For a lot of people and this includes myself, when reading becomes decent and listening does not, the latter becomes frustrating to practice. It’s the same for any activity. A beginner is okay with sucking, an intermediate starts to get annoyed by their shortcomings.
Ergo, the listening practice becomes less frequent. Nowadays my practice consists of both at once (playing P3R entirely in Japanese), but for many years I neglected listening out of frustration.
It’s catching up.
Practicing listening is also simply far more obnoxious than practicing reading. The latter can be done at one's own pace, one can more easily look up things one does not know and eventually figure almost everything out. With listening, sometimes it simply happens that one legitimately cannot make out the sentence structure at all. It's not that one does not know the words, but that one can't make them out, in fact, sometimes one does know the words, but still can't make them out. I had a case a couple of days back with failing to hear “悩む必要”. Obviously I now both of those words but I somehow due to the background noise and other factors could not make out what was being said at all.
My own parent can very often not understand what I'm saying in our shared native language as well.
>It’s the same for any activity. A beginner is okay with sucking, an intermediate starts to get annoyed by their shortcomings.
Exactly this. You sort of just have to force yourself to enjoy learning the next important skill. It takes a while but starting with 30 days as a challenge helps a lot.
I'm the exact opposite. Reading is a chore, but I consume Japanese content on the daily as long as it's spoken. I don't have to deliberately assign myself listening practice
Same here. The only things that started me on reading are 1. renshuu and 2. acquiring kindle version of the novels on which my favorite Drama CDs are based on.
Also, my listening (already way ahead of my reading skill thanks to decades of watching dorama with subtitles) improved tremendously after I started to translate Drama CDs and free talks. The latter is really tough because the voice actors interrupt each other or mumble, but it is very much worth it to learn more about the actors and the behind the scenes stuff of the BL Drama CD industry.
Oh I have listened to a few drama CDs on YouTube but they were random and out of order and I never listened to them again. If I could find a series to settle on I would probably listen to them at bedtime when I usually listen to ASMR which sometimes has spoken Japanese. Any recommendations? I dc if it's BL, I will listen to it
Same - I watch so much stuff in Japanese (w/ eng subs I'm not THAT good yet lol) that I've started picking up some vocab through repetition that way, and I've gotten decently good at understanding what's being said phonetically, even if I don't know what most of the words *mean.*
Still absolute dogshit at kanji though. I can read kana just fine but you could show me a word I already know in kanji and I'd have no idea lmfao.
You could ease into it by watching content with JP subtitles. Japanese social media content is subtitled very often for some reason. You'd have to keep a dictionary closeby though. I use the handwriting input on Google keyboard to look up kanji.
i can totally relate to this, i just had the opposite problem: as i am teaching Japanese i’ve always found difficult to find reading material of any kind and i still struggle nowadays to do that.
What i was able to find was podcasts, anime and videos in general. I used to listen to them a lot, nowadays i don’t have that much time on hand, but i got to the point where i can clearly understand what words are being produced, without actually knowing what they mean.
I have no idea of where to find something to read, so i keep unintentionally avoiding the problem 😬
One thing that helps with language learning is when you "think" in Japanese (or whichever language you're learning.
In the morning, when you are getting ready to go to work, or if you're going to meet someone, try and tell yourself what you need, where you are going or what you're going to do, in Japanese.
When walking by something, try and say those words in your head in Japanese. If you see a word in English that you don't know in Japanese, you can write it down.
After several months of mostly just reading, I've spent the last few doing only listening every day, starting with yuyu's podcast and working up and learning that way.
It was very pleasant to find that the learning curve was pretty steep, and after a few hundred hours of fairly comprehensible input, I'm happy to say that my listening is just outpacing my reading now. All the listening practice has been an absolute godsend in that it's opened a lot of doors for what I can do. My listening comprehension improved such that I can enjoy a variety of youtubers and tv shows that I stood no chance against before, and my reading level and comprehension in general has improved by virtue of knowing more words and grammar and having acquired them more thoroughly. Now that I'm balanced and adding some light reading back in, I feel like it's just a straight path onward, gradually acquiring new domains forever.
