I absolutely adore Podcasts as a method of taking foreign language radio with me to listen to when I’m travelling. I think it’s a wonderful interesting way to learn. This post contains two sections.The first section consists of podcasts aimed at learners, they are tutorials designed to help you learn and have been specifically made for that purpose. The second section is Foreign Language Podcasts which are usually targeted at native speakers, like radio shows on different topics. So make sure you keep scrolling down because there is more below. If you have a suggestion to add to the list, please let me know 🙂

I endeavour to keep all these links updated, please give me a hand and let me know if you find a broken link.

Last updated Feb 2013

PODCASTS AIMED AT LEARNERS

Multilingual:

Mission Europa – A detective story for learning the basics of German, French and Polish

SurvivalPhrases.com – 10 free lessons and more available to buy for each language. Arabic, Bulgarian, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Filipino, Hebrew Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian Spanish, Swedish Thai Vietnamese

Radio Lingua Network – Company which does the Coffee Break series also has One Minute podcasts of Catalan, Danish, Gaelic, Greek, Irish, Japanese, Luxembourgish, Mandarin, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Zulu

Arabic:

ArabicPod – Fantastic podcast, both MSA and colloquial lessons that can be understood throughout the Arabic world, recent series of Levantine episodes

Arabicpod101

Arabic Podclass

Cherokee:

Culturev Cherokee Podcast

Chinese (Cantonese):

Naked Cantonese

Popup Cantonese

Cantonese101

Chinese (Mandarin)

ChinesePod

CSLPod

News in Slow Chinese

Danish

copenhagencast is a Danish-English podcast for learning Danish – free audio and free pdf-files. Although there are only about 25 episodes so far, it’s worth listening. Some mp3-files are even between twenty and thirty minutes long.

Dutch:

Laura Speaks Dutch

English:

The Bob and Rob Show

English Fluency Now – podcasts are free, you can pay for the lesson that goes along with them

French

Frenchpod

Learn French by Podcast

Frenchpod101

One Thing in a French Day

Cultivate your French

Daily French Pod has pdf guides to download with each episode.

Comment vont les affaires? is a business French podcast course and has notes and scripts.

Native French Speech – free level gives interesting podcasts with French transcripts. You can subscribe for English translation and other features

Gaelic (Scottish)

Gaelic Podcasts – Fiona J Mackenzie teaches useful phrases

Little Letter for Gaelic Learners – for beginner/intermediate transcript & English translation available

German:

Germanpod101

Greek

Hit Greece – Learn beginner’s Greek with podcasts on grammar and vocabulary. Free lesson transcripts. Seems to be discontinued.

Learn Greek vocab – Aims to improve your Greek vocab. Only the last 7 lessons are free, the rest can be bought in itunes. Free pdf word sheets.

Hellenic American Union Greek podcast

– Many lessons teaching Greek in Greek. Probably more helpful if you already have some knowledge of Greek.

Guarani

Let’s Talk Guaranime (by a native US-English speaker) Quite basic, and interesting for those who have never heard about Guarani

Hebrew

LearnHebrewPod.com

HebrewPod101

Hindi

Learn Hindi from Bollywood Movies

I Speak Hindi – great podcast with transcripts

Hungarian

Let’s Learn Hungarian

Indonesian

Learning Indonesian

Italian:

Qui Italia

LearnItalianPod.com

Italianpod101

Japanese:

JapanesePod101.com

Learn Japanese with Beb and Alex

Japancast – Learn Japanese language and culture through examples from anime and everyday conversation.

日語自遊行 – 1 & 2 (extra material 1 & 2)

– Learn basic Japanese words and phrases for travel and everyday life. Note: Only available in Cantonese.

日語自遊行 – 3 (extra material 3)

– Teaches more advanced Japanese words and phrases for travellers. Note: Only available in Cantonese.

Nihongo-Juku – Advanced Japanese podcasts with transcripts explaining common difficulties of learning Japanese.

Osaka Dialect 大阪弁 – Bilingual podcast explaining Japanese culture and language; with English translations and transcripts on website. Good if you want to get practice listening to a Japanese dialect.

Japanisch Podcast – Japanese lessons in German (by a native Japanese speaker). PDFs available.

