Hello, I’m looking for some listening materials geared towards the N2, and I hoped you could recommend something.
I have a fairly long commute, I spend an hour to 90 minutes in my car every day. I would like to use that time to study Japanese.
When I was preparing for the N3, I used Nihongo Sou Matome, but only the grammar, kanji and vocabulary books. I figured since I’ve read a couple of books, listened to a couple of audio books, and actually been to Japan and talked to Japanese people (and seen more anime than I care to admit) my reading and listening skills were sufficient. It turns out they were, but during the listening part of the exam I felt I should have been better prepared.
I have tried listening to the audio portion of the Nihongo Sou Matome N2 Choukai, but it didn’t work for me. It seems the audio part is pretty useless without following along with the book, which is something I can’t do while driving. Also, even with the book in hand it proved quite painful trying to figure out how to follow along, and the sound bites I’ve listened to before I gave up didn’t seem similar to what I encountered during the exam - they were quite short, as opposed to the longer conversations in the actual exam.
I guess what I’m looking for is something that resembles the format of the JLPT listening exam, but was designed to work without having to read along.