasure. This podcast is done by an Argentinian named Sofia.

Her podcast description reads:

"La idea del Podcast es darle la posibilidad a todos los que estén interesados, de aprender el vocabulario y las expresiones más comunes de la Argentina. Para poder aprovecharlo, es necesario tener un conocimiento previo de español."

"The idea of the podcast is to give you the possibility to learn vocabulary and common Argentinian expressions. To benefit a previous knowledge of Spanish is needed."

These podcasts are perhaps most suited to advanced-intermediate (and up) learners. Although, if you slow the speed of your player*, an intermediate-level listener could probably follow the podcast pretty well.

The podcast is inactive; the last entry is dated September 30, 2007. However, fortunately for us, the site is still up and the archives are available.

Some examples of her tags/topics are:

Acentos(6), Errores(3), Fotos(6), Futbol(4), Peliculas(3), Preguntas de oyentes(2), and Vocabulario(10).

Her delivery is pretty speedy but her sentence are fairly short. She uses a lot of rephrasing and question and answer structures which make the presentation easier to follow. She speaks in full sentences and controls the level of vocabulary and slang. In one podcast she mentions that she doesn't speak as quickly as she does with her friends nor does she use slang and sentence fragments as she would with them.

The sound quality of the podcast clean, consistent and well-edited.

*If you have difficulty following the podcast, you might try downloading the file and playing it in Windows Media. You can slow down the speed and make it easier to understand.

If you like the podcasts, there are a couple of her quizzes on the Quizilla site.


I highly recommend Desde el Baño as one of my picks for Best Spanish Podcast Sites.

Best Spanish Podcast Sites: SpanishPod

Podcasts are an excellent way to keep your Spanish skills tuned up. There are many podcasts available but for the language learner not all podcasts are created equal.

Featured Podcast : SpanishPod

This site features Spanish Lessons in podcast format. Each session consists of two or occasionally three speakers. If there is a third speaker, it is usually a guest. In all but the advanced level there is a native English speaker who usually explains things in English but is also fluent (to my ear) in Spanish. The native Spanish speaker almost always uses Spanish only.

This is a prolific website. There are weekly podcasts at five different levels, each with its own archive.

To date the archives contain the following: newbie (33 lessons), elementary (26), intermediate (18 lessons) , upper intermediate (13 lessons), and advanced (8 lessons).

If you dig a little you can find the Extra section. It is called Del Taco al Tango. These are in Spanish only and are very interesting.


This description is from their website.

"Del Taco al Tango is a show about the various cultural difference in Latin America; from Mexico to Argentina and everything in between! In this series, we will have guests from around Latin American sharing their slang, their national dishes, their jokes, and much more! We are trying not only to help you learn Spanish, but also to help you understand how we think, talk, and behave in the Spanish-speaking world."

PRODUCTION QUALITY

These podcasts are professional studio quality. The sound is very clean with no distractions. Each lesson has an annoying little plug for their CD lessons but is a small price to pay for the free podcasts.

NOTES

The type of Spanish on these podcasts is very clearly spoken, i.e. well-enunciated, grammatically correct and spoken in full sentences. There is little slang except to draw attention to a word or phrase. In other words this is not street- Spanish nor even the spontaneous fragmented rapid-fire Spanish spoken among friends and family.

The topics are of general interest with nothing too too esoteric or specialized. The presenters are always professional and personable and have no axes to grind.

All in all I highly recommend this site to Spanish learners at all levels wanting to improve, especially their listening comprehension skills.

Spanishpod main page

Best Spanish Podcast Sites: Notes in Spanish

Podcasts are an excellent way to keep your Spanish skills tuned up. There are many podcasts available but for the language learner not all podcasts are created equal.


NOTES IN SPANISH

Notes in Spanish is a series of podcasts produced by Ben and Marina. They are married couple living in Madrid . Marina is from Madrid. Ben, who from England, has lived in Spain for over eight years and is now fluent in Spanish.

They put a lot of thought, flair, and charm into their work. Over the hundred plus podcasts you learn more than Spanish. You learn quite a bit about Ben and Marina; their likes and dislikes, their histories, their relationship, their families and friends and so on.


INTERMEDIATE AND ADVANCED LEVELS

Their site includes audio podcasts and several video podcasts. Until recently, they have produced two levels of podcast in Spanish: Spanish Podcast - Intermediate and Spanish Podcast - Advanced. Both these levels are produced completely in Spanish. The intermediate series uses simpler sentence structure, slightly easier vocabulary and grammar, and flows along at a gentler speed than the advanced series.

INSPIRED BEGINNERS

This summer Ben and Marina began a new series called Inspired Beginners. Inspired Beginners targets learners with a basic knowledge of Spanish grammar and vocabulary, who want to improve their listening skills and abilites in conversational Spanish. Even if you can follow the intermediate and advanced podcasts, it is well worth listening to Inspired Beginners. You get a pretty good review of your Spanish and can learn many ways to make yourself sound more Spanish.

Inspired Beginners podcasts are excellent language-learning programmes. Each session begins with a review, in English, of the highlights of the previous podcast. They continue in a mixture of English and Spanish explaining the new phrases and vocabulary. They demonstrate these points in Spanish and give you a chance to practice. They then move to a pre-recorded conversation in Spanish that gives you a chance to hear everything you have just learned in context.


PRODUCTION QUALITY

The production quality of these podcasts is very high. The voices are balanced in volume, tone and intensity. In other words they are speaking at the same distance from their mike, or if they are using two mikes, the mikes are matched in terms of quality. The sound levels remain constant throughout the podcast. There is also no music or sound effects or other clutter in the background. They are a joy to listen to, so do give them a visit.
Inspired Beginners Podcasts
Intermediate Spanish Podcast
Advanced Spanish Podcast
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