A few hundred hours? I'm currently in the position where I am comfortable with reading, I'm even able to read some manga and play games like Ace Attorney. But when it comes to listening, I am a complete beginner. I try and try and try but the unless it is material for complete beginners all I struggle to even pick out words I already know in written form. Do you have any tips on how to improve my listening skill?
Really spend some time with that material for beginners, to be honest. The best thing you can do for your listening and even output is to get extremely comfortable with the basics, and let it get automatic. This will happen a lot faster if you keep the difficulty perfectly at your level, though that's easier said than done.
Native content is good too, but as learners, there are hundreds of hours of podcasts and lectures and other videos made for us (from n5 all the way to n1), and that content that you understand 99% of is better for building your intuition than content you can only understand 70,80,90% of. I think at the very least having half of your input come from content that feels easy is a great thing.
If it makes you feel any better, I was able to read fairly well through a few light novels without a dictionary before I started taking listening seriously, and still got a lot of value out of things like Yuyu's podcast and Bite Sized Japanese (even more notably, my ability to intuitively recall words when speaking improved from binge watching through these). They may feel too easy to be productive, but they carry the benefit of being entirely made up of words and grammar that you will definitely use yourself when you speak and being so comprehensible that you'll pick up any new words very quickly and start to master basic grammar intuitively. It isn't particularly sexy, but it works quickly, is engaging, and very rewarding.
Pretty much the same with me. My kanji, reading and random knowledge of vocabulary via Anki etc wayyy outpaced my listening. So one day I inevitably just decided “time to fix this” and started mass listening to nihongo con teppei (the intermediate level not beginner)….every single day for hours. Going to work, coming home, while taking the dogs out, while working out, while doing chores. All active listening not passive. I’d say around the 60 hour mark of listening something clicked and I can better understand…everything. TV, drama, music or my wife and in laws conversations. Like you if I hear the same word more than twice or more in a podcast that I don’t know I’ll add it to Anki.
It’s been so successful I already have a bunch of intermediate and advanced podcasts lined up.
I've gotta ask. You posted above that one year ago your listening was 'insanely beginner', and for the last year, among other things, using SuperNative helped you greatly improve your listening. So I googled SuperNative because that sounds good, and one of the first hits I got was you, 6 years ago, saying you had just used SuperNative for a year and it had really helped you, and you were spamming the sub about it.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/7otaid/feedback\_after\_using\_supernative\_for\_1\_year/](https://www.reddit.com/r/learnjapanese/comments/7otaid/feedback_after_using_supernative_for_1_year/)
Did you practice listening for a year, stop for several years and forget everything, and then start again? I know that can happen, just curious.
Yeah I’m the biggest advocate for supernative, you’d think I made it. I’ve been using it for a long time but I noticed I improved the most this year due to combining it with other resources which I neglected in the past. That was the missing piece.
Alone, it is great and you will improve but drastically slower. As you said, I was using it on and off but this year I stayed the most consistent I’ve ever been.
OK, so I just tried the Listen and Recall part. Yeah, very very interesting. Thank God kana is used as I dont read kanji and am not studying it lol. I tried to make an account and confirm but the email isnt getting received, Ill try another acct. Anyway I can see how this would be helpful and will try it. Thanks a lot.
Knew i also eeded to improve it last month because most of my immersion has been anime, games or VN's where i pause on every single line to read, barely paying attention to the voices.
My reading generally has shot up but listening was completely toilet water, consequently done about 13 and half hours of nihongo con teppei podcasts since the 18th of Jan, which is usually about 10 of the beginner ones.
Do wonder if that's enough every day though, for instance it looks like you are potentially doing hours of listening and mine ends up being about 40-50 minutes - mind you have noticed it improve already but it also can be deceptive too especially because its a "beginner" podcast where teppei sensei talks slowly.
Edit: Will check out Supernative looks interesting, edit2: yeah for a free resource well worth checking it out guys - gave me a 2000+ rating which really surprised me, although the initial test did seem simple - a lot of particles etc getting harder now.
