Listening Practice 🎧 What do you listen to for Japanese practice?

So, a couple of new listening tips for people interesting in the real world and news in particular. Lovely @RoseWagsBlue has made a great post about how to stream Japanese news with subs.

If you’re already reading NHK easy news, you might also wanna give this a try! ^>^

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Thanks to @Liv32 and @CDR-Strawberry (Website for hearing words spoken - #2 by Liv32) this excellent source came to my attention.

YouGlish allows you to search YouTube for words spoken in Japanese. Very handy if you’re struggling with the pronunciation of a word or recognizing it spoken. ^>^

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I just learned about the author Mimei Ogawa, and checking the Wikipedia page there was a link to LibriVox Audiobooks that are public domain recordings of various books, including Mimei Ogawa’s works.

These audio books are free to download, in a multitude of genres and languages - so I hope this helps you find something you enjoy while practicing your listening comprehension! ^>^ :headphones:

https://librivox.org/

Link to Mimei Ogawa’s works

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If anyone is interested in some male-voiced podcasts, @cccswann kindly shared these great recommendations to practice one’s listening comprehension! :headphones: ^>^

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My favorite is Let’s Talk in Japanese!

I can’t understand the nuance of the sentences, but I pick up words very often. Not to mention he does try to separate his episodes by levels(N4 , N3, etc.).

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I’ve been enjoying Learn Japanese with Noriko. I find her spoken Japanese is easy to follow and her voice is pleasant.

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Thanks for the tip! I’ve gotta check this one out! ^>^

Inspired by some recent threads talking about lack of sleep, there is a Audio CD-series with voice actors doing monologues to help put you to sleep. :sleeping_bed: :zzz:

I had to do some searching but here’s a link to one of the CDs, with voice actor Takaya Kuroda.

They use a dummy head mic (a 3D-recording device) to create a full 3D-audio experience - which isn’t very common. And they do so to full effect - meaning expect whispers in your ears and an audio illusion of a person moving about the room talking to you. :sweat_smile:

It takes some getting used to! But, it’s pretty neat.

This is a series, so just get the CD with the seiyuu you favor and hopefully they will put you to sleep in no time! ^>^

Edit: now with a better link! :high_touch:

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I’m so going to check this! :exploding_head:

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So, thanks to @sirmattdennis kindly sharing their learning resources ( The Level 10 Tradition, Plus Learning Resource Sharing) I became aware of Speechling.

Speechling provides you with listening comprehension practice (for free) where you can control what area of listening comprehension you wanna concentrate on:

  • Core foundation of nouns, verbs, adjectives etc
  • Training course from beginner to expert level
  • Phrasebook in various areas (basic expressions, travel, money, personal questions, hotel, asking for help etc.)

Hopefully some of you here on WK is helped by this awesome site! ^>^

Good luck with your studies! :headphones:

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It also allows you to do different input languages, like you can learn Japanese from French or another language instead of English.

Unless they changed it, you can get pronunciation feedback (limited per month).

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I really like https://rebuild.fm/

It’s a podcast about tech run by a Japanese developer who works in the Bay area.

He has 1 or 2 guests on per episode and aside from tech they also talk about a range of other topics like politics, current events etc.

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Awesome website, thank you!

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My favorite resources for practicing listening comprehension are:
-Nihongo con Teppei podcast
-Miku Sensei shadowing audios (for Patreons)
-Benjiro - Beginner Japanese Youtube channel
-Watching native content with the Language Learning with Netflix plug-in (for Chrome)

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Sounds really interesting! Gotta check it out! ^>^

@Sarabrina Thanks for sharing. I keep hearing about Nihongo con Teppei, but have still not gotten round to listen to it. What do you like about it? :eyes:

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After watching the anime Banana Fish, I was able to buy a CD copy of its radio drama made back in the 90’s when the manga finished being serialized. It’s hours long, but because I already knew the story I could get the jist of what was happening. I heard some phrases I knew and looked up a few new ones. I’ll definitely be relistening!
I also searched up a few JP keywords in Spotify that relate to my interests and was able to find podcasts in Japanese.
I used to listen to a program called サウンドライブラリ often. It’s very calming and has lots of episodes. Looks like it’s still ongoing!
I started filling up an old ipod with listening comprehension material last week…I’m really glad I found this thread! Pure gold.

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Another listening practice resource for those that want some easily available content on YouTube. :slight_smile: Thanks @akelsch for the tip! ^^

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So again I’ve rewamped the thread in hopes for more discussion about what people use for listening practice! ^>^

I’ve been mostly using music as of late, but also some seiyuu interviews. Not so much drama CDs as I used to. But I’m in love with them for sure! ^>^

What do you people use? :eyes: I’m very curious!

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I sometimes watch Cardcaptor Sakura: (カードキャプターさくら).
It’s an older Japanese anime for children.
The lower tempo and less complexity makes it easier to listen to and understand :slight_smile:
It’s also available on Netflix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgGvNoaLVX0

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Nice! So what do you like about it. And, is it something you can recommend for anyone new to Japanese or how do you think about the level of the anime? :slight_smile: