The Kizuna Ai videos are pretty fun, and have optional english subtitles.
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NHK radio news has improved my listening skills immensely. I have it on it the background all day. It’s striking how many words from WK come up and get consolidated.
The best thing about it is that is has a ‘normal’ ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ speed for listening.
Click the ゆっくり button for slow and away you go. It’s not ridiculously slow. The content is quite advanced though so I’m not sure how useful it would be a first.
Also watch Japanese movies and dramas on Netflix. Try
- Terraced House (I LOVE this - it’s like Big Brother but everyone is respectful)
- Midnight Diner
- Love Wagon
I’m currently watching ‘Switched’. It’s terrifying me in a good way. You can turn the subtitles on or off in Netflix.
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I put on the NHK radio news podcast in the car. And if speed is an issue that you’re having, most podcasting apps have a slowdown feature so you can listen at 75% speed.
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I’ve always wondered why people dislike JP101. Maybe it’s just the seedy marketing strategy. You can jump into any lesson based on your level of comprehension I think.
Peter is very good at explaining things even though his pronunciation is horrible lol. 1upping this.
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I’ve been learning for a year too, initially through classes although I’ve just switched to a tutor so I can get more speaking practice.
I listen to japanesepod101 on the walk to work, although it took me a few attempts before I could get on with it. The actors tend to put on exaggerated accents for the dialogues which I found really unhelpful as a beginner, however the discussion afterwards can be useful. I particularly enjoyed Newbie Season 2 because it focused on pitch accent.
I also watch a lot of japanese programmes on netflix - Terrace House is really good for the chance to hear unscripted japanese. I found they spoke quite slowly on Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories and so, once I’d watch it through once with english subtitles, I was able to follow it the second time without them (to my surprise and delight!).
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Strangely enough, I’ve never seen/heard someone complain about the quality of the content of JP101. I’ve only seen people mention others do not like it.
I also think it’s pretty good, and they do have content all the way up to advanced/near fluent, which is rare. (Well, you could also consume native material at that level, but the transcript works nicely as training wheels)
Now, I did hear a lot of complaints about their marketing, and those are all justified. But it’s so caricatural that I find it funny instead. I like reading that Peter has yet again not been invited to the company’s bounenkai, so that as a revenge he is extending the discount period. (A. how does that even make sense? B. Shouldn’t you know about that yearly event by now?) 
Or you can just put their message directly in spam.
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I used Jpod101 for almost half a year. I got a great discount, so I signed up for 2 years.
For listening it was ok at the beginning, and the app was very convenient for litsening on the go. Basically, you will get very early to hear grammar put into practice in some situations… albeit very fictional ones… but still. There’re different speeds at which the dialogue is presented.
I used the dialogues to get some vocab too, and used their flashcard app before I tried Anki. I even printed the lessons and reviewed the transcripts on a regular basis.
In the end my disappointment came related to seasons (even the Nihongo Doujo series, which it’s probably the best structured one) and their dialogues been filled with lessons that covered not much in terms of grammar, did’n’t move on the general plot neither (very much like one of those eternal japanese animes and the filler episodes 
) and sometimes only tangentially and in superficial way addressed the grammar point. FinallyI realized that I was cheating myself thinking I was doing japanese listening. The true was that the lessons were for the most part in english (at least the newbie, beginner and intermediate seasons I did. and I mean the dialogue can be 1-2 minute long and the lesson 10-15 minutes… so you get an idea of how much japanese you’re ACTUALLY listening 
) and the speed of actual shows with japanese people talking were nothing alike. I could totally undertsand all the ojisans and obasans in Jpod101… tried that a couple of time with real people and… was nothing alike… didn’t get jack squat 
. … switched to shows after that. I think it’s best to contrast your progress against your target material, while leaving space for gradually learning.
After months of listening shows (mp3 ripped audio from my favorite content as passive immersion) and practicing a sentence mining routine for tackling gradually and according to my level the material that I do care to end up listening, I understand more and more (at least of the show I listen repetitively during my commute) and most important thing: I know that it’s actual real life content, not the dumb down version of it. I mean, why would I want to master the jpod101 content just to realized that Its nothing like what’s out there.
Anyway, the website and the material it’s not bad actually, but the time spent there could be much better spent in real material… there’s no big community neither, and the response from the developers and staff was usually very late whenever any suggestion or question came up.
ps: the main objective of listening practice for me is to accustome your hearing to parsing japanese and then gradually understading it. So I would say, do that from the beginning, even if it’s less understandable at first. A good mix of passive listening (less curated and less understading) with active listening (more curated and graded to your level) it’s very possible.
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I would also add visual novels with Japanese voicing that have been translated into English. You still get to hear people talking, but you can listen line by line and repeat lines easily. Plus having the English there makes it a little easier to verify.
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I saw you’re considering JapanesePod 101. I’ve been using it for the past few weeks for my own listening practice and while there may be better tools, it has been working well enough for me so far.
However, I recommend following the “track” laid out in this article : Redirecting...
I find I get more out of it this way than the way JapanesePod suggests. I’d be interested to see what you think. 
Good luck!
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Regarding JPOD: if you are getting your grammar lessons elsewhere (e.g. Genki, MNN) then I suggest skipping the lesson audio entirely and just listening to the dialogs. Each season has 25 dialogs so you can typically listen to every dialog in 30 to 35 minutes. I review the PDF summaries for vocab etc after I’ve become familiar with the dialogs (it’s pretty normal for me to not fully ‘get’ a dialog until I’ve seen the transcript).
I agree with Ryouki regarding which seasons you should study. I’ve been following the ‘track’ suggested on nihongonobaka and have the following observations:
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the dialog progression is well structured up to lower intermediate season 6.
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the other lower intermediate seasons are a bit of a let down. They have some fairly difficult (for me) dialogs, but they don’t really advance much beyond N4 grammar. I want to use them for N3 listening practice but not sure if they will be enough.
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overall there is a large amount of informal Japanese, making the dialogs a good antidote to rather formal books like MNN
I haven’t tried anything above the lower intermediate level yet but I plan to keep going with JPOD for now.
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Thank you all again! 
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That YouTube channel looks interesting. Where would you recommend to start for someone that’s at beginner-intermediate level?
I didn’t see anybody suggesting it, even if it’s rather obvious, but looking at anime is a great way to improve your listening skills. It’s the only reason I subscribe to Crunchyroll, but there a lot of free websites too.
Start listening at N5 tests and go up until you get somewhere where you have to read along. Thats the level should train at.
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that’s exactly the book Shadowing Let’s Speak Japanese Beginner to Intermediate Edition … like scanned and made look legal with the dodgy “NHK World” channel name.
may not last too much online
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Yeah, i guessed so too. Maybe still make the best use of it while it lasts, and if you are playing fair you can still by the book afterwards 
I use https://animelon.com.
I learned the best way to learn, for me, is with japanese subtitles on. That is a big help if you know the kanji. And you can match the Kanji with the sound.
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That’s how I started out. Once you have a basic kanji and vocab knowledge, you should switch the subtitles to Japanese, though. @Whologist is apparently able to read transcripts while listening, so I’d recommend that.
Netflix gives you the option to switch most Japanese content to Japanese audio and subtitles. In my opinion, that’s the best way to learn to understand real life conversations (as long as you stay out of the SciFi and fantasy categories).
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I never used Netflix and usually I watch content with english subtitles. But yeah once I get more comfortable I will probably look for stuff with Japanese transcript/subtitles. Thanks!
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This is incredibly helpful, thank you!
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