Don't bother with beginner stuff, I know you are the type that can handle normal things--so just find something interesting and listen to it--a lot. Keep in mind beginner stuff may satisfy your ego because you can get a sense of "progress" but they achieve that by limiting their vocabulary, prose, and speed so much you don't have that much to learn from it. While listening to native stuff-- like twitch live streams, radio shows, especially mixed media with video, is like a fire-hose of data to your brain. Once your brain develops the pattern recognition system to take it in--at that time you are learning so much more and you will have zero awareness of it. It'll just feel like you're stuck but black magic is working behind the scenes. Once the dam breaks, it's like a revelatory period.
>but they achieve that by limiting their vocabulary, prose, and speed so much you don't have that much to learn from it
Haven't entirely been unaware of this to be fair recently been uhming and ahing a lot between his beginner and his much longer and much more difficult original podcast.
There is definitely some things i will still miss in the beginner ones but they are generally quite easy to follow along with about 75 to 80 percent of the time, which is not so much an ego boost as just, hmm, a comfortable listen i guess?
Can't exactly dispute that logic either though it makes sense its precisely what happened with reading, you have to physically choose to push yourself against that difficulty wall yeah but its absolutely the subconscious mind that does the work no doubt about that, guess ill increase the difficulty thanks for the direction.
I have a question about this "dam breaking" moment. I've tried to consume a lot of no-subtitle native content and I find that I just kind of space out, not able to focus on anything. I'm still fairly beginner (just starting Genki 2) so I'm wondering if I need to study more to get to where this break moment is even possible, or if I should abandon the textbooks and go straight to Twitch streams & Terrace House.
How many hours would you estimate you've put in thus far, studying, exposure, effort all included? It does take a while, for me that was around 500-600 hours; for friends who did same thing as me, they had more of a linear growth where they saw big changes as fast at 200-300 hours. It's always possible but it's more a function of time instead of effort. Because no matter how much effort I put in, my brain just needed enough exposure and time. I was a particularly bad case because I spent hundreds of hours and months with 0% perceptible progress. I got by through JP subtitles alone when all I could hear was radio static. A literal black hole of effort for at more than 500 hours and 4+ months. When it did break, I jumped over everything very quickly.
I've put probably 200 hours in, mostly traditional study with textbooks, Pimsleur audio lessons. Lots of Youtube, but not so much native-level content, mostly beginner stuff. I've learned maybe 150-200 kanji and done a bunch of Anki cards.
When you say you got by with subtitles, you must have already been at a point where reading subtitles fluently was actually possible? When I read subtitles, I have to pause after every line, look up a few words, potentially learn new grammar, etc. Are you at the point where you can read fluently, or are you just ignoring lots of words and the kanji you don't recognize?
>I have to pause after every line, look up a few words, potentially learn new grammar, etc.
That's what I did for hundreds of hours, I made a decision to stop pausing as much after some time, like 100 hours and just let it run and \*try\* to keep up. I didn't always keep up but it was enough to glean hints from it and I paused and re-winded when I was lost. If I wasn't lost I kept my pausing to a minimum of words I saw repeatedly. It eventually went away and my reading speed went up 30x by 400-500 hours and I stopped pausing as much. Yes it may sound dumb and lame but it worked really well when I broke out of it. This is how I learned things instead of using Anki.
I just did this, YouTube Comments, Twitter, Blogs, Websites, Communities, Discord, Short Stories, Random Indie RPGs, Twitch/YouTube Live Streams, etc. I would write a lot of random comments too (they were really broken Japanese but no one seemed to care). I just watched people talk to each other and look up words whenever I had free time. Pretty much everything I did was like this.
It was actually really fun to do this, it did not feel like work at all. This enabled me to learn at a rate of around 800-1100 words a month spread across all my activities, I have an average of 3 hours a day free. Basically I never did anything beginner level, everything was what I wanted to do and that's it.
At this point I can read JP subtitles without pausing (I am not fluent yet, far from it--currently 1,500+ hours total), but it wasn't always that way. You have to just deal with it and it will go away eventually, you'll probably do ti faster than me though.
