I’ve hit kind of a rough patch in my Japanese studying. My listening and speaking is just really not where it needs to be for me to feel comfortable moving forward in classes. (I’m going to spend some time redo-ing/reviewing Genki II grammar for sure before I consider going into Quartet classes).
So while I’m open to just any recs on improving those, this is specifically about how to you use native content, especially somewhere around just finishing Genki II/N4 level.
If you watch a show or movie, or if you listen to a song or other Japanese content, do you just let it wash over you and try and grasp what you can from context clues, or do you pause and rewind and look everything up before proceeding? Do you watch new material or rewatch stuff you already know?
I’ve tried a couple things but not stuck to anything enough to know if it’s helping and just looking to see what’s worked for others.
I started watching something without subtitles that I’ve already watched with subtitles / in German or english. So I already known the Plot. I’m trying to hear words I already known and when I think that something was a whole Word I search for it in Bunpro and add it to a Deck / to my Reviews. I understand probably less than 10 % of what is Said.
I pick up stuff on YouTube. If I want to study closely I find a podcast or news report; otherwise I’ll find the same kind of videos that I would watch on English-language YouTube (gaming videos). I usually don’t rewind. I will slow down playback and listen, and from there I can pick out what words are important and look those up. I prefer to watch new material because it forces me to actually understand what is being said rather than fall back on existing knowledge of the topic and pretend I understood better than I did.
I think improving listening and speaking will require different practice/study methods.
Listening
Consuming Japanese media is a great way to improve your listening. If you watch tv shows or movies in Japanese, make sure you have Japanese subtitles (or no subtitles) on. If the movie/tv show you are watching is too difficult, first watch it with subtitles in your native language then rewatch it with Japanese subtitles. Other commenters have mentioned this, but watching it with subtitles in your native language is just to get the gist of the story (and unfortunately isn’t Japanese language immersion).
Some learners say watching anime or cartoons in Japanese won’t help your speaking, because their speech is not natural. I kind of agree with this, but not entirely. In general, I don’t think watching dramas or anime will really improve your speaking that much. Dramas might help you understand some commonly used phrases and you might be able to use them after hearing them many times. I think your listening will certainly benefit from watching these shows and if Japanese subtitles are on your reading will also improve. So I think if you want to improve your listening or reading then watching any Japanese shows is great, but I don’t think your speaking will improve a lot.
Speaking
Speaking is a different beast. I have said this many times on this forum, but the only way to improve your speaking is to speak a lot.
A classroom is a great place to practice speaking. I don’t know the format of this class you mentioned, but honestly, if there are other people in this class I would suggest you move on to the next level even if you don’t feel ready. The reason is that there are so many opportunities to practice speaking (and listening) with classmates and your teachers in a classroom. Also, you have access to many people who want to improve their Japanese. Getting coffee with a classmate or doing a video call in Japanese would be a great way to improve your speaking and listening. Also if you have classmates whose speaking and listening abilities impress you, you can ask for their recommendations on how to improve your own abilities. (If I misunderstood the type of class you mentioned then you can just ignore this advice.)
I play Gacha and MMO games in Japanese that I’m already familiar with in English. Can work with any type of game you’re familiar with. You can even extend this to other media like movies, books, videos, etc. Key point is that the native material is something you’re already familiar with in English (or any other fluent language) because if you try to use something you’re not familiar with, you will get lost and hardly pick up on anything. You don’t need to understand everything right away, but familiarity will help with most of the things you encounter through immersion.
When actively studying, I’m more in the camp of rewinding several times to make sure the brain identified every individual word.
It can be tiring, but without it it’s too easy to blank out on whole sentences.
Having access to full (and correct) Japanese subs makes this more streamlined.
If you watch e.g. seasonal anime, I can recommend re-watching last week’s episode without subs before starting on the new episode. Really gives the brain some time to sleep on what you’ve learned.
Good content: short (5-20 minutes) show episodes with professional writing and sound, VN-style games where you can replay each line individually.
I do some extensive listening too, e.g. tuning in and out of a gaming stream, but don’t know if it’s very useful. E.g. half the TTS chat messages were all ending in the same word, but it took me about a year to realize that word was 以下略.
Around N4, finding native content where you know 90%+ of the words is probably a challenge. So I wouldn’t focus too much on learning new words. Just look them up from subs and then identify by sound once you know what to listen for. Also I’d choose something mostly in standard Japanese, without excessive accents and slang.
Around N1, I still regularly run into unknown words, but can usually look them up in a dictionary without resorting to subs, and then decide to SRS or not.
I find this does nothing at all; for me it becomes very easy to ignore. I will generally have learner podcasts on though, and ignore when I can’t focus on them, and listen when I can. But watching TV and picking up one word in 10 or whatever isn’t very useful.
I use Migaku for Netflix shows, and Absplayer for downloaded videos. If I get lost I’ll rewind and read the subs and use the translation if I have to.
I re-watch a lot. Comprehension improves when you’re expecting to hear something, and repetition is important for learning. If nothing else, it’s quite motivating to actually understand something better on a re-watch. Usually I’ll get 3 episodes in before going back to the first, so I end up watching 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 4, 5, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. I do the same for most native / non-learner material. I actually started this with pages of manga & paragraphs in novels, and built up from there.
For music, I’m not trying to learn Japanese from it, so I’m just pleased when I understand a few bits here and there.
I haven’t done a lot of this, but Disney has great dubs in Japanese of most of the animated movies. It’s a transition point where you can leave off the English subtitles because it’s an old familiar movie that you know fairly well. You can focus on finding the meaning you know is there without really needing English to get it.
For me, that would mean movies like Aladdin, Lilo and Stitch and maybe even Frozen.
I know this isn’t exactly “native” material, but the translation is done pretty well.
Have a look at the website “Comprehensible Japanese”. They have a couple thousand films at various levels. You can first watch the film and then read along, with all kana, kanji or kanj with furigana.
or doing a video call in Japanese would be a great way to improve your speaking and listening. Also if you have classmates whose speaking and listening abilities impress you, you can ask for their recommendations on how to improve your own abilities. (If I misunderstood the type of class you mentioned then you can just ignore this advice.)