不積跬步，無以至千里

If you want to download free English conversations, you’ve come to the right place.

This page introduces you to some English-language podcasts. Podcasts are audio conversations you can download for free from the Internet.

Let’s get started.

English Conversations (Podcasts) for Beginners & Pre-Intermediates

If your listening skills are not so good, it’s a good idea to start with podcasts for English students. Below are a few ESL podcasts that I recommend.

Culips ESL Podcast

This podcast is hosted by a group of Canadian English teachers. Just like the previous podcast, the hosts of this podcast speak slowly. What I like about this podcast is that the teachers talk about a variety of topics (not just English learning). So, listening to this podcast is a good way for beginners to learn new vocabulary.

Note: Sometimes, the hosts of Culips ESL Podcast can sound quite unnatural. (They tend to speak much slower than usual). So, I recommend listening to this one only if you’re a complete beginner.

Effortless English Podcast (with AJ Hoge)

Another podcast about English learning. AJ Hoge, the host of this podcast, is a knowledgeable teacher. His podcast is easy to understand and interesting. I highly recommend it!

English across the Pond

This podcast is pretty unique. It’s hosted by Jennifer from the USA and Dan from England. If you listen to this podcast, you’ll get to learn American and British English at the same time. This is a great way to improve your English listening!

English Conversations (Podcasts) for Intermediates

If your listening is at an intermediate level, it’s easy to find podcasts that you can understand. Below is the list of some interesting podcasts I’ve found. The conversations in these podcasts are real spoken English (no slowing down).

Stuff You Should Know

This podcast educates listeners on a wide variety of interesting topics like how the placebo effect works, how natural selection works, how online dating works, and so on. This podcast is for everyone. No matter what your interests are, you’ll likely find some episodes that interest you.

Radiolab

This podcast focuses on the topics of science and philosophy. It attempts to make broad, difficult topics like “time” and “morality” easier to understand. This podcast has received a ton of positive reviews on iTunes. If you love science, you’ll love this podcast.

The Filmcast

This is a podcast for movie lovers. On this podcast, the hosts discuss the latest films, movie reviews, film news, television shows, and entertainment. Many English learners love watching movies. If you’re one of them, this podcast is for you.

Entrepreneur On Fire

Entrepreneur On Fire is a podcast for entrepreneurs and small business owners. If you are looking for inspiration, motivation, and ACTIONABLE advice on how to start a business, this podcast is for you. Each episode brings you a successful entrepreneur who shares their journey: Their failures, AH-HA moments, successes, and much more.

Planet Money

Money makes the world go around, faster and faster every day. But it can be complicated at times. So on this Planet Money podcast, you’ll meet economists and regular folks — all trying to make sense of our rapidly changing global economy. Examples of interesting episode are how to bore someone into donating an organ, will a computer decide whether you get your next job?, and the economist’s guide to drinking while pregnant.

Note that, some of the podcasts on this list might be challenging to understand, even for an intermediate. But that’s a good thing. For your listening to improve, you must listen to conversations that are “a bit challenging.”

How to Listen to Podcasts on Your Phone

First, you need to install a “podcast app” on your smartphone. Just go to your app store and type in “podcast app,” and pick one with good ratings.

A podcast app will lets you…

• Find and subscribe to podcasts.
• Download podcast episodes to your phone.
• Listen to the episodes you’ve downloaded (even when your phone isn’t connected to the Internet).

If your phone has limited Internet data, I highly recommend that you download a lot of episodes ahead of time over a WIFI network. (You can just go through the list of episodes and tap on the download icon for as many episodes as you want.) This way, you can listen to English conversations without using your phone’s Internet data.

Don’t forget to delete old episodes every now and then otherwise your phone will run out of memory.

How to Download These Conversations as MP3 Files

Step 1: Click on a podcast’s name to go to the podcast’s website.

Step 1

Step 2: On the site, you’ll see a list of podcast episodes, click on an episode name to open the page for that episode.

Step 2

Step 3: On the page for that episode, locate the download link.

Step 3

Step 4: Right-click on the download link (or long-press if you’re using a smartphone), and select “Save link as” to download the audio file (usually in MP3 format).

Step 4

Make sure you download many episodes so that you don’t have to do this very often.

Note: Different podcast websites will have layouts. But the steps for downloading the audio files are pretty much the same.

Frequently-Asked Questions

In this section, you can find my answers to the most frequently-asked questions.

What should I do if I don’t understand what I’m listening to?

Unlike movies, most podcasts don’t have transcripts. If you don’t understand some parts of the conversation, there’s no way to know what words are spoken in those parts.

So, what should you do when that happens?

Well, there are three things you can do. You can read about them in this article, which explains (in detail) how you can improve your listening skills in English.

I don’t find most of these podcasts interesting. Do you have other recommendations?

In this case, I suggest that you search for podcasts yourself. People have different interests, so it’s impossible for me to know what podcasts you’ll like.

Here are some ideas of phrases you can type into Google:

• Most interesting podcasts
• Podcasts everyone should listen to
• Entertaining podcasts
• Educational podcasts

If you want to listen to conversations about a specific topic, you can type in the topic name followed by the word “podcasts”:

• Travel podcasts
• Health & fitness podcasts
• Dog Podcasts

Note that, if you’re a beginner, it can be difficult to find podcasts that are easy for you. So, I suggest that you look for podcasts for English students because the hosts of these podcasts tend to speak slower than usual.

Here are some phrases you can use:

• Podcasts for English students
• Learn English podcasts
• ESL podcasts (ESL stands for English as a Second Language)

Why should I listen to podcasts instead of audiobooks or movies?

I believe listening to podcasts is the best way to improve your English listening skills because:

1. Conversations in most podcasts are real spoken English – the type of English you will hear in an English-speaking country.
2. Podcasts are audio. You can download them to your smartphone and listen to them at any place and any time. This allows you to listen to a lot of conversational English every day.
3. Unlike audiobooks or movies, podcasts are FREE. Which means you can listen to a lot of conversational English without spending money.

Have your own questions or feedback? Send me an email at contact@engfluent.com.