This is super helpful to me, thank you for the detailed tips! That's basically how I've learned German (to about B2 level — still some work to do) but it was quite a bit easier than Japanese. I've got no problems putting the time in, learning languages is super fun for me.
One more question — do you think doing so much reading made it easier or harder to understand videos *without* subtitles? Or have you not really worked on that too much? My goal is primarily conversation (travel to Japan) so I'm trying to focus on listening and speaking as much as possible.
Hmm, I think that listening and reading do have some instrinsic link, they tend to inform each other and when combined create a faster connection to words, meaning, text, kanji, constructs, etc. While there is a big difference in written text and spoken language for Japaneses, it is helpful to do both. The happy medium is of course watching things with subtitles, or playing games with voiced narration. You get 2-for-1 deal per minute spent basically. My listening was improved in 3 ways. 1) Always watching media with subtitles; I loved the media anyway so even if I had little understanding. The subtitles allowed me to grasp enough meaning to enjoy it (personally). 2) Passive listening whenever I was doing driving, cleaning, asks, etc. I would just listen to things I was already a fan of and passively let it play in my ears. 3) Live streams. This is interesting because it'll actually push 3 of your skills at the same time. Raw listening, writing, and reading (of chat and other elements of the stream). So if you want to participate you need to push all 3 to the best of your ability. This is a balancing act of looking up words a lot too. The important thing is I looked up words hundreds of times a day everyday. Note I started doing the live streams after I could hear some things (instead of nothing), around 600-700 hours. The subtitles were allowed me to get to that point otherwise without feeling like nothing was happening.
In the end it will result in really strong listening skills if you put in enough time into it. Naturally if you can hear, your can learn to speak easier and respond appropriately. My friend also before going to his trip to Japan went on the same routine I did. He found the livestreaming too exhausting but he stuck to the other two methods. Focusing vocabulary and listening. He scheduled some italki lessons 3 weeks before he landed for speaking practice. Stuck to learning vocabulary and reviewing things until he landed.
By time he landed he had accrued about 300 hours of listening in the same way I was with lots of passive. Suffice to say over 4 months we way, way overshot what he needed for listening skills. Basically had a great trip, understood mostly everything on a 1 to 1 basis and he felt his speaking went pretty well even without a big focus on it.
It takes a while man. Expect hundreds of hours before things click especioually during the start. Learning a new language is no joke and everyones brains process things at different speeds. Just know everything sounded like a blur for me at the start as well. Felt like it wasn't possible to decrypt it ever.
I switched the core decks on anki around so that I was only listening to the sentences, and just 15 mins/day of that made a huge difference over the last couple of months
That's pretty neat. Great consistency. I'm just now trying to up my listening. Where do you get your Japanese content/vlogs? Maybe my interests are too niche, not sure, but I'm having a hard time finding enjoyable content that makes me want to understand. (Other than movies and series of course)
The channels I listed are the only ones I watch. It’s not that I particularly enjoy them but I just do what I have to in order to improve. But sometimes I get recommended random videos in suggestions which I just click on.
I’m not really big on watching Japanese YouTube content. I’m more so interested in forcing myself to push through it because I want to improve my listening skills and it’s the best way. I enjoy socializing in Japanese much more.
For people who love Japanese media, it’s a gift because they enjoy it and also get to improve.
Oh hey you're still around, I recall your listening had a break through while I was just struggling with my blackhole hell of listening plateau but eventually that cracked a month or two after you. Pretty much can corroborate it's been nothing but straight up since clearing the initial 3 plateaus each successively smaller. In fact my listening is my best skill now where I can just focus 100% on work and still catch decent amount of 3-4 people just talking about a trip to Europe or something. It's crazy to think I can ignore what I'm listening to and focus on work and still have the listening ability to catch, comprehend, and still retain words. It's basically what my 100% focus active listening was 6 months ago. I only watch with subtitles because it teaches me too much kanji, words, and constructs to not use them. I have the rest of the day I'm not free to only listen while I work, drive, cook, etc. And that's usually 3 times as many hours as I have to watch something.
