List of English Podcasts I Listened To / Currently Listen To

18 Dec 2022

(Might be updated from time to time)

📢 Disclaimer: Not affiliated with any of the podcasts listed below, recommendations are based on my personal interest, if you don’t like any of the topics/themes of the listed podcasts just ignore🤣

I started listening to English podcasts in high school, mostly out of a very pragmatic reason - as a way of achieving “immersion” in language learning - I was hyper focused on improving my English speaking back then (and I still am 😅).

Aside from that primary reason, listening to podcasts is also highly entertaining - there are so many interesting and engaging topics ranging from basically anything I can think of 😄 I also get to learn a lot more beyond the language itself!

Most of the podcasts can be accessed on apps like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts (I now use Spotify, but there was an Android app, “DoublePod Podcasts for Android”, that was also clean and compact in size, though I can’t seem to be able to find it on Google PlayStore any more).

Here goes the list:

• Scientific American 60s Science: (Not listening to it now, but this is the very first English podcast I ever listened to) This is the one that I would put in my MP3 player in high school. Looking back, it might not have been the most suitable one to get started with - the vocabulary/topics were too specific to academia, quite far away from a daily/casual context.

• Happier with Gretchen Rubin: Not listening to it now, but did listen to it a lot in college. It’s a podcast on personal development, mental health and self-help, so there were indeed episodes that I found helpful and enlightening.

• Anderson Cooper 360: Another podcast from my colleage years, not listening to it now. To be honest, I wasn’t really into news and politics, but somehow back then I found Anderson very charming and really liked his voice haha 😅

• This American Life: One of my favorites! Still listening to it. Although there is a problem if you are using a podcast app - they only show about 10 latest podcasts on the list, you can access full episodes from its official archive.

• Serial: Still following! True crime related, but one of my favorites as well.

• Directionally Challenged: Still listening to it! Again one of my favorites - I started listening to it when it first launched in 2018, initially because I was a huge fan of The Vampire Diaries TV series, and the two hostesses are actresses from that series. But it turned out so engaging that I have now been following it for 4 years! In each episode, Candice and Kayla interview a guest, and the past episodes have covered a wide variety of topics

• Podcasts from The Atlantic: This page actually contains a series of podcasts/stories launched by The Atlantic. They are not really of one single genre, so you probably have to choose based on your interests. Personally I listened to their Crazy/Genius, Floodlines, Social Distance, Radio Atlantic (these were my pastime during the pandemic lockdown)

• Home Cooking: Feel like listening to cooking podcasts recently, so this is one I found. It doesn’t have many episodes and doesn’t seem to be updating, but still, I think it’s worth recommending.

• The Cookbook Circle: Same reason as above haha 😆