Learn English with YouTube: the channel ladder learners share, and how they turned watching into learning

YouTube has more English on it than anyone could ever get through, and that is the whole problem. Without some kind of plan, it is easy to lose a year watching videos you only half understand. The people who wrote the most useful advice about this online did two things: they stuck to channels that matched their level and moved up once those felt easy, and they found ways to check whether all that watching was actually turning into comprehension. This page gathers what they shared, keeping the details they gave.

A channel ladder by level

One of the most widely shared lists in Chinese learner communities, put together by a YouTube creator and reposted with hundreds of saves, breaks channels down like this:

Family vlogs get their own middle step for a good reason: people speak at a steady pace and use simple words. At the top of the ladder, the list stops naming English-learning channels altogether and suggests watching whatever you are already interested in, like programming or computer networking tutorials in English, so you pick up the terms used in your field.

Another learner's list, after more than a year

A second list, saved over 500 times, came from someone who had been using it for more than a year. It follows the same general idea: beginners stick to comprehensible-input channels and everyday situations; intermediate learners watch family vlogs, foreigners living in Chinese-speaking places, and college vlogs; advanced learners move on to talk shows, gaming, podcast-style interviews, and channels about their own hobbies.

Their personal favourites:

• Volka English. They watched it grow from a few thousand subscribers to 1.55 million and said it taught them a lot of vocabulary without feeling like work.
• The Diary of a CEO. As they put it, this was the channel that first taught them about business.
• Mel Robbins's podcast channel.
• English with Brittany, run by a Canadian English teacher who is a stay-at-home mum.

Channels with a stated level

• Pensando Inglés: comprehensible input for A1 to B1, entirely in English, using gestures, props, and clear situations to get the meaning across.
• Julian Northbrook: good listening practice for A2 to B1. He speaks slowly in a British accent and talks about ways to learn English. The channel has been around for about ten years and does not post as often now, but the older archive works well for listening.
• Natalie Dawson: useful both for what you say (content, logic, and structure) and how you say it (tone, voice, and intonation).
• Rachel's English: focuses on American pronunciation and comes up in several recommendations.

In another post saved more than 1,000 times, one learner started with the English version of Peppa Pig on YouTube and TED-Ed, alongside Volka English and Ariannita la Gringa. Once it became a routine, they wrote, they put on videos whenever they had spare time, and English started to feel fun.

From watching for fun to actually learning

A year of commuting, no subtitles. One learner spent most of their commutes for a year listening to English YouTube and podcasts without subtitles or notes in their native language. They replayed parts that caught their interest and sometimes shadowed at normal or 0.75x speed. Whenever they tried shadowing while reading English subtitles, they found they did worse than without them. After a year, they recorded themselves reading aloud and ran the audio through their phone's speech-to-text, and nearly 90% of it transcribed accurately. Now they can follow the main point of videos without stopping to look words up.

Watch freely, then test yourself. A student who went abroad near the bottom of their class in English spent their time watching videos on topics they genuinely liked, such as maths, AI, and history, with dual subtitles on. Their habit was to do a regular check: pick an English podcast or interview that had subtitles, listen to it closely once through, and see how much they caught. The way they described it, casual watching builds up experience points, and close listening is where you go to level up.

Test scores and YouTube do not always match. One learner tested their vocabulary at 5,700 words in their final year of high school, and at 4,700 a few years later. Even so, since the previous summer they had been watching all-English channels directly, and can now follow live AI product launches without trouble.

The same works in other languages

A list of free German resources, saved by nearly 200 people, took the same approach: Easy German on YouTube, Nicos Weg, the 100-second news bulletin Tagesschau in 100 Sekunden, Slow German, and the Coffee Break German podcast.

Where Solaread helps

Press play, or click any caption line to start from that point. Hover over a highlighted word for a full explanation without pausing the video, or tap it on a touchscreen, and save it to your vocabulary list along with the sentence it came from. You can also import your own audio or video files, or look up a podcast episode.

Questions

What are the best YouTube channels to learn English?

Lists shared by learners usually start with Volka and English by Jay, move on to Ariannita la Gringa and Speak English with Vanessa, and then use family vlogs as a bridge to regular YouTube.

How do I learn English from YouTube instead of just watching?

Watch things at your level most days, and every so often sit down with one subtitled video and listen closely to test how much you actually catch.

Should I watch English YouTube videos with subtitles?

People who do shadowing say subtitles get in the way, while others leave them on for videos about their interests and turn them off when testing themselves.

• English podcasts for learners: the level ladder learners use, and how they actually listen
• English shadowing: how learners actually do it, how long it takes, and when to step back