Popular Podcasts
25-Mar-2018Comments (0)
Links and tipps and a Python program for automating the download of BBC 6 minute English.
An article by Murièle Weber in NZZamSonntag (25-Mar-2018) aroused my interest in podcasts. Here I summarize podcasts related to stories, news and learning English and add some tipps to listening and download.
- This American Life.
The stories take less than 60 minutes. Some stories are accompanied by a transcript.
If you want to download say the story "306" you can go directly to the mp3 file:
https://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/306.mp3
and get the transcript from
https://thisamericanlife.org/306/transcript - Stuff You Should Know.
- Homecoming.
- Top 20 podcasts of 2017.
- BBC 6 Minute English. An excellent podcast from BBC to learn English. There is one 6-minutes-long lesson each weak accompanied by a transcript.
Here is a Python program to download BBC 6 Minute English. It can be adapted easily to download several BBC podcasts at once.
# Call downloadDate("180322")
# to download the podcast from 2018-03-22
import sys
import urllib.request
import datetime
from datetime import timedelta
import time
def downloadDate(d):
baseAddress = "http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/6-minute-english/ep-"
print("Downloading date " + d)
address = baseAddress + d
print("Address=" + address)
f = urllib.request.urlopen(address)
fileBytes = f.read()
f.close()
fileContent = fileBytes.decode("latin1")
ix = fileContent.find("Takeaways")
# pdf:
ix_end = fileContent.find(".pdf", ix)
ix_start = fileContent.rfind("http", ix, ix_end)
url = fileContent[ix_start : ix_end] + ".pdf"
ix_start = fileContent.rfind("_", ix, ix_end)
title = fileContent[ix_start : ix_end]
downloadName = d + title + ".pdf"
downloadUrl(url, downloadName)
time.sleep(5)
# mp3:
ix_end = fileContent.find(".mp3", ix)
ix_start = fileContent.rfind("http", ix, ix_end)
url = fileContent[ix_start : ix_end] + ".mp3"
downloadName = d + title + ".mp3"
downloadUrl(url, downloadName)
time.sleep(5)
def downloadUrl(url, downloadName):
print("Downloading " + url)
opener = urllib.request.URLopener()
opener.retrieve(url, downloadName)
Favorite podcast apps:
- Apple Podcasts
- Overcast (for Apple devices)
- Spotify
- Google Play. I use this one on my Android phone to listen to BBC 6 minute English.
- Breaker
- Stitcher
- TuneIn
- RadioPublic
- Pandora
For learning English see also English with Lucy on Youtube
With so many interesting podcasts the only question remains: where to get the time to listen to them?
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