I have an upcoming University in-class listening exam next week which I feel really unconfident about.
I’ve tried listening to the Minna No Nihongo audio track, but feel it’s too fast and I need something slower or another, more interesting way to test myself…
Does anyone here have any recommended websites or learning styles for practising listening?
At my current rate, I am still trying to decipher the first sentence and then before I know it, we’re on the 5th. 
I highly recommend the podcast “Nihongo con Teppei”. He has both beginner series and normal series, so you can pick whichever suits your level of Japanese most.
Beginner podcasts: http://nihongoconteppei.com
Intermediate/Advanced Podcasts: http://teppeisensei.com
Keep in mind though, he speaks like normal Japanese people do, and not in the “unnatural” way that textbooks teach you to speak. This means that he is good for learning Japanese the natural way, but if you want to practice specifically for your university exam, he might not be the best option.
To practice for your exam, I would recommend something like this:
I’m usually not a fan at all of JapanesePod101, but these videos are very useful and well done, in my opinion.
Good luck on your test!
Thanks, I’ll give the JapanesePod101 a try. I think, like yourself, I’m not a fan of learning from them, but I didn’t realise they had a listening part also which I think will be helpful. 
Thank you for making my aware of this.
As for the podcast, I think this will be a great one to listen to while driving and can take it more seriously after my exams. Unfortunately I need to prioritise the exams over actual Japanese.
The ひいきびいき podcast!
I dunno, I feel like it might not be best suited for @Dragonchi since he mentions the Minna no nihongo audio tracks are already too fast for him.
About the audio tracks; I’d still recommend listening to them while reading the transcription to get used to hearing japanese. I wouldn’t worry about understating every little detail, it’ll come naturally once you get better in the language(as long as you hear japanese regularly, of course) Your teacher will probably take that into account for the test as well.
I don’t think your level really matters. Regardless of how much you understand it’s good to listen to native level Japanese
True. But if you really don’t understand anything, it’s too tempting to ignore it altogether and let it become some background noise. That’s what happened for me when I started learning Japanese anyway. I’m much better at it now so I can actually try to listen to the conversations and such, but in the first few months the Minna no Nihongo audio tracks were the only thing that truly helped me.
Theres this youtube channel called benjiro, where he has ~1 hour long chats with native Japanese speakers with video chat. The speakers both speak clearly and at a reasonable level for learners, and benjiro annotates some of the difficult words/phrases written on the side of videos. Check it out, his latest video was very useful to me for listening practice.
I always listen to Dear Girl Stories (the radio show by anime voice actors Hiroshi Kamiya and Daisuke Ono) for listening practice. It’s hilarious and good fun and it’s updated every week! You can start with that playlist link x
This is gold! They seem to speak incredibly fast (at least what I thought from the first video) but its so clear, and with the Japanese subtitles on screen its just right… Thanks for this!
Obligatory I wish he’d add transcriptions.
There’s also JLPT stories, different levels of difficulty, sorted by JLPT. With transcriptions, grammar list and even English translation at the very bottom.
A few I’ve found useful:
Japanese Small Talk
https://open.spotify.com/show/1tHH40EmOge2Ale4nlYWTq?si=LK0KM4PaSFKM8hzSBJgV6A
日本語を大切にしたい
https://open.spotify.com/show/3B5gXuGOOcrbWp2ZZxPklT?si=EhWDWn0fQCaL0ieokGXu3w
JLPT Stories (native short stories by JLPT level) https://open.spotify.com/show/4uyAnsK1FigkQzYHOXgyJy?si=hfGBHWJhQGqmAXcWNGAlJQ
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan!!
https://open.spotify.com/show/2CYg4INudraC1403q0otDA?si=veDPBEiYTM2pt9zEMJ7H6A
英語と日本語のミックス会話 (kinda aimed at English learners but it’s half/half) https://open.spotify.com/show/5acDNf2KLBGcusauSmEz3R?si=xxiCmxf0QC2H8YBdPL_qDw
Casual Japanese and real situations/phrases, some cultural talk https://learnjapanesepod.com/
of course, NHK radio news: https://open.spotify.com/show/4E2MGWy4WGSkXtwtd2WESW?si=HfEYDTW4T6SujQ9ahGAzEw
omg i wish I could <3 this more. I haven’t looked in awhile, but I could never understand anything. I feel like I can make actual progress with these!
I just discovered that he uploads the videos to youtube, and there are auto-generated captions. I did a few spot checks to see whether they were any good, and they seem to be decent.
You’re right, you can use youtube subtitles to help you with his podcasts.
However, Teppei-sensei says specifically that you will learn more if you don’t do this. He thinks its better to focus on the bigger picture - (i.e understanding the general message of what he’s talking about), rather than focusing on each word and studying that way. If you want to study that way, theres other resources that are geared towards that learning style.
Yeah. I listen to the podcasts in the car or while doing chores, so transcripts don’t really help me most of the time. I wouldn’t listen with the transcript in front of me since I agree with his point. I do like having a transcript available though, mainly for after listening, for those times where I didn’t get the message or wanted to verify some specific point. Sort of a self-evaluation tool, to see if I really got/didn’t get what I thought I did. Lots of ways to use the transcript other than while doing active listening that is valuable for learning.
Seconding Let’s Learn Japanese from Small Talk. Each podcast has a theme, and the two hosts explain Japanese terms in simpler Japanese, and have a vocab list where they translate them to English too. Beginner friendly and actually pretty fun to listen to!
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