Improve your English in a more interesting way

Hi, I'm Alastair 👋.

I'm an English guy from London, who has spent 37 years on this earth studying foreign languages, working in technology, teaching English to foreigners, and thinking about learning languages.

I'm a native English speaker, am fluent in Italian and French, I have a Masters in Mandarin Chinese, and have studied Swedish, Russian, Latin and Greek, as well as dabbling in Spanish and German.

I've lived in the UK, Malta, France, Italy and China. I now live in Sweden, am married to an Italian, have two (almost) trilingual kids, and have friends from all over the world, so I've spent my life thinking about how best to learn a language, and doing experiments on myself.

I'm building Leonardo English to help people like you improve your English while learning about the world.

At the start, learning a language is about being out of your comfort zone.

If you are too comfortable, it means you aren't learning.

If it feels hard, then this means that you are learning, even if it is a bit painful at the start.

Yes. When you become a member you will receive a unique link to add the member-only episodes to your favourite podcast app. You can read more about this here.

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We do not currently have lessons specifically on grammar or vocabulary, although by listening to the podcasts you will improve both your grammar and vocabulary through understanding the words and structures used by native speakers.

The key vocabulary is provided for every podcast, with an average of 100 words highlighted with definitions.

Depending on your level, and how you use the podcasts, you could learn 100+ new words per week.

We're language learners ourselves, and know firsthand that just focussing on vocabulary and grammar isn't what makes you fluent.

No, we have something better. You can use all of the learning resources for a selection of podcast episodes for free, with as long as you like. You don't even need to create an account. You can also listen to lots of our podcast episodes here or on your favourite podcast app.

If you want to unlock the learning materials and all the bonus episodes, and support our work, then we'd love for you to become a member.

What's more, we have a 30-days 'no questions asked' refund policy. Refunds are processed within 24hrs.

The majority of our content is in a British 'BBC' accent, otherwise known as The Queen's English.

On occasion we may have content in an American, Australian, or South African accent.

Leonardo Da Vinci was the quintessential renaissance man - a painter, philosopher, artist, mathematician, and more. We believe that everyone can aspire to broaden their knowledge, and be a bit more like Leonardo.

Sure, if you are a member you can request topics for us to make.

We want to make the podcasts that our members want to listen to - join today and start requesting topics within minutes.

It is for Intermediate speakers and above.

If you can read and understand most of this website, you will be able to understand the podcasts.

Every podcast comes with key vocabulary and a transcript, so you should be able to follow easily, even if you don't immediately understand every word.

We release new episodes every Friday, and we make a new three-part mini-series every month.

Members get unlimited access to every episode,

We release a new episode freely available on podcast apps every two weeks.

We currently support instant translations for our transcripts and subtitles for these 12 languages: Spanish, German, Polish, Italian, French, Turkish, Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Czech, Russian, and Arabic.

If your language is not on this list, don't worry. If you are a member, simply email hi@leonardoenglish.com and we will help you add it to your account manually.

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Yes. Students get 50% off all Annual plans, and we offer educational plans for schools. Please email hi@leonardoenglish.com and we'll take it from there.

Please note, the student discount does not apply for monthly plans.