Korean:

Talk to Me in Korean

KoreanClass101.com

The Kimichi Girls

Latin

Latinum – comprehensive Latin vido course

Nuntii Latini – weekly review of world news in Classical Latin

Lithuanian

Lithuanian Out Loud – Many podcasts, free transcripts

Polish

Learn Real Polish – some MP3 and text free, plenty more to pay for

Portuguese

BrazilianPodClass

PortuguesePod101

Tá Falado – Portuguese especially for those with a background in Spanish

Russian

A Spoonful of Russian

RussianPod101

A Taste of Russian – conversations on everday topics

Business Russian – from UCLA

Russian Literature – also from UCLA

Russisch lernen mit Russland-Journal – Russian lessons in German. Lots of ads, but free. A great complement to Russian lessons and the broadcasters are very constant

Spanish

Audiria – Truly amazing site with many varied podcasts

SpanishPod

Notes in Spanish

SSL4you

SpanishPodcast.org

InstaSpanish Lessons – weekly comprehension and grammar lessons

Swedish

Sprich mal Schwedisch – Swedish lessons in German by a native Swedish speaker. PDF files available. Perfect for exercising listening and speaking. Joakim (the teacher) points out differences between written and spoken language, and there are different episode-categories (lessons, alphabet and culture)

Tagalog

Viloria Pinoy Podcast – Includes useful PDF notes

Thai

Learn Thai Podcast

Welsh

Say Something in Welsh

Yiddish

Millie’s Yiddish Class – video lessons

FOREIGN LANGUAGE AIMED AT ADVANCED OR FLUENT SPEAKERS

Multilingual

NHK World Radio Japan – World news podcasts for 18 languages Japanese, English, Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, Chinese, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, Urdu, Vietnamese

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – Propaganda, but in 28 languages [sic].

SBS – News reports, children shows, sports reports, dramas, cooking shows, interviews etc. Lots of interesting stuff.

Languages available: Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Assyrian, Bangla, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari, Dutch, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Lao, Latvian, Macedonian, Maltese, Mandarin, Nepali, Norwegian, Persian-Farsi, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Serbian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, Ukrainian, Urdu, Yiddish

Amharic

SBS Amharic program – The program notes are in English, the shows are in Amharic.

Arabic

Arabic Audiobooks – A good range of books from Taha Hussein to Dan Brown

News in Simplified Arabic – Includes exercises and transcripts but unfortunately not updated too often

BBC Xtra – 2 hour magazine programme entirely in Arabic about various social and controversial issues

Doroobcast – Intellectual series, includes things like poetry reading and short stories

RTVE Emisión en Árabe

Imtidad Cultural Podcast – Literary Podcast

Fouad Sindhi – Saudi Arabian’s journal blog

Saudi Gamer – about video games

Chinese (Mandarin)

反波 Antiwave – various current affairs topics

ChineseLingQ

Cornish

Radyo an Gernewegva

Croatian

Funkhaus Europa Radio Forum – a nice Croatian news podcast which is updated every day with the duration of about 25 minutes.

Danish:

Sproghjørnet

Detektor – A show where the host verifies the validity of statements or affirmations presented by politicians or news hosts.

Dutch:

RNW Nieuwslijn – 30 minute news segments in Dutch that is updated many times per day.

De Grote Marc en Ramon Show!

English

Inside Europe – An hour a week, news from Europe

French:

FrenchLingQ

RMC – Le Journal du Jour – great news podcast

Yabla French – video podcast of authentic native materials aimed towards learners

La Revue de Presque – a really funny podcast with interviewing ‘politicians’ about recent news, except it’s just one man, pretending to be all these famous people. Even if you can’t understand the content the accents are enough to make you laugh. (P.S. They have a real interview at the beginning before the comedy show).

Chocolat is a bilingual French/Japanese podcast talking about interesting issues.

Tout un Monde – Dives into all different cultures and places, covering a different country/culture each episode

A Livre Ouvert – literature and authors

Le Poudcast – Pierre and Nico being outrageous and hilarious

Radio-Canada Baladodifusion – Here is link to the Radio-Canada website which lists about a dozen French language podcasts

CBC Podcast – C’est la Vie – podcast about life in French speaking Canada which ends each episode with the popular segment “Word of the Week” which often describes interesting differences between French in Canada and elsewhere.

Gaelic (Scottish)

Letter to Gaelic Learners – for more advanced learners

Spòrs Na Seachdain – Sports

Gaelcast – podcasting in Gàidhlig

German:

Langsam gesprochene Nachrichten – Slowly spoken news in German with complete text

Sprachbar – a few minutes a week, a funny text about the different aspects of the German language with complete text.

Woher sollen wir das wissen? – Each episode dedicates itself to a certain question. Therefore the radio hosts call people and institutions that are somehow connected to the matter in question.

Wie war der Tag, Liebling? – two people talk about the most astounding or funniest thing they have come across that day

Radio Tatort – Krimis

Quarks & Co. – Fantastic science video podcast from WDR. I couldn’t recommend this one enough!

Das Philosophische Radio

Gans und Gar

Schlaflos in München

Ohrenblicke

Der Podcast der Duden-Sprachberatung

SWR1 – Leute

Die Sendung mit der Maus

WDR – Hörspiel

Die Gefühlskonserve

Mopeten.tv – This is a short regular online motorcycle show in German. They travel the countryside, meet other motorcyclists, and have tips and tricks for motorcyclists.

