What is a Story?

Plain English helps English learners upgrade their language skills with stories about current events and trending topics.

Each Story is an approximately 10-minute audio lesson about something going on in the world. The Story comes with a free transcript and additional learning resources for premium members.

Stories are a natural way to give language learners exposure to new words, new concepts, and new ways of expressing ideas.

By engaging your mind, you can also get practice thinking in your new language. When you listen to a Story in English, you'll picture what's happening in your head, develop opinions, and think more deeply in English.

Stories also help keep learners' attention. The purpose of learning a new language is to understand others and to communicate our own ideas. Stories, therefore, are a great way to stay motivated as a learner.

There is no better feeling than to understand something interesting in your new language.

Plain English stories cover a wide variety of topics. Some are more timely (things in the news around when the story was released), while others are more general.

Our stories cover business, politics, culture, sports, the arts, travel, and more.

Recent topics include:

Browse the full library of more than 700 English stories here. The stories at the top are the most recent. Scroll to the section called "All Stories" and browse by topic:

Find a story that matches your interest. Open the page, listen to the audio, and follow along with the free transcript.

If you like our approach, sign up for a free trial to try out the other resources included in every Story.

Many learners also listen to the audio of our Stories on a podcast app like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or PocketCasts.

Each Story is available in two speeds. Learning speed goes a little slower than full speed to help intermediate English learners follow along without getting frustrated.

The full speed is at native-speaker speed. Switch between the two audio version on the Story page.

In addition to the audio and transcript, each Story includes:

The learning-speed (slow) audio and transcript are available to any website visitor. Free members can access the quiz. The exercises, translations, fast audio, and discussion opportunity are available to Starter and Plus+ members.