SBS Learn English is celebrating its first anniversary producing bespoke Australian English content to help newly arrived migrants gain confidence to use English in everyday life scenarios.

The Learn English podcast covers topics from calling in sick to work, to cheering for a footy team, bringing simple and useful English to common situations.

The podcast is being published fortnightly and has generated over 340,000 downloads in its first year, across 16 languages including Arabic, Cantonese and Mandarin.

SBS Director of Audio Language and Content, David Hua says that despite the array of English learning offerings, SBS Learn English is distinct in its belief that there is no perfect English.

He says, “A lot of new migrants aim to have perfect or a ‘native’ English speaking level and there is no such thing – it’s a myth.

“All Australians have accents and we’re all different, which is why we use a number of different accents in our content – we even use recordings from current learners to make our content real and inviting. 

“I’m also incredibly proud of our production team who understand the challenges of speaking English as a later language.”

Main photo: Program Manager Janine Googan speaks to English learners at Granville TAFE