One-Year Anniversary Episode: Reflecting on Our Podcast Journey

2024-11-04 19 min

Description & Show Notes

In this celebratory episode, we reflect on our first year of podcasting, discussing our journey so far, our motivations, key lessons and plans for the future. We share insights into the work that goes into producing each episode, our teamwork and some fun statistics and moments that have become part of our podcast’s identity. This episode also offers valuable English language tips, focusing on using the present perfect tense to reflect on achievements.

Please note, this epsiode was recorded before the terrible tragedy in Valencia, so although we talk about our upcoming trip, that has now been postponed.  

In this epsiode we talk about:
  • Podcast Origins and Motivation: Our initial motivations for starting the podcast and how we wanted to reach learners in a new, engaging format beyond traditional blogging. 
  • Technical Learning Curve: From editing to equipment setup, we share our experiences of navigating podcasting’s technical aspects and reflect on learning to be comfortable with technology and overcoming fears associated with technical challenges.
  • Teamwork and Freelancing: Working as freelancers, we all value the camaraderie and support we've found in this collaborative project. 
  • Global Audience: We are thrilled to discover our listener base spans 21 countries, including listeners from places as far as Sudan, Brunei, Egypt, and Mongolia. We are grateful for the support and look forward to reaching even more people.
  • Plans for the Future: In addition to brainstorming new topics, we plan to deepen discussions on some subjects we've only touched on briefly. We aim to continue exploring diverse language topics that engage learners of all backgrounds.
Learning Tip: Present Perfect Tense
Throughout the episode, we naturally use the present perfect tense to discuss our achievements and experiences, such as “What have we achieved?” and “What have we done this year?” This tense is helpful when reflecting on the past with relevance to the present.

In dieser Jubiläumsfolge blicken wir auf unser erstes Jahr als Podcaster zurück und sprechen über unsere bisherige Reise, unsere Motivation, wichtige Erkenntnisse und zukünftige Pläne. Wir geben Einblicke in die Arbeit, die in jede Folge fließt, unsere Teamarbeit und einige lustige Momente, die zu einem Teil der Identität unseres Podcasts geworden sind. Außerdem enthält diese Folge wertvolle Tipps zur englischen Sprache, insbesondere zur Verwendung des Present Perfect Tense, um über Erfolge zu reflektieren.

Bitte beachte, dass diese Folge vor der schrecklichen Tragödie in Valencia aufgenommen wurde. Auch wenn wir über unsere bevorstehende Reise sprechen, wurde diese inzwischen verschoben.

In dieser Episode sprechen wir über:

Ursprünge des Podcasts und Motivation: Unsere anfängliche Motivation, den Podcast zu starten, und wie wir Lernende auf eine neue, ansprechende Art und Weise erreichen wollten, die über das traditionelle Bloggen hinausgeht.
Technische Lernkurve: Von der Bearbeitung bis zur Einrichtung der Ausrüstung – wir teilen unsere Erfahrungen mit den technischen Aspekten des Podcastings und reflektieren, wie wir uns dabei wohler mit der Technik gefühlt und Ängste vor technischen Herausforderungen überwunden haben.
Teamarbeit und Freelancing: Als Freiberufler schätzen wir alle die Kameradschaft und Unterstützung, die wir in diesem gemeinsamen Projekt gefunden haben.
Weltweites Publikum: Wir sind begeistert, dass unser Publikum 21 Länder umfasst, darunter Hörer aus so weit entfernten Orten wie Sudan, Brunei, Ägypten und der Mongolei. Wir sind dankbar für die Unterstützung und freuen uns darauf, noch mehr Menschen zu erreichen.
Pläne für die Zukunft: Neben neuen Themenideen planen wir, einige bereits angesprochene Themen vertieft zu diskutieren. Wir möchten weiterhin vielfältige Sprachthemen erforschen, die Lernende mit unterschiedlichstem Hintergrund ansprechen.
Lerntipp: Present Perfect Tense
In der gesamten Folge verwenden wir das Present Perfect Tense, um über unsere Erfolge und Erfahrungen zu sprechen, wie zum Beispiel „Was haben wir erreicht?“ und „Was haben wir dieses Jahr gemacht?“ Diese Zeitform ist hilfreich, um über die Vergangenheit im Hinblick auf ihre Bedeutung für die Gegenwart zu reflektieren.

