By Declan Howlett, Catch the Sun intern.
If you read our blog post about why typos happen, you’ll know that typos occur easily and they can be hard to find and fix. In that post, we talked about distraction being one of the causes of typos and errors, but another cause for mistakes in copy is a lack of knowledge of grammar. Avoid typos and enhance grammar skills with 6 of the best English grammar podcasts, as suggested in our blog post on the reasons for typos. Improve grammar knowledge and avoid mistakes by incorporating grammar podcasts into daily routine, as discussed in our blog post on the causes of typos.
Let’s face it, there are a lot of grammar rules and unless you’ve taken some highly specialized courses, chances are your education only covered the basics. In most cases, your working understanding of grammar and a good ear for things that don’t sound right will be good enough to see you through most situations. But when you’re writing copy that can’t have any mistakes in it, sometimes you need to be sure you haven’t made an error that will make everyone involved look like amateurs.
Rather than paying for a course and ‘going back to school’ to brush up on your grammar, incorporating a grammar podcast into your routine can be a great way to improve your knowledge. It’s also likely to squeeze a little more productivity out of your daily commute or workout. There are a lot of English grammar podcasts out there, but it seems many are for the purpose of learning the language. It can be a little more difficult to find good grammar podcasts for writers who are looking to fine tune their understanding of the language. So, we’ve had a look around the web and have found these six great podcasts about grammar.
Grammar Underground is a podcast about the rules of English grammar, with each episode covering a different rule. The approach is quick, simple and no fuss, with most episodes under five minutes. June Casagrande is incredibly clear and succinct, making it a very useful and informative tool if you’re looking for answers to specific grammar rules or scenarios.
Region: North America
Length: <5 min
Frequency: Weekly
Logline: Grammar Girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing.
Grammar Girl is an award-winning writing and grammar podcast from podcast hall of fame inductee, Mignon Fogarty. The podcast has great production values and provides tips, rules and information in an energetic and entertaining style. Many episodes feature grammar rules relating to topical events, making it a great addition to your roster if you’re a regular podcast listener.
Region: North America
Length: 10–15 min
Frequency: Weekly
Logline: If you want to learn how to improve your writing and self-editing with tips, tools and guidance, The Editing Podcast is for you.
A superb grammar podcast with a publishing industry focus. Louise Harnby (fiction editor) and Denise Cowle (non-fiction editor) provide relevant and applicable guidance for anyone who publishes written material. Most shorter episodes deal with specific grammar rules and their application, with longer episodes featuring guests who talk about their area of expertise. A great podcast for marketeers, copywriters, publishers, proofreaders and editors alike.
Region: United Kingdom
Length: Mostly 10–20 min
Frequency: Weekly
Common Errors in English Usage
Logline: The Common Errors in English Usage podcast features Paul Brians with host Tom Sumner.
This podcast is all about clarifying the meaning and usage of words that people often get wrong or confuse with other words. Episodes are generally themed to guide Paul and Tom’s meandering conversation along as they discuss the specific meanings and usages of words. This grammar podcast manages to be very informative within a narrow scope, while being relaxed and entertaining.
Region: North America
Length: ~30 min
Frequency: 122 episodes but no longer produced
Grammar Matters and Stuff That Isn’t Funny
Logline: Two pals try, and generally fail, to make grammar – and life – interesting.
This grammar podcast is more about entertainment than rules. It’s a fun look at the lighter side of grammar by two friends, Mat and Tim. The podcast has a very unstructured and loose feel to it and isn’t for people who want an answer in a hurry. However, it might be just the podcast for copywriters who want a leisurely listen that doesn’t feel like work. Unfortunately, this laid-back attitude also extends to their release schedule, which even they admit is haphazard.
Region: North America
Length: ~50 min
Frequency: Infrequent
Logline: A fun radio show and podcast about language examined through family, history, and culture.
A bonus language podcast for people who love words and their meanings. This podcast is a recorded radio segment featuring listeners who call in with questions about words and phrases. As such, it’s more of an etymology podcast than something specifically for copywriters, editors or proofreaders. However, because of the talkback structure of the show, it covers a lot of unique and uncommon information that anyone who loves language and grammar will likely enjoy.
Region: North America
Length: 51 min
Frequency: Weekly
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