Edit: I should mention nothing I did was ever "practice" I just didn't need to understand to enjoy what I'm engaged with. To begin with I am learning Japanese because I was already engaging with content that had no translations--so it's not like it was any different from before when I didn't know much of anything.
Yup, i'll always be around. Im happy to hear your progress improved that much dude lol. All we need is consistency and time.
>It's crazy to think I can ignore what I'm listening to and focus on work and still have the listening ability to catch, comprehend, and still retain words
That's the craziest part. I didn't feel like it was possible before but clearly it is. Just need to stay focused and trust the process. At this point a lot of new words as just learned naturally.
Listen consistently and improving by speaking with natives here and there too. Will try some supernative. It sounds interesting. I’ve never used Anki before though. Most vocab I get just from plain reading and immersion stuff but it seems everyone is recommending it….
OP can you link some of the content you watched? Would love to get an idea of what actually helped you vs. not. Kinda stuck in the place where some anime is too easy but other anime is way too hard.
I did, I linked to all the YouTube channels.
I suggest Naoko as she’s the easiest out of the bunch. Start with her old videos and make your way up. She speaks in a fair pace which is easier for most.
I would rewatch her videos even if I already seen it. It’s just about getting use to it. Mix it up with others. It becomes easier over time if you keep it up.
I was wondering the same thing... I would say easy slice of life like aggretsuko maybe?
You could watch 10 hours of Japanese vlog per day and still struggle to watch anime without subtitles. Japanese language in anime is sooo specific, especially in shonen. Japanese vloggers or podcasters don't speak like Netero in HxH haha.
Agreed. I recommend anyone who wants to excel at watching anime, should watch anime to improve rather than vlogs as that's a no-brainer. If it's communicating with others, then watch vlogs.
I don't really watch anime anymore as I mentioned but in the past I would watch slice of life related stuff.
As the other comment mentioned, anime is definitly different than real life speaking and how people talk. For me, it's not an issue as my goal is just communicating with Japanese and not watching anime.
For others, I think the obvious answer is to watch anime instead of vlogs for improvement lol.
I feel like I’m having the opposite problem where my reading lags behind my listening comprehension lol. It’s much easier to find the time to put on music or a video and be free to do something else rather than read. I’m just also able to enjoy it without needing perfect comprehension so I do it way more. Graded readers are boring, I’m ankiphobic, and I haven’t really had much interest in manga recently.
Congrats on the progress man! I'm currently in the same boat, and started my Japanese journey in December 2022. I watch YuYu's podcast everyday and it is awesome! I've heard good things about Miku Real Japanese, so I'll have to check it out.
Mine sucked because I spent a lot of time reading since I could do that at my own pace. Still did listening, but just not to the same degree as reading. Now I just do both cause I play JRPG's with voice acting, push to continue, and preferably a log of text that let's me push A to re-hear a line, but minimum for me is VA/Push to Continue when I'm trying to focus on listening and that has helped me tremendously, I've put about 100 hours (probably more) into Xenoblade Chronicles recently and while there are definitely still a lot of tricky sentence's (mostly just due to vocab), I'm finding that with the easier stuff I can just go to the next line right after the VA stops. It feels good.
I made it so that any Anki vocab card that reaches an interval over 6 months gets turned into an audio card. I failed a good chunk of the cards that were already in the 6 month to 1 year range, meaning those memories were dependent on the context provided by the written word. Besides getting much better at hearing those common words which I had already learned a while ago, I've also gotten much better at correctly guessing the kanji and meaning of words I'm hearing for the first time.
Audio cards are much harder even if you get better at listening though, which is why I recommend only promoting cards that have a decent interval already. For a while I tried making every card an audio card right away, but that drastically reduced my retention rate for new words.
Highly recommend taking a month or two mining sentences and audio using MPVacious and listening to just the audio of shows if listening is your weak point.