Transcript

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, we are the 3 English Experts. I'm Rebecca. I'm Dave. I'm Birgit. And welcome to this episode. 3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey. Hi everyone. So just a bit of information before we start this episode. This following episode was actually recorded a couple of weeks ago. And you will notice that we talk about our upcoming trip to Valencia, how we're going to celebrate our anniversary. Unfortunately, of course, this was recorded before all the terrible, terrible floods occurred in the Valencian region. And due to that, we have actually cancelled our trip. Hopefully it's only postponed. We're hoping to do that in 2025. But because of the awful situation there right now and people are suffering and it's terrible and we just really it's not the right time to be celebrating right now in Valencia. So just if you're wondering when you listen to the episode, we did cancel the trip. But like I say, hopefully we will be able to do that next year in 2025. So hello, everybody, and welcome to a new episode. And this episode is special because we are celebrating one year of our podcast recording. Unbelievable. Doesn't feel like a year already. And we thought we are going to talk about why are we doing it? What's our motivation? Has it changed? What are we going to do next? What could we have done better or give you some share some statistics with you, some facts about listeners we have, where they are located and things like that. Yes. And there's also some learning, hopefully in this episode, because there's a grammar tense. What have we done? What have we achieved? We always would need for sentences like these, the present perfect. What are we going to do? What is our plan going to do? What's next on the list of things? Yes. So maybe some regrets, maybe some new ideas. And Rebecca, maybe you could start sharing your feelings about why are we doing this? What's your motivation? Has it changed? Why? Why? No, I think for me, I think originally, first of all, it's always fun to have a new project. And I think I got kind of bored of blogging. I think a lot of people got bored of blogs and a lot of people were moving over to this video or, you know, podcast format. So I think that was why it was one of my main motivations was just to try something different and just look at a different format. And I think I don't know. I mean, Dave, I know you listen to lots of audio books and podcasts. You listen to a lot of content, which I don't actually, I have to say, I still read a lot. But I think this this kind of format is so popular, isn't it? Where you can just you can multitask, you can listen while you're doing the garden or at the gym or whatever. So I think that was one of my things was just try a different format, see if you can reach people in a better way, in a different way. Yeah. Do something new. Dave, would you agree with that? Totally. And I wanted to go the full hog and record, film everything, but we decided in the end at first to at least to keep it as a podcast sound only. But actually, I think we did a good thing by recently adding the show notes, which I think also, as Rebecca just said there, you can multitask. But if you enjoy the reading side of things and learning from reading as well, it's always good that you can listen and maybe check the show notes, what we wrote, what we spoke about, maybe get some new vocabulary from that as well. So I think that's maybe answering one of the questions later on what we've sort of gradually done better as we've gone along, what we've learned from it. But yeah, I would agree with that totally. It's just I did blogging as well, I admit. And so, yeah, it is certainly a different way. At first, I was very nervous, thinking, oh, how are we going to do this? Do we have to type out what we want to say? Do we have to practise it 15 million times before we do it? But in actual fact, I think, I guess you guys will agree with me, we've been able to do it quite, as we say in English, off the cuff. So without really preparing it in great detail, of course, we have our ideas, what we want to say, but we don't write it out or anything like that. For me, that's a really positive thing, because it's also I thought, oh, this is going to take hours, you know, and it was a real relief just to feel like, okay, we don't have to script everything, we can just talk and it's okay, it works, right? What was your why for doing this? Yeah, my why was to obviously also try out this media form, but also to reach people out there, because there's such a high demand, I believe, in learning English. Okay, there are a lot of podcasts out there and material. But yeah, we used to chat every now and then before we were online, and I thought that was really a good combination. And that was my motivation to really reach out for more people, help them speak better English. And I have learned it's no rocket science. Yeah, completely agree. I thought, oh my God, the techniques, the microphone, what's going to be involved? Yeah, Dave, as you just said, it's okay. The effort we put into this, and the outcome, I think we can be happy. Yeah, we are content. But on the other hand, I think it's important to say it's not easy. There's always things that you have to do. And it's a lot of hard work that you need to put in to produce everything. I don't know, maybe Rebecca, you could also just say a few things about what efforts go into it, because I know you are the end of the sort of what happens when we recorded it and things like that. Which is absolutely hilarious, because I'm not a technical