I hit the jackpot in Russian recently, courtesy of Vladimir’s excellent blogsite (ещё раз спасибо!). And what was this glittering find, you may ask? – no less than a sizable collection of podcasts by “Радио Эхо Москвы” with complete transcripts (approximately 200K words altogether), and all this in high quality audio with several videos too (I’ve found at least 25 hours’ worth so far).
What makes these podcasts so useful is that they are i) accompanied by printable transcripts (excellent for listening and reading or studying with an online dictionary), ii) they’re much more extensive than anything else I’ve come across so far, usually ranging from 40-50 minutes each, and iii) put altogether, they represent a sizable chunk of real native dialogue as spoken by various guests and presenters across a range of interesting topics.
This combination makes the collection ideal for filling in many of the gaps left behind from listening and reading to novels, or after studying artificial snippets of dialogue in various courses, offering a ready resource for intermediate students who wish to bridge over to real-world dialogue and listening skills, or for advanced learners who’d like to analyse and tease out colloquial speech patterns in more detail later on.
I’ve been looking for something like this for absolutely ages. So now in my excitement, I’m already getting giddy with following thought: if Russian has a resource like this (i.e podcasts of long native dialogues/interviews with transcripts), how about other languages? 🙂
[Any relevant suggestions will be added here to future lists and ordered by language.]
Here’s what we have so far:
PODCASTS + TRANSCRIPTS
Spanish
Español Podcast
(with an excellent collection of quality transcripts available as printable PDFs)
[suggested by cutiepie on HTLAL]
Russian
Радио Эхо Москвы
(an unfathomable repository of high quality audio and conversational transcripts; 30-50 minute interviews with various guests and presenters across a range of interesting topics)
[suggested by Vladimir on Forever a Student]
Turkish
Handcrafted Audio Turkish Podcasts
(19 podcasts so far, 14 with transcripts amounting to approximately 1,700 words).
[suggested by hrhenry on HTLAL]
PODCASTS ONLY (some accompanied by background articles)
French
Europe 1
(very nice interviews on a vast variety of topics)
[suggested by Vlad on HTLAL]
German
WDR – Redezeit
(interviews usually concerning German, European and World politics)
[suggested by Vlad on HTLAL]
WDR – Leonardo
(a wonderful podcast about popular science)
[suggested by Vlad on HTLAL]
Hungarian
InfoRádió
(Hungarian political talk show, updated daily)
[suggested by Vlad on HTLAL]
Irish
An tlmeal
(bright, lively podcasts on contemporary culture, with lots of links)
Italian
La Repubblica
(updated daily; very good debates on a variety of topics)
[suggested by Vlad on HTLAL]
Polish
Polskie Radio
(very good political debates)
[suggested by Vlad on HTLAL]
Travels with Teango 