What Can Podcasts Teach Us?

**Collaborative post**

Reading books is still a huge part of many of our lives, and I for one absolutely love nothing more than snuggling up on the sofa, grabbing a hot cuppa, a chocolate bar, blanket and losing myself in a good book. Sadly, the time to do this dwindles away as our lives become so very busy that sometimes finding that hour to read the book is pushed aside in order to do other things such as housework instead – and it’s not really possible to run the hoover around and read at the same time.

Audiobooks were a great way to combat this but it isn’t really the same as losing yourself in the book and bringing the characters voices to life in your own imagination.

This is where Podcasts are starting to come into their own and by 2023, 1 billion people will be listening to them at least once a month: Podcasts (a loose combination of the words “iPod” and “broadcasting”) are carving out an increasingly important space in our daily routine.

Podcasts offer something for everyone – funny ones, news and educational, light topics and even heavy world news podcasts – whatever your mood you will be able to find something to listen to and this is one of the reasons they are becoming so popular. Combined with being able to listen anywhere – in the car, on the tube, on your morning run or even on the walk to get the kids from school.

Babbel – the world’s first language-learning app – have created the infographic “What can a Podcast Teach You?”, to explain this global phenomenon through lots of fun facts and data, while also offering a series of useful tips for learning languages… by listening to podcasts.

As the infographic explains, in 2021, Brits listened to almost 60 million hours of podcasts every week (+50% compared to 2019 and 17 times more than in 2015). In 2022, even more growth: +2.9 million listeners are expected in the UK. From “Today in Focus”, a podcast by The Guardian that covers a crucial fact in 20 minutes, to “Eat Sleep Work Repeat” by Bruce Daisley (Vice President of Twitter), there are many podcasts loved by the British.

Babbel has also launched numerous podcasts to help language learning. In fact, there are many educational benefits to listening to Babbel’s podcasts: They present and introduce relevant cultural elements, they help improve pronunciation and conversation and they also explain new linguistic forms of speech.

We like to listen to podcasts here as a way to help unwind and relax too – it can become all too easy to get into the habit of switching on the tv and falling asleep watching our favourite shows, but usually, especially in Emmy’s case, we just keep watching and watching. By popping on a podcast, you can listen with your eyes closed, settle down faster and generally fall asleep faster – just don’t choose one which will have you in fits of giggles at 11 pm.

So, are you ready to put your headphones on and press “play”? Do you have a favourite Podcast you love to listen to yet?