Language Learning Tools: Improve Your English

Today, I would love to tell you more about my favourite apps, podcasts and tools I use to improve my English.

If you are studying British English, BBC website and their programmes should be on your “must-have” list. All my favourite podcasts are made by this broadcasting company. My best recommendations are:

• News: “Global News Podcast” (daily) from the BBC World Service. In case you are an intermediate student and native-level English is a bit difficult for you, try “Learning English News Review”.
• Humour: “Friday Night Comedy” from the BBC Radio 4 – great opportunity to dive into the world of the British humour (for advanced students).
• English studying: “6 Minute English” or “The English We Speak”. BBC also offers other podcasts and programmes made for English learners (such as “6 Minute Grammar” or “6 Minute Vocabulary”), you can explore those at https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/
• Topic-centred podcasts: “50 Things That Made the Modern Economy” and “30 Animals That Made Us Smarter” from the BBC World Service. First talks about discoveries that played a crucial role in the development of the global economy, while second shows how animal features inspired interesting inventions.

BBC also produces many other programmes and podcasts centred around various topics, you can explore those at their official website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/

Besides podcasts, I also love listening to audiobooks. I am a passionate detective stories’ fan, so nowadays I rediscover Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories about Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s novels about Miss Marple. Listening to them in the original language is a true pleasure – I recommend trying those books out.

You can find them and many other audiobooks completely for free at the http://www.openculture.com/

My favourite sources for finding audiobooks in English, however, are Audible.com, Audible.co.uk or Audiobooks.com, since they also offer a handy app for your mobile devices. Although these services are paid, all of them offer a free trial and an opportunity to cancel your subscription at any time.

For exercising, I use Elevate application. I have been training with it for many months and I absolutely love it – the app uses a gamification approach to study and every day offers you a pack of different tasks to practice and improve your English. All areas of language – speaking, writing and reading – are taken into account, plus you get maths’ exercises as an additional bonus. You can check this app here: https://www.elevateapp.com/

The last, but not the least, favourite of mine is grammarly.com – this spell-checking chrome extension helps me to improve my writing. It is available for free, you can try it out here: https://app.grammarly.com/

Hope this short list of my favourites helps you on your journey to English proficiency. In the next post, I will tell you more about my favourite sources, podcasts and apps I use for improving my German.

Now, could you tell me which tools do you use to improve your English? What are your favourites? Please, let me know in the comments below.