I have a long commute and have really enjoyed listening to Paul Noble’s Japanese complete Japanese course and the follow on intermediate course (I’ve now done them both twice).
I’m looking for something else to listen to and learn from now that those are finished. I’m beginner level and have found most podcasts too difficult. I also really hate the audio books with a fake student making mistakes, I remember the mistakes instead of the correct answer!
Interestingly, I have a Japanese customer and I find it much easier to get the gist of what they are saying than to follow along to a podcast. Possibly because I already have an idea of what the customer might be talking about.
I haven’t listened to any beginner podcasts, but listen to quite a few intermediate ones while driving and doing other things. I’ve found I need the audio quality to be good (too much background sound or too low a volume & I find it difficult to hear above the noise of whatever I’m doing). Generally, I try out a few episodes to see if a podcast works for me. Also, I like to vary my podcasts.
Here’s list of beginner friendly podcasts from Tofugu:
YouTube has a ton of beginner podcasts that I like to listen to when I’m doing stuff. Here are some that I like:
Nihongo Con Teppei Beginners - This one is a great one because Teppei doesn’t speak too slowly, unlike most other podcasts I’ve listened to. I was able to understand pretty much everything after finishing Genki I, but there are still words to look up, and since he does speak faster, (depending on your level) it might be better for active listening w/ lookups. He also has harder podcasts, and in total has 1000+ episodes, so might be good if you commute a lot.
Slow Japanese by Mochifika - I’ve only ever listened to the first episode because it was too easy for me, but it seems pretty good. It stays pretty slow throughout but from what I’ve seen the grammar used seems to get harder as it goes along.