person. I think my husband is still like, and why are you in charge of editing? Why am I doing that? Because I can do it. I think, you know, I mean, we do outsource the editing. So just did shout out to our editor, Amin, who's absolutely fantastic. Thank you. Such a great guy. And he completely understands that we were podcast Muppets, let's say at the beginning. What we were doing, what we needed to send him, and he's really brilliant. I think what I have learned, I think, like Dave said, it's not easy. It's not just like it's the easiest thing in the world. But I think I've learned not to be so afraid of technical things. And I would always be Mrs. Oh, no, that's a bit, I'm not techie. And I can't do those things. And a bit like language learners, sometimes you get this block, you think, I am not a language person. And therefore, I cannot learn languages. And it's the same. I'm like that with tech things. I just think my head just blocks, I just cannot absorb this information. And I think that's been a good learning point for me that I have learned to step a little bit outside my comfort zone. We're still not in the panic zone. You see, Dave, I think videos, I would be in the panic zone. I don't want to be in the panic zone. I want to be in the stretch zone, the stretch zone, but not the panic zone. And I think that's been a really good lesson for me, just not to be afraid of new things, like new tech things that you don't, you know, and it's not rocket science, like bigger science. It's not easy peasy, but it's not rocket science. I at the beginning, you know, I was very nervous of the fact that everything you said was sort of recorded. And it's there forever. And it's it was kind of a scary thought. But I think with time you grow and you say, Okay, let's just go out and try and have a bit of fun and express yourself as you do and not to worry about it. Worst case scenario, it can always be. As you say, I cancel out all your shit, Dave. Yeah, no problem. You're welcome. Don't give away our secrets. You're welcome. You're welcome. Yeah. What have I learned? Also, I think I learned that it's really, really nice to have something going on in a team. So sort of teamwork. That's, yeah, that's really a good experience. Because as a freelancer, we all have that. We don't go out into the office. And if that works, and it works well, that's fantastic. But also, I had to learn that I still have a strong German accent. Before I hadn't listened to myself. Well, we still have strong Sheffield accents. So don't worry about it. Yeah, but everybody wants to have that nice British accent. And I thought before, maybe I thought, okay, I wouldn't sound so German. I don't know. But that's okay. It's okay. And that's something learners maybe find important to know. But again, it's I think, you know, it's this finding your voice and obviously recording, listening to yourself recorded is nothing most people don't like listening to themselves. And it is a bit like, wow, do I really sound like that? It's a bit strange. But again, it's getting used to it, accepting it. This is the way I sound. And I, you know, to try and change your voice too much is it would be kind of weird and not authentic. And so we are who we are. And we sound how we sound. And it's fine. Because we have some nice statistics bigger, right? People are listening to us. Yeah. And that's my personal highlight of this podcast. When I look at the statistics, that it's 21 countries that listen to us. And it's even, yeah, it's stretching, of course, from Germany and Austria, USA, the states on part number three, Brazil, quite a few people, but also from Sudan, Brunei, Egypt, Egypt, Egypt, Mongolia, Mongolia, Mongolia. Wow. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Thank you. I think maybe we should have our next visit to Mongolia and visit the person who listens to us in Mongolia. I just pressed on it by mistake. I have no idea who you are. But that's amazing how far we'll reach. Yeah, it's amazing. It's cute. It's a nice concept. I think the other, I mean, the other statistics, we seem to have mostly people over 30. That seems to be our target group. So according to the statistics, that is our target group, which maybe reflects on, you know, English learning today that maybe younger people feel more confident, have more, you know, connection to English, would you say, through social media, Netflix? And I think the English learning world has changed over the generations. Definitely. Yeah, I agree. Younger people, they might still be in education, involved at school, university. They might not have gotten to the stage where they think they need to brush up, but then getting into jobs after the age of turning 30, maybe that's becoming more important. Right. Yeah, I would absolutely agree with Bigger's point about the, yeah, the teamwork, because as a freelancer, I think anybody who is self-employed can relate to that, that you don't go out after work with your co-workers because you don't have co-workers. You don't go into the office because you don't have an office. You know, you sit in front of your screen every day and you meet lots of nice people. I, you know, I love meeting my clients and it's, but it's not the same as having peers, people who are on the same, do the same thing as you do, do the same work every day. And it's just nice to share, just to share experiences and ideas and motivate. We do motivate each other and our different projects. And so, yeah, that's, that's one of my highlights. And that's something you, you cannot take for granted. I think that's fantastic that it works so well between the three of