Speaker 1: Hey everybody. Good Wednesday morning. How's it going? How are you all doing? How's your language learning going this week? Ah, it's so good. Every time. So many of you will know I have been documenting on this channel my journey to reaching really advanced fluency in German, which is the sort of end goal of that series. And on Monday this week I shared a really special moment on that journey with all of you, which is that I realised I was finally at the point where I could start using my really awesome, powerful, exciting podcast study method. And this is something I do with every language, especially those where I've reached really high levels. And so while Monday's episode was kind of an overview of why I think it's so important and why that moment was so special for me, today I'm going to be doing a full tutorial and I'm going to walk you through my method. So we're going to start by talking about some requirements and I'll give you a few activities you can do to help figure out whether you have the right level and also the right materials for using this method. And then I'm just going to walk you through the five steps of my method. Again, I have used this over and over both myself and with students I've worked with in the past. It's just so darn powerful. I love it. And I think a lot of you are going to really enjoy using this method. So without further ado, one more sip of coffee just for good luck. And let's jump in. Okay, so let's talk about some very basic requirements. Now I find this method to be most effective when you can listen to a full episode of your podcast of choice. And essentially you can follow the general storyline and at least understand on a broad level what was talked about. Now this method works extremely well all the way up to people who are already very advanced in the language due to the methodology and the level of detail at which we're going to be studying our materials. So broadly speaking, I recommend that you be at sort of a middle to upper intermediate level. So somewhere, you know, approaching a B2 on the CEFR scale. Now, if you happen to be a more lower intermediate learner, and you still want to give this a try, then I recommend using something like easy languages, YouTube videos, instead of podcasts, because easy languages, they have so many languages available. And basically they do these interviews out on the streets. And it's more a series of short interactions versus, you know, longer in depth, more complicated conversations. So I recommend if you are a lower intermediate learner and podcasts are a bit too difficult for you, try this method with an episode or two of easy languages. And it might be a bit easier for you because again, you're going to have a long series of very short conversations. It's less to keep track of, and you're going to have repetition in terms of the subject matter, it's going to be a bit easier for you. So one thing that you can do to verify if you have the right level and materials here is listen to one episode or maybe even 10 minutes of your chosen podcast, and just see if you can answer these questions. So the minimum requirements are, did you understand who or what was being talked about? And what were the key points or key takeaways from the episode? Now for a bonus to see if you're really at the right level, you should also be able to answer what were your favourite parts? And what did you learn? Or what did listening to it make you think about? So if you can answer these questions, or at least the first two, I would say you are ready. Okay, so let's jump into step one of five. Now for this, we're basically going to just be listening to the podcast one time all the way through. So pick an episode that seems really interesting to you. And as you listen to the episode, I want you to imagine this as sort of zooming out. So don't focus so much on every single individual word. It's okay if you're missing, you know, quite a few words while you listen. We want to just sort of take a step back and see if we can follow the general story. Now on Monday, I shared the fact that the first time I listened to my podcast of choice, which is going to be an episode of Easy German, the podcast, not the YouTube series. Well, in the beginning, it did seem like it might be too difficult for me, I found I was missing quite a lot of words. And so on a minute by minute basis, it did seem like maybe I'm missing a bit too much. But as I listened to the entire episode, I realized, oh my god, I'm actually understanding this quite well. And I'm actually enjoying what they're saying. And I can definitely answer the four questions I gave you a second ago. So that's why I say give yourself a chance and listen to the whole thing. And just see and of course, if you get 10 minutes in and you're just completely lost, then that might be an indication that it's a bit too difficult. Step two, get a transcript for the episode, or you can transcribe it yourself. Now, I actually recommend experimenting with both options here. Of course, sometimes you might not have a transcript available. Most of the time for me in the past, I did not actually have a transcript. But I will say that transcribing it yourself is much more difficult. It's also much slower. However, it's incredibly powerful for boosting