GermanLingQ

Italian:

Fumetti – podcast of comic books dramatised for Italian radio

ItalianLingQ

24 Mattino

Caterpillar

Digitalia

Essere e Benessere

Fahrenheit

Finestre sull’arte

Gastronauta, Il

Historycast

L’Altra Europa

Laterza’s Podcast Page

Mr. Kilowatt

Questa casa non è un albergo

R101 Podcasts

Radio Deejay Podcasts

Japanese:

JapaneseLingQ

The Last Wave – An audio drama about the end of the world and the last survivors. The episodes are a few minutes long and pretty interesting.

Nippon Voiceblog – Each podcast is about a Japanese tradition and comes with a transcript.

LoveCosme– A woman talking about her sexual experiences.

Chocolat is a bilingual French/Japanese podcast talking about interesting issues.

Radio Sakamoto – Ryuichi Sakamoto’s podcast, includes interesting music!

Kanji koohii forum – Extensive list ranked by difficulty and usefulness

Korean

judy!! 님의 팟캐스트 – A diary about her life, travel etc. Some transcripts here.

Languageholic and Lifeholic a woman tackles, talks about and teaches English, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian and Japanese – while speaking in Korean most the time.

선현우의 Language Talk – Hyunwoo Sun makes video podcasts mostly about languages, breakdancing and Korea.

Māori

Waatea Podcasts – Episodes from the urban Maori Radio station Waatea, in Tamaki Makaurau (Auckland)

Norwegian

Nrk.no – Norwegian public radio podcast

Persian/Farsi

Radio Javan – Includes Iranican Live, a bilingual radio show by some young Iranian-American free spirits. Also, Radio Javan has several music shows, if you’re someone who can’t get enough of Persian pop and dance music, here is your source.

VOA Video Podcasts – Daily news podcasts

Farsi For you

Polish:

Polskie Radio – A Polish political discussion podcast updated daily with transcripts on the website, duration roughly 15 minutes

Portuguese:

Café Brasil – awesome podcast about varied topics tied in with Brazilian music

DW Learning By Ear – series is intended for Portuguese speaking Africa and covers a myriad of topics such as health, society, politics, urban exodus, migration, computers, African history, African folktales and soccer/futebol.

PortugueseLingQ

EscribaCafe – cool historical mystery podcast, there are also video podcasts

Radiofobia – humorous

PapoTech – about technology, apparently they have a rural São Paulo accent

Papo na Estante – great literature podast

Russian:

Svobodanews.ru – News updated 24 hours a day in one hour blocks every hour. perfect Russian, perfect coverage and discussions with word by word transcripts on the website

RussianLingQ

Эхо москвы – An old russian radio station. They also have transcripts.

Ruvr – (a public broadcasting service) has a lot of audio files

The Big Podcast – fast fun and lively show about various current interest topics. Seems like it’s often NSFW

Spanish:

SpanishLingQ

Ciencia Para Escuchar – great scientific podcasts; please note the theatrically recorded biographies of famous scientists ‘Ciencia y genios’

Hablando en Plata – daily short podcast about common mistakes people make in Spanish

Etcétera – hilarious discussions of two Argentine guys

Radio Raza describe themselves as Musical-Historical-Cultural-Humorous quite funny guys from Mexico

Sobrexpuestos Critical and informative podcast from Mexico (website seems to be down)

En La Historia – Another Mexican podcast, covers some very interesting history topics, writers, legends etc (website seems to be down)

Acércate al Quijote – Anecdotes and curiosities about the Spanish classic by Cervantes

El Vestuario – Football from Spain

Radio El Espectador – La venganza será terrible – Humorous Uruguayan show

Audios – Sound archive of Argentine rock, lots of interviews. Other podcasts also on rock.com.ar

Viajero del mundo – quite interesting, spoken in a nice and slow Castillian Spanish. Good for beginners and travel buffs.

Kafelog – a funny podcast on technology. “Caffeine in podcast form”

Radio Ciudad del Mar – Cienfuegos, Cuba. Sporadic, varied, the overall flavour kind of like waking up in the 50s.

Un Idioma Sin Fronteras – Daily interviews with authors, useful to find out about books in Spanish.

Swedish:

Skeptikerpodden

SwedishLingQ

Alltinget – a questions and answers program with experts in many fields

Bokcirkeln i kulturradion – book podcast

Klartext – news in easy Swedish

Språket – podcast about languages

Turkish

Funkhaus Europa – Köln Rayosu

Cultural Interviews with Turkish-speaking Executives – videos

TRT – news, viedos, radio and podcasts in Turkish