How to use D2B


This is Skip Montreux coming to you, as usual, from Tokyo Japan.

Dez and I are still a few days away from releasing the next episode of Down to Business English but I just wanted to take a few minutes and speak to all of you directly.

First of all, thank you so much for subscribing to our podcast. We launched the show back in March this year after coming up with the idea many, many months ago. It may not be the most polished ESL podcast available on the internet, but Dez (and Samantha!) and I certainly do enjoy putting the shows together, and are especially pleased to see so many people taking advantage of this resource. We sincerely hope that Down to Business English can be of some small help in your language studies.

There are many different approaches one can take in using this podcast and we hope you settle on a method that works for you.

Here is our advice as to how we feel you can best make use of Down to Business English.  Not only to improve your listening skills, but also expand your vocabulary and perhaps even improve your speaking ability.

When a new episode is available:

  • listen to it a 1st time without referring to the audio script. Try to get the overall gist of what Dez & I are discussing. Don’t worry or get discouraged if you miss a lot of information or don’t understand something. This first listening is really just a warm up.
  • the 2nd time you listen, do so in more of a study atmosphere. This time, focus your listening on key information. Names, numbers, words and phrases you do know. Perhaps take notes as you listen to help give you some focus.
  • the 3rd time your listen feel free to use the audio script if you think it will help. Make use of the pause and rewind buttons to stop and take notes. Take a moment to read a passage and then re-listen to it. Refer to your dictionary if necessary.

After going through an episode in this manner, it is a good idea to now read through the audio script, without listening. If possible read it aloud-especially the phrases or chunks of language that a new word is part of.

Remember that it is difficult for your brain to remember words in isolation, or alone. Our brains learn vocabulary faster and remember the meanings of words for a longer period of time if we practice them in context.

Now put the audio script away and listen to the show again. Can you understand it better than the first time you listened? Even if you only understand it a little better-pat yourself on the back. You have taken another step in the ongoing process of language acquisition.
Down to Business English is a relatively long program, each one being 20-30 minutes in length. That is a lot of listening material to dig into.  You may want to apply this procedure the story portion of the episode only. In the future, Dez will be posting some advice as to how to get the most out of the vocabulary section.

Both Dez and I hope you find this advice useful and wish you all the best in your English language studies. Good luck and stay tuned.

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7 thoughts on “How to use D2B”

  1. Hi Maxim,

    Thanks for the kind words about the show. I’m sorry you are having technical problems.
    I’ve checked our rss feed and it validates properly, and I have no issue downloading audio files from the website. Can you give me more information about your situation? What podcatcher are you using to receive the episodes? Apple Podcasts? Outcast? Other?

  2. Maxim Kuzminsky

    hi
    I came across your podcast a few days ago and I liked it very much.
    the problem is I get fetch error while fetching episodes like the following:

    …there seems to be a problem fetching this series right now. Last successful fetch was on February 05, 2021 02:41 (1M ago)….

    is it a temporary problem? Can we hope we will still have your new podcasts?
    Thank you!

  3. Hi Gi,

    Thanks for leaving your comment!!

    It is difficult to change the format of D2B without losing either some of the topic discussion or cutting the Down to Vocabulary section. When we can increase our membership base we are going to try launching a 2nd podcast that is shorter and focuses on Business news Headlines. For now, I’m afraid D2B is going to be around 18-23 minutes.
    How many minutes do you think an episode should be?

  4. Hi there,

    I’m from Brazil, and I really loved your site!
    I’d like to work with it, but unfortunately the audios are too long. Could you think about posting some shorter? =)

    Thanks in advance!
    Amazing work!! 😉

  5. Thanks to both of you for your comments!

    Tiong, please take a look at my reply to your comment on the Hedge fund post.

    Brain- All the audio files are mp3s and the audio scripts are pdfs. They are both cross platform formats. Even though I primarily use a Mac, Dez only uses a Window OS so I’m not sure what technical issues you may be facing. If you could give me more details as to the specifics of the trouble I will do my best to help you get sorted.

    You can leave a message here or email through the contact page.

    Thanks again,

    Skip

  6. Hi,
    My name is Tiong, I’m from Malaysia, I’m just a beginner. I came to this site by chance not long ago, since then I’ve been listening almost every day because I find the podcast very beneficial to my English learning.
    I appreciate the approach you present the episode, I think Skip and Dez match up very well and their voices are pleasing too. I hope new episode can be made available as fast as possible. Thank you very much, thank you.

  7. I am an instructor, and often utilize all the helpful resources from the Internet, and I thank you for the work you’re doing, as it makes my work easier!

    I have a technical question. I was just wondering if you could tell us what kind of audio files you use. Some companies I work for have trouble playing the files. Are they Apple-based files or Windows files?

    Thanks,
    Brian

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