your comprehension skills. And I would say that this is the perfect type of struggle that I always say you eventually need in order to really reach those high levels of efficiency. Now, if you have the option for a transcript, then what I would say is at a lower level, use the transcript, it's a great way to get started. And it's going to be a lot faster. So you're going to be able to cover a lot more material in a shorter period of time. But as you get more advanced, or like I said, if you just don't have a transcript, then you can definitely transcribe it yourself. But be aware this is best done if you have somebody to help you sort of check your work and also fill in the gaps because you may find that there are some words, some sentences that you just can't hear. So in my case, I listened to episode 66 of the Easy German podcast. So what I did is I scrolled through the entire list of episodes. And I found this one called design. And immediately I thought yes, that's the one for me. Now in the case of Easy German, they have a Patreon page. And I just think they are just such wonderful, lovely, nice people. They do amazing work. And so I think anyone who can afford it, anyone who's studying German and likes their content, I highly recommend supporting them on Patreon. And if you do that, you get a transcript to every single podcast and YouTube episode, which is really, really great. So I went over to the print shop on my street and I got the transcript printed. Now you could totally do this on your laptop with just an electronic PDF. It works great. And frankly, it might even be faster because you can just copy and paste things. I just love, you know, doing things on paper. I'm a very sort of tactile person. And so that's why today I decided to print off the transcript. So what you're going to do is you're going to be basically studying that transcript. The goal here is to completely tear this thing apart. So every single sentence, word, idiom, phrase, even cultural references, anything you see that gives you the reaction of, oh, yes, I want this. I want to understand this. I want to know this, especially if you see anything that you think I want to be able to say this myself in conversation. My personal style is I want to capture that. And so what I like to do is write that down. Now, lately, what I've been doing is keeping a massive collection of sentences inside of Notion. I have a whole tutorial I made all about how to create a language learning system on Notion, which I'll link right here and in the description. And I also have a video about effective note taking, which I'll also link. So you can see there how I create this huge sentence bank in Notion. So in my case, what I'm doing is going through that transcript. I'm highlighting it, making notes, scribbling all over the place. And then I will actually transfer all my favorite pieces into Notion. Now, a key thing to understand here is that even just the act of capturing these things, so highlighting them and then writing them down either on paper into Notion, maybe into a flash carding system like Anki or Memrise, that alone is often enough to make this stuff stick. So very often, I actually don't even end up going back and using those sentences very often. But it's just the act and the additional cognitive effort of doing that. It really, really helps to actually make this stuff stick. And one more principle I always have is I almost never just take an individual word. So personally, I find that context is king. I've always said that I always say it. I almost never, you know, flash card a word in isolation. I always want to have the context. I want to have maybe the preposition or collocations or you know, what words does it go with? I think that context is so, so, so powerful. So personally, you will always see me actually taking entire sentences or at least parts of sentences. And that's what I'm writing down. Step three is basically to re-listen multiple times. Now, some people don't like listening to the same thing over and over again. But I promise you, it is such a powerful activity. And one thing you can think about is that honestly, it feels so good when you listen to something again, that the first time around was really challenging. Maybe there were gaps, words you didn't understand. If you can listen to that thing multiple times, and you get to the point where you understand basically every single word, it is such a gratifying, satisfying feeling. So if you're one of those people who really doesn't typically like to listen to the same thing over and over again, I would recommend you just give it a try. If you really don't like it, that's totally fine. But I promise you it will advance your level so much. And another point here is that this is a perfect activity to do in your dead time. So what I do is, you know, over time, I'm going to have listened to probably six, seven, eight, nine, ten episodes of a podcast. And so what I can do is just shuffle. So if I take a walk, if I'm washing the dishes, if I'm ironing my clothes, absolutely anything with dead time, time where I just have, you know, my hands are busy, I'm out walking, and I have time to listen, I can just randomly shuffle through the episodes I've already studied. And that keeps it interesting because it