Listening Practice with Podcasts

Go to whatever app you use to get podcasts, and change your location to Japan. I usually browse throught the trending list and give a few different podcasts a go. Most of them are not interesting or too difficult, but every now and then I come across something I like and get a lot of good listening content. Everyone’s ability and interests are different though so it’s something good to work out yourself.

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Oh wow!
You can click through and listen from the page (old-school, I know, that’s me)

おならで木星みたいなガス惑星は作れるの?

Can you make a gas planet like Jupiter with farts?

This is glorious.

Thank you so much @Miimers -
I am now trying to get this downloaded - any advise utterly appreciated!

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OK (self reply)
So that link doesn’t work unless you are in Japan, or if you have a VPN.
So now I have a VPN (ProtonVPN), and now I can hear the NHK player.
Its pretty nice.
やっぱりおならで木星みたいなガス惑星は作れるかどうか知りたい力が強かった。

Nhk also broadcasts news frequently as a podcast. If you search nhk news you’ll find it. They put out like 5-10 minute news updates 6-8 times a day or something like that. There are longer forms one on the same feed.

Hmm, I have tried with the NHK news podcasts, and I remember when I first lived in Japan years ago an old guy swearing by “Watch the news! That’s the best way to learn Japanese”.
For me, its the least helpful, at that and this stage. It’s like learning to swim in a whirlpool, or a dangerously heavy current at least; I can’t make much sense of all that is flowing by me, it’s quickly depleting and I drown (my mind wonders off in boredom). You can try as hard as you like to fight it, but its useful to accept that drowning is not fun. It makes learning Japanese a funner thing.

I just listened to a 40 minute episode of 子ども科学電話相談を聴くand I understood about 60 - 80%. I often watch JDrama’s without subs, understand less (depending on the genre), but the visual context can help enormously. With this radio show though I was really surprised about how much audio context there was. I was picking up words and meaning just by the conversation around it. Other words I couldn’t work out, but I could understand beyond guessing what kind of word it was - “Ah, that’s a planet name, that’s a gas name”. I was great fun to listen to, I wasn’t studying, but I was following and learning.

I’ve been following Cure Dolly recently, the “immersion” style and their passion around it makes a lot of sense to me (even if other things there worry me). I found this video last night and it expresses how I think about it well, plus giving me a new phrase in English: “Comprehensive Input”
An old and ongoing argument of course, but I think he presents this side well. It would be interesting to hear a strong counter argument.

All that said, I sort of had to think myself if I am breaking house rules by advocating a VPN here. Is this legal? Is this illegal? The rules of those websites obstruct me from that content because I don’t live in Japan (anymore), but I thought as people they could condone it after I became an instant fan of their excellent programme.

There is a TBS podcast that a lot of people swore by - Session 22 - 荻上チキ・ Session | TBSラジオ FM90.5 + AM954~何かが始まる音がする~
More adult (not in that way, grow up guys), but good daily conversation between two people, seems to start with news but goes to many places.
Still good input for me compared to the newzzz :sleeping:

I have to say again @Miimers thank you so much for introducing 子ども科学電話相談を聴く.
ありがとうございました!
How did you find it btw?

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Definitely wouldnt call it the best way for sure! XD it’s just something that’s there for occasional practice. I’ve heard someone say that it was the best but idk it’s just kinda always there. So if I ever catch up on my other things and have nothing else it’s generally what I do because of the sheer volume of content available.

I didn’t see it mentioned here yet but I would highly recommend Nihongo con Teppei. He makes a 20 minute talk everyday where he talkes about various topics. I hadn’t been listening to podcasts (or any native media) before and I think it really transformed my listening abilities in just a short time. For me it was the first time I could understand most of what was talked about and it felt so good.

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I find Bilingual News too difficult. I’m between N3 to N2 level. I just passed my N3 exam last month.

I used JapanesePod101 when I was studying for N5 and N4.

I do like Nihongo con Teppei. The podcast is great for those studying for N3 .
For those studying for N2, I would suggest “Let’s learn Japanese from small talk!”. It’s available on Apple podcast or Spotify.

I do wish these podcasts provide transcripts like JPod101, though. There’s someone who seems to be making a transcript for “Let’s learn Japanese from small talk!”, but seems like he just barely started. I know Bilingual News has transcript, but it’s not very effective for me because the level is just too high. Maybe after I finish WK lv 60 I’ll be able to recognize some words. And Bilingual News transcripts are only available on your phone :tired_face: It’s difficult to find words you don’t know on dictionary.

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