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How to Understand Russian Native Speakers.

Podcasts for Learning Russian

Most of the people who study the Russian language (and not only Russian) find it difficult to understand Russian native speakers. Let’s find out how to solve this problem using podcasts.

The Internet offers us a great number of learning tools, podcasts are one of them. I think all language learners experience difficulties with understanding native speakers. Today we’ll talk about the way you can use podcasts to improve your listening skills.

There are two main types of podcasts:

podcasts in a foreign language (about psychology, history, etc);

podcasts about the language (learning podcasts).

If you’re a beginner I recommend you use the second type. First of all,

  1. Focus on listening. There is a high temptation to switch the player on, start listening and do some housework. Well, that’s cool but not for learning purposes.
  2. Choose podcasts with transcripts. It’s great when you can check your understanding via reading the transcript and write the new vocab down.
  3. Don’t be lazy, guys. Translate the new words and write them down in your notebook.
  4. Slow it down. If you find the audio really difficult just slow it down.
  5. Choose podcasts of your level.

RussianPod101 Podcast

For example, I recommend my students to use RussianPod101 for the newbies (and higher-level too btw).

  1. Listen to the dialogue focusing only on the listening. Write the new words down.
  2. Read the transcript, underline the new words, and translate them into your native language.
  3. Listen to the podcasts again (without looking at the transcript of course). Try to note the words you didn’t understand.
  4. Go back to the transcript and check the words you didn’t recognize.
  5. Your main purpose to be able to understand the whole audio without looking at the transcript.

Where to find listening resources?

On my website, you can get a list of 50 listening resources for free.

For those who would like to improve not only their listening skills but also speaking, writing, and revise grammar, please, welcome to my new course “Russian with Songs”. Further information is in the link in my bio or DM if you have any questions.