introduces some variety, even amidst the repetition. Now, step four is going to be done in parallel with step three with a slight delay. So once you've listened to the podcast again, maybe two or three times, then we're going to actually start to do some exercises. And I have a whole bunch that you can choose from. So one thing, like I said, is you could put your favorite sentences, phrases, idioms, everything you want into a flashcarding system like Anki or Memrise, anything that you like. And of course, you can go through and as you have time, you can sort of study all those things and really internalize them. Now, recently, I made a video all about my own podcast interview method, which is one way that I get amazing speaking practice all by myself. And so you can actually integrate these two methods together. So for example, you could actually insert yourself into the podcast, right? So in my case, this episode is all about design. There are three people, there's Carrie, Manuel and Nora. And they're all talking at one point, you know, about what does design mean to them? How does it impact them? So I could actually pretend that I'm in the podcast episode. And I could imagine that maybe Carrie asks me, Robin, what do you think about design? How does design impact your daily life, your professional life? You know, how do you feel about the role of design in the world? And then I can practice actually being a part of the conversation. And for a full overview of my podcast interview method, please watch that video. I'll link it right here and in the description. Now, of course, if you have a tutor or a language partner or just a friend, then you can also do plenty of these activities as a pair, right? So you could talk about what were the key takeaways for you in that episode. And maybe your partner or tutor has a different takeaway. You could try summarizing the episode to your partner. You could do the 4, 3, 2, 1 method from Paul Nation, where you try summarizing the podcast in four minutes. And then afterwards, you do it again in three minutes. And then in two minutes, you practice being more and more concise and efficient with your language. And finally, step five is shadowing. Now shadowing is something that I actually do a lot and it's extremely powerful. But I find that people tend to discuss shadowing at a very shallow level. So I'll make a different video all about my personal method for shadowing because it has many steps. But for now, I'll just say that once I am really familiar with the material. So if you do steps 1, 2, 3 and 4 and you do that for a few weeks, you'll find that you know the episode extremely well. And so at that point, while I'm out walking, while I'm home doing the dishes, ironing or just relaxing, I will actually begin to shadow. So as the people are speaking on the podcast, I actually will say what they say. And in the beginning, I'm just trying to copy, trying to mimic, trying to see if I can get comfortable shadowing their speech. But by the end, I will actually mimic their emotions as well. So if somebody is happy and laughing, I'll try to copy what they're saying with that exact same intonation, rhythm, emotion. And if someone's angry and shouting or if someone's sad, I'll try to truly internalize that and mimic it. And this is an excellent way to really make the sort of the rhythmic fabric of a language part of how you speak it. It's a wonderful activity to do. It's pretty hardcore, but that's what I do for step 5. And that's basically it. So again, I do this in cycles. So for my extensive input, I like to do step 1, right? So I listen to the whole thing all the way through and I just see how much I can, you know, pick up, how much I can follow. And then after that, steps 2, steps 3, steps 4, steps 5, I'm going to be doing a combination of fairly intensive study. I'm going to be getting speaking practice because I'm going to do things like the podcast interview method. And all the while, I'm still getting that extensive input because I'm going to be re-listening to the podcast. And you will be amazed at how well you can internalize some things that they say. And what I find is that in daily conversations later on, I can literally just copy entire phrases from those podcasts. So as soon as the perfect situation comes up in real life, I can just say it perfectly. And those are the moments when people are like, wow, that was really natural. I'm surprised that you knew how to say that. And like I said, after a while, you get to a point where you have 5, 6, maybe even 10 episodes that you can just shuffle through while you're out walking and it keeps it interesting. And by that point, I guarantee your skills are going to have improved massively. And I love this method because it really improves all your language skills and improves both your productive skills as well as your comprehension skills. And it's just fantastic. Okay, everybody, I really hope you like this tutorial. Let me know your thoughts. And of course, if you decide to try this, please let me know. And once again, huge shout out to Easy German and the Easy Languages organization in general. It's absolutely fantastic. But please do feel free to share your favorite podcast resources in the comments below. And with that, I wish you a fantastic Wednesday.