I need to work on my listening practice more. I follow a few comprehensible input channels on youtube that I listen to most days, Akane Sensei, Nihongo Con Teppei, and others I can’t think of right now…
I was wondering about what you guys think about Japanese speaking Vtubers and if you have any you’d recommend? I eon’t really watch Vtubers but I do normally listen to Let’s Plays and stuff while I’m at work. I was wondering if you think that could help with my listening practice.
I mainly want something to help me practice listening skills while my mind is too checked out to ‘work’ if that makes sense
I like to have a chill, less-popular live streamer in the background. It doesn’t need to be live, could be a past recording. What’s nice is they both talk like a normal person (not like a high-energy TV salesman) and have TTS running for all chat messages, so there’s always some speech to parse, some interaction and jokes. And there are Japanese live streamers and youtubers for various hobbies and interests: let’s plays, car mechanics, you name it. Some with V-avatars, some with webcam, some with good old no-camera approach.
Not sure if it’s a recommendation, but just an example of what I mean, youtube and twitch streamer biriQ (warning: content not always safe for work). He tries out a variety of new gacha that I’m never going to play, so the content is always fresh.
I’ve done the same with streams and somewhere along the way I got better with listening, though it’s hard to parse which things had an impact specifically. As long as it’s a situation where you’re able to put SOME attention in and it’s not totally white noise all the time, it has to help a little.
I have watched some of sumomo! すもも usually does let’s plays with mostly like apex or fps and sometimes does horror games too. My partner is a big fan and I haven’t had much trouble parsing what I knew from the game lingo etc. He does sometimes yell a bit, and has some funny not safe for work type of games as well. His videos aren’t super long, but he brings a nice freshness to have a Japanese let’s player that I enjoy. He also almost always has subtitles for what he’s saying on his edited videos which is a big help when I really don’t understand what’s going on.
Absolutely, but just like all listening practice: It’s only effective if it’s close to your level of understanding and if you actually spend energy on trying to understand it. So tbh I’m not sure if it’s perfect for when your mind is “too checked out”, but it’s definitely worth a try to see if you like vtubers - content you find engaging makes pratice fun after all! (Personally, after discovering Hololive “understanding my favourite vtubers” became one of the reasons why I’m learning Japanese really quickly)
Here is a post I wrote elsewhere about vtubers and starting streams I recommend:
My favourite Eng/JPN collab is Korone and Calli playing the Bomb Defusal game because it’s a game about explaining things which is absolutely hilarious
it’s more Korone speaking english than JPN though but it’s still funny
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