For N3-ish to early N2 level, あかね的日本語教室 has a lot of quite short episodes that are easy listening and that review any potentially new vocab at the end.
For N2 and up, I’d recommend listening to regular podcasts in your area of interest, or selecting audiobooks from Audible then giving a first pass listen through to get the general gist, then re-listen but look up any words you don’t know and ideally add them to a review list somewhere, then give a third pass through by which time you probably won’t need to look much up. Repeat until you feel like you understood 100% or get sick of the episode/book. If you’re into computer science, I’ve found ゆるコンピュータ科学ラジオ easy-ish to follow. For general science topics, though leaning a bit towards biochemistry, biology, and chemistry, I’ve found サイエントーク relatively easy to follow and a good source of new vocab.
In terms of audiobooks, I can recommend the first audiobook I listened to, which was 神の子どもたちはみな踊る by Haruki Murakami. The stories are all relatively short and written in simple language.
Learn Japanese with Masa-sensei has been useful for me. Also available on Spotify if that's your preferred locale. She covers a variety of vocabulary and grammar concepts, and occasionally has chats/interviews with native speakers and foreign exchange students entirely in Japanese. Some of the native speakers come from different regions, so it also helps with exposure to a few types of accents.
Comprehensible input is key, and the more the better. If you understand the podcast (not perfect understanding, just enough to understand at all) it is good for learning. There are other things to study, but in the end you need a lot of input or your brain will never figure it out. If you are beginner you won't find anything comprehensible so you need to study something else first, but once you start to understand basics, then listening to basic podcasts, stories and whatever is a great way to study.
I don't study Japanese so I can't give specific recommendations. However I can tell you the idea is sound if you understand the podcast.
And although I wouldn't say I'm a beginner, I feel like my studies are stalling somewhat, so I'm looking for different ways to learn. And sadly, manga, games and music are not ideal since most of the time, they use "poetic" Japanese, and not the common one.
Add comment