Hallo allerseits!
Endlich Sommerferien! Hopefully you have enjoyed your first week of summer without schoolwork and have been taking care of yourself. We are back today and will be talking about German Podcasts. It’s important that you keep yourself somewhat exposed to a language during a break from learning and podcasts are a great way to do this.
Slow German
In this podcast, journalist Annik Rubens from Munich has casual conversations entirely in German about different themes. The language is authentic and everything is spoken in a very slow and clear voice. You will find her regular podcasts on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and what’s more is that transcripts of episodes are available on her website for free which is great if you didn’t quite understand what was said. Slow German is excellent for beginners and lower-intermediate German learners.
Easy German
You might already be following the Easy German Team on YouTube or have seen some of their videos elsewhere online. Since the end of last year, they have been running a podcast available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. In these podcasts, themes from Germany and the greater world are dealt with which give listeners a taste of German as it’s actually spoken. A premium upgrade is possible on their website which gives you access to transcripts, vocabulary and other content, if that is what you are looking for.
TALK-O-MAT
This podcast is often very entertaining as it involves two strangers in a room discussing random themes that they have been given and therefore everything is very natural. The conversation is between two well-known people who haven’t met one another before and the themes are chosen by the ‘TALK-O-MAT’, an emotionless machine. Search Spotify for the podcasts and if you are looking for more recent content, check out ‘Es war vielleicht einmal’, a new fan-fiction series from the makers of TALK-O-MAT that is equally as good. This podcast would be better understood by intermediate learners of German as opposed to beginners.
Was jetzt?
This is the daily news podcast from German national weekly newspaper, ZEIT. The podcasts range from around 6 to 12 minutes and are a very good way of keeping up to date on current affairs in Germany and the rest of the world through German. The content and vocabulary would be more suited for Leaving Cert and third-level students as the vocabulary can be quite complex for German learners. You will find the podcasts on Spotify, among other platforms.
Hintergrund – Deutschlandfunk
Another podcast for intermediate to upper level learners of German, Hintergrund (made by culture-orientated radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk) deals with important themes from inside and out of Germany. This includes discussion on relevant economic developments as well as social and cultural debates that are particularly current. Each podcast is about 18 minutes long and there is new content daily.
We hope that you have enjoyed reading about these podcasts for learning German and that you will keep yourself exposed to the language over the coming months. Our next blog post will be in a month’s time so you should watch this space! We will be continuing to post on Instagram and Twitter over the summer so be sure to keep up to date with us on social media for that extra burst of Deutsch also.
Tschüss!