Why Podcasts?
The idea of making podcasts instead of other form of materials (video, textbooks,..) was based on my own experience with learning languages. Podcast is very versatile. Thanks to that, you can be immersed by a target language a lot of hours every day without even searching for time to learn a language. I often tell people that language can not be learned, language can be only acquired. And for that the number one necessary thing to do is spend time with language aka. Listen and Read. And my podcast can offer both, due to provided free Transcripts.
You can listen podcasts in any podcast platform like:
Spotify
Google Podcasts
Apple Podcasts
Listen Notes
Anchor
Pocket Casts
Radio Public
How to use it these podcasts / How to learn a language
You can either Read or Listen, but you will get most from it if you do both at the same time. Examples: if you walk to the shop, or drive a car, obviously you can not read, but you can listen while doing that. Or if you are washing dishes, or doing exercise, you still can listen. Of course, you will not be 100% focused, but it is alright, you will still get some input and that is crucial. If you are for example in some place, where you have to wait and you forgot your headphones, you still can read. The most effective way is read and listen in the same time, but of course for that you need to be in an good environment. This way of learning might sound to you stupid. But the opposite is true. You will acquire language without even knowing how. If you forgot how to say something, do not worry, it is alright. If you do not understand, that is alright. Keep listening and reading. If you understand from beginning less than 50%. Listen it again, you will find things (new words, grammatical structure,...) which you did not notice for the first time. You can listen the same audio more times if it will not bore you. You might feel that you do not understand anything, but you brain is subconsciously noticing words, grammatical structures etc. You have to understand that you need to spend huge amount of time with a language (50/70/100/300/maybe 700 hours) depending on how related is language to one that you know well. For example if you speak Russian, you will need much less time to spend with Slovak to acquire it than for example person who speak French or Korean and so on. If you for example listened podcast one time, understood 60% and you do not want to listen it again, because it will make you tired or because it is boring for you listen same audio more than once, just do not do it. Move to the other one. Do not do, what you do not want to do. Why to study grammar if it will make you tired? Why to try memorize words? Maybe you like it, then it is fine, stick with it, but if you do not, why to do that? Listening is relaxing. It is easy. If you want just listen, than do it, do not read, but remember that the combination of both is extremely powerful. After listen (read) some amount of hours, you will start speak without knowing how it happened. Remember that for a conversation in a language it is necessary to understand what other people tells you. You can learn some basics phrases and think that you can communicate, but you can not. Understanding is the key, without that, communication is just from your side which is not enough. For better understanding you need to listen and read a lot, you need to get used to language. If you will spend a lot of time with language, you will have strong base of words and phrases. You will not use them in your speaking, but you will know them so when others use them to communicate with you, you know what they are telling you. Your responses and sentences which you use will be much more simple, but you will be able to communicate, and if you can communicate, that is a step further (next level) to improve your language skill. You are now confident to visit country, talk to locals, make friends, do video calls etc. After some time of reading and listening, you might feel that you do not know anything. And that is why a lot of people quit and start to make excuses like: I am just not good at languages etc. The difference between me and those people is that I know it works! So I do not worry when I do not understand, I do not worry if I forgot something. I am not preparing for any exam (maybe you do) so I just calmly listen and read, without worrying that I forgot something, because I know that one day I will speak confidently. To acquire a language you need to listen (or read) and you need that material which you are listening (reading) is comprehensible, interesting and compelling and all of that I am trying to provide for you in my podcasts. I wish you patience on your journey to become a confident speaker of Slovak Language.
