To score high in TOEFL, or to get ahead at job, is a strong motivation to study English, but it’s no where near to be genuine curious about the people who speak a different mother tongue. If you are obsessed with their life and culture, then overcoming the language barrier seems a small fish to fry.
There is no better project than StoryCorps’s Recording America to satisfy your curiosity while learning a genuine American English at the same time. Under the project, about 30,000 Americans from all walks of life recorded their life stories, mostly between two closed ones, like husband and wife, or mother and daughter.
Most of the stories are plain with little drama. But as they talk about mundane things like friendship, love, work, and struggle, the plainness comes vividly alive. It’s conversational, authentic, and original. Even listening to a fraction of the collections will give you a much better and realistic picture of Americans than from watching the whole season of Friends and Prison Break.
You can listen to the recordings at the StoryCorps’ site, or some of them at NPR, for free.
