The best podcasts for beginner English learners

Your first real podcast should feel slightly hard, not impossible. If you understand about seven words in ten, you are in the right zone: enough to follow the story, with enough new language to learn from.

Every show below was picked by the Podling team for clear voices, a speaking rate under about 130 words per minute and topics that repeat the same core vocabulary. Listen once with the transcript, once without, and save a handful of words each time. When an episode starts to feel easy, move one step up.