20 Audio Lessons That Will Teach You Spanish, French, Italian and German

As we’ll men­tion in an upcom­ing piece, Euro­pean lan­guages dom­i­nate the list of most pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion­al pod­casts. So we thought that we’d high­light the key pod­casts that will teach you the major Euro­pean lan­guages — Span­ish, French, Ital­ian and Ger­man. Mean­while, if you want to learn Eng­lish online, please see our piece below. Bonne chance.

For our com­plete col­lec­tion, see How to Learn Lan­guages for Free: Span­ish, Eng­lish, Chi­nese & Beyond.

French

• French for Begin­ners iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Fun, effec­tive lessons for begin­ners. Pro­vid­ed by the French Ecole.
• Le Jour­nal en français facile iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Night­ly news from RFI pre­sent­ed in slow­ly spo­ken French to assist you with your com­pre­hen­sion.
• Learn French by Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A well-reviewed series of lessons for begin­ners and those who want to brush up on their French.
• Learn French with Dai­ly Pod­casts iTunes Feed Web Site
  • These lessons are brought to you by French teach­ers from Paris. They are best suit­ed for those who already have some begin­ning French under their belts.
• The French Pod Class iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A very pop­u­lar col­lec­tion that teach­es stu­dents the French lan­guage and dif­fer­ent facets of French cul­ture.
• The Ver­b­cast — French Verbs by Relax­ation iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A four-week series of lessons that will allow you to refine your knowl­edge of French verbs.

Ger­man

• Deutsch — warum nicht?
  • An exten­sive col­lec­tion of intro­duc­to­ry Ger­man pod­casts put togeth­er by Deutsche Welle.
    • Part 1 iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Part 2 iTunes Feed
    • Part 3 iTunes Feed
    • Part 4 iTunes Feed
• Slow­ly Spo­ken News iTunes Feed
  • Deutsche Welle pro­vides a night­ly news broad­cast in Ger­man that’s spo­ken slow­ly so that you can work on your com­pre­hen­sion.
• GerG­er­man­Gram­mar iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Ger­man gram­mar lessons aimed at Amer­i­can stu­dents.
• Ler­nen Wir Deutsch iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Pre­sent­ed in video, these “vod­casts” get high marks for being not only edu­ca­tion­al but also very enter­tain­ing.
• MyDailyPhrase.com iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Learn Ger­man phrase by phrase over a course of 20 weeks. The pod­casts will cov­er all the lan­guage you need to know to get by on a vis­it to a Ger­man-speak­ing coun­try. This series is put togeth­er by the same peo­ple cre­at­ed the pop­u­lar series “Cof­fee Break Span­ish.”

Ital­ian

• LearnItalianPod.com iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A series of Ital­ian lan­guage lessons that will get you up and run­ning. I have per­son­al­ly used them and found them effec­tive.
• Let’s Speak Ital­ian iTunes Feed Web Site
  • This col­lec­tion will help you learn Ital­ian in small, man­age­able 5‑minute bites.
• MyDailyPhrase.com iTunes Web Site
  • Learn Ital­ian step by step over a course of 20 weeks. The pod­casts will cov­er all the lan­guage you need to know to get by on a vis­it to a Ital­ian-speak­ing coun­try. Cre­at­ed by the same peo­ple who put togeth­er the pop­u­lar series “Cof­fee Break Span­ish.”
• World Lan­guages Pod­cast­ing — Ital­ian Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
  • It’s admit­ted­ly a bit of an untra­di­tion­al way to learn Ital­ian. This pod­cast lets you lis­ten to con­ver­sa­tions about Aus­tralian cul­ture in Ital­ian.

Span­ish

• Cof­fee Break Span­ish iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Learn Span­ish in a low-key, effec­tive way. Cur­rent­ly the #2 over­all favorite in iTunes’ pod­cast col­lec­tion. They must be loaded on iPods every­where.
• Final­ly Learn Span­ish — Beyond the Basics iTunes Feed Web Site
  • If you’ve had some Span­ish class­es and you need expe­ri­ence lis­ten­ing to and speak­ing the lan­guage, then Final­ly Learn Span­ish has a col­lec­tion of pod­casts for you.
• Insta Span­ish Lessons iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Week­ly com­pre­hen­sion and gram­mar exer­cis­es for stu­dents of all lev­els. One of the more pop­u­lar pod­casts on iTunes.
• Learn Span­ish Sur­vival Guide iTunes Feed
  • If you’re plan­ning a trip to a Span­ish speak­ing coun­try, and if you don’t know the lan­gu­gage, this will help get you up to speed.