Japanese radio?

I found a really cool site where you’re able to listen to radio stations across the world, but I was wondering if this would help in terms of language acquisition. I pretty much can only pick up a few words, but I’ve heard that complete immersion helps nonetheless. What’s everyone’s opinion on this?

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I agree that it will help you with your listening comprehension skills. Even if you understand none of the words it is still good to listen so that your brain can begin to automatically create meaning out of what at first sounds like a bunch of wordstogetherthatdontmakesense

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I’d would suggest podcasts over radio for immersion.

Radio uses a lot of music from English speaking countries. Radio presenters tend to throw a lot of random English words in phrase into shows. There is a lot of theme tune segments (not sure what to call them.) which are in English 99% of the time.

Podcasts rarely have these :).

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Radio is fine but you have to choose the right station. Japanese radio personalities have to make their voices standout so they will speak in very exaggerated ways. It is a good way to hear lots of variations on speaking but yea can be hard to understand sometimes. They also are notorious for speaking fast. if you can find a nice talk show then go for it. I live here and every time I turn on the radio in the car I have no idea what is going on.

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I have an app on my android called ラジオFM日本. The station I like most is called FM IS 2020 (みらいずステーション).
Here’s a direct link to listen

During Japanese daytime they have a lot of talking segments with normal sounding people most of the time (though right now the people on aren’t).

Regarding whether it’s good for language acquisition - definitely. If you need to get used to the sounds of conversational Japanese it’s good. If you can get to a level where it’s generally comprehensible but still feels a bit above your level, that’s when it’ll be the most helpful. I’d suggest looking for material that fits that description.

As for podcasts, if you can find one you like that could be very helpful, but it’s more scripted since it isn’t live so speech might be less natural. Generally it seems like podcasts haven’t taken off in Japan like they have in the west.

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I love NHK podcasts.

The 7pm daily hour has a very funny middle segment that focuses on daily life. A few months back, I almost died due to it being about constipation as I had just learned that word.

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I listen to J1 Radio a lot. Not really much talking, mostly just music. Only real talking are the bumpers, and weather and JR info, in English and Japanese.

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Have you ever heard of Spoon Radio? I’ve used it here and there for just getting some passive listening in.

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I think it really helps to stop your brain panicking when you hear native spoken japanese, and be able to just concentrate on picking up the gist of the conversation.

I started listening to japanese podcasts this year but they require a lot more attention precisely because they’re not broken up with music, adverts, news, weather etc. So I can only do about 15 minutes of focused listening before my brain wanders off. I can have the radio on in the background for an hour or two while I’m gardening or cleaning and I only need to pay attention for a couple of minutes at a go before they’re on to the next song. Also the repetition of the adverts and in the traffic reports is quite good as a learner because it gives you multiple opportunities to make sense of it!

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I have listened to the radio station (via TuneIn) named “J-Pop Sakura - asia DREAM radio” with songs that are not too fast so that you might understand some bits of the lyrics.

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