us. Nobody's thinking, oh, he or she is a competitor or, yeah, that's, that's a good thing about it. We do share things. Yeah. Yeah. My other personal highlight is every time, so you don't see this as listeners, obviously, but we do meet on, when we record, we're actually all looking at each other. So we're on Zoom. So we don't sit in the same room. And when we say goodbye, every single time Dave waves, he waves at the screen to us. He just can't stop himself. He goes, bye, does this massive wave. And it's just really funny. And you just, you have to sit on your hands. I don't know. We can't stop him. He's just going to wave. Rebecca, we can try and talk really hard into him because we are finally meeting. We're going to meet, that's next, in person. We've never met. Yes. So what are we going to do next? Yeah. Indeed, you are coming to my hometown, which is, if you don't remember, is Valencia, Spain. So on the 8th of November, the guys are meeting up in Valencia. Can't wait. I can't wait. And people still think it's weird that we've never met. They still cannot believe you're physically never sat in the same room. It is kind of weird. It doesn't feel like that. It doesn't feel like that. I might not like you when I see you. I'm actually afraid that I think because I've never seen the two of you standing up. I think you're both quite tall and I'm really short. So I'm not very big. So I've got visions of our photographs and there'll be me in the middle, like the little ones. We put you on a stool. I need a step. I'm going to need a step to look equally. I'm not that. I'm not that big. I was imagining you quite tall. I don't know. Not that tall. I'm already planning what heels to bring to elevate myself. I never thought about the heels. Jesus, that's something else I need to think about. What heels are you wearing, Dave? I don't know. I'm going to have to ask my wife if I can get some. That's going to be cool, though. Looking forward to it. Absolutely. Yeah. But coming back to the content in this podcast, obviously, we're talking about how it should go on in the future, but it will be going on, definitely. So what the subjects will be, will there be any change? Or do you think after a year, we have covered most important subject, David, do you think, or what will be on the list? No, I think that's one of the other reasons for us all meeting up, that we can actually do a bit of brainstorming, maybe with a sangria or two or a cerveza or two or three, or whatever it might be to help the juices flow and the ideas flow. But no, there's loads of things. I mean, I think English language and the skills to do with English language are so varied, so wide. We could do it for another 50 years, guys. No problem. Oh, wow. Wow. We'll be all little old ladies. I won't be a little old lady. Sorry, no, you'll be. I'll be a little old man. Anyway. Okay, we'll just be old. Let's establish we'll all just be old. But yeah, I think like you said before, though, Dave, although we've done a lot of topics, we could deep dive a lot more, that there are some that we've talked about, we've touched on, but we haven't really gone into that much detail. So I think there's plenty of content to keep us busy. I think the only question is often, sometimes the format as well, whether we want to do it, maybe more shorter ones, or maybe even more longer ones. We've had one or two around about 30. Maybe this is somewhere where we could get comments from listeners. Your feedback is always welcome. So, you know, is it the more longer style that you prefer? Do you prefer the smaller style? Maybe we should even think about doing really short ones. Who knows? Really bite-sized stuff, snippets. In actual fact, what's quite funny, the listeners won't also know is we have a lot of good conversations before and after our recordings. We often thought of putting them together as a little compilation, because they're often quite humorous, I must say. So, but yeah, who knows? I think there's lots we could do. Yeah. What you have thought we would get more feedback on online, on writing, because the feedback is mostly by the people who listen. So we see they listen and look at profiles. Would you have thought that would have been different? I really don't know, because I don't know enough about podcasting to know how much audiences engage, you know, from contacting and writing. I get feedback from people. People tell me, oh, I listen and I recommended it. But actually, you know, writing a review or commenting is quite limited. So I don't know how we change that. If anyone has an idea, drop us a line and let us know. On the list for the brainstorming. And how important it is. I mean, of course, it would be nice to have more feedback. Feedback is always good. But that's something we need to brainstorm and think about how to engage our listeners more. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's all part of Valencia as well, of course. Valencia. Yes. Vamos. I'm ready. Yes. Let's go. Let's go. Here we come. Okay. Thanks, guys, for listening. We will really enjoy ourselves meeting up in Valencia. And for our next episode, we'd like to talk about series, whether it's on TV, whether it's on Netflix, Amazon, whatever it is, how to choose a series for yourself to help you improve your English. So see you next time. And I'm going to wave. Bye. Bye. Bye bye. Thank you so much for pressing play today. If you have any comments, questions or perhaps suggestions for future episodes, feel free to contact us at our website, 3englishexperts.com. Have a great day and see you next time.

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