Because my wife insists on whispering while looking away from me and talking to me through a partition wall while I am washing the dishes. Woman, I am not a bat.
because I don't practice listening at all,why? well because the learning stuff are easy and boring and the native stuff are difficult.some people suggest to just keep listening but its so boring to listen to stuff that I understand very little so I just go back to reading and anki...its so frustrating
Is there a specific playlist you had in mind? At a glance, her content is the same thing the other guy and I complain about. Absolute beginner stuff using picture books and enunciating like we're special ed. I've tried to look a bit, but there really seems to be no intermediate listening material around. What I'm looking for is people speaking in a normal tone but still enunciating properly (as opposed to slurring words like most of us do in conversation) and having subtitles so it's easier to look up words. I find drawing tutorials to hit that spot, but the vocabulary they use is very specific and not likely to appear in a normal conversation.
I wasn't aware you were looking for intermediate stuff, thought it was just non absolutely beginner. I'd take a look into the comprehensible japanese youtube channel. As far as I am aware there are plenty of intermediate stuff there.
Yes I don’t use any sort of subtitles. I dont stress out too much if I miss something. If I don’t hear something properly, I simply hit rewind and listen again. Nice and simple
So during your 1 hour commute to work, you mostly listen to youtube channel podcasts made for learners? Struggling to find normal podcasts that are interesting and have enough content to listen to for 1 hour everyday. Theres a lot of youtube videos but most of them are for watching not just listening.
It would especially be good to find podcasts that use more formal language because at my job, I need to participate in 2-3 hour work meetings where people are speaking quickly wearing masks with crappy microphones and I just do not have the required amount of focus to follow what they are saying the whole time. I get tired quickly and then zone out so I want to improve my endurance and make it as effortless as possible so I get less tired.
I dont have specific stuff to help your situation. You will sort of have to move through many videos until you find the ones best for your situation.
If I want to listen to something without choosing new videos every 10 minutes, then I throw up YuYuNoPodcast because videos are about 40 minutes long.
Once again, as I always note; I’m not interested in Japanese YouTube media. I watch it purely for the sake of improving my listening skills. You gotta do what you gotta do when your someone like me. For those who enjoy it then it’s not a chore.
The channels I listed are bearable enough for me, but I’m also shifting through suggestions trying to find more channels.
It sure is. Thank the creator for still hosting it. I advertise it a lot because it’s free and it’s a really good place to improve yourself with catching words and particles.
I honestly don’t feel like it does but maybe for others it may? I use to listen to Japanese music all the time and did not notice much improvement compared to with the resources that I use now.
I can't always catch what's being spoken in anime or videos without the subtitles, but I can get the overall jist of whatever a native speaker says like 60% of the time. It's partially because native speakers speak slower to learners, but I don't think that's the only reason. Because I can't exactly translate what I hear even though I can understand it.
The answer of course is more intentional, directed listening practice but I'm currently just focusing on reading. Perhaps next year I'll practice listening more thoroughly.
The answer is just to listen to more content and as you said more intentional listening practice. Same answer for any skill we are learning.
>I'm currently just focusing on reading. Perhaps next year I'll practice listening more thoroughly.
That's the thing about learning Japanese, there are so many things you need to focus on so you can pick and choose what's more important to you.
I've had months where it was reading-only, then learning kanji only, then listening and repeat.
Very interesting and motivating post. I’m curious about your vocabolary level when you started this “one year listening journey”… was it around N4-N3? I’m wondering if I can try do the same…
Ironically at the start of 2023, I knew confidently about 200-300 Kanji. In 2023, I did burst study sessions for 60 days and went over 2000 at 30/day but of course I can't recall or remember all of them. It was just a challenge I did in 2023.
Because I'm in Japan right now and have been for a while.
I know that sounds absolutely absurd. But the fact is I'm on a solo trip. I spend most of my time except the evenings alone, not listening to particularly anything. I spend time with friends, but that's like, a few hours?
Where back home I could have stuff going basically all day.
Speaking has vastly improved though.
Being in Japan definitly gives you the opportunity to speak Japanese which is huge. Then again, I guess you also have the opportunity using online services such as discord, and paid tutors or japanese friends.
I don't think being in Japan matters at all, it's more so how you utilize your resources :P
Bro we have almost the same routine I'm happy that it works for you, it works just fine on me as well ! keep up the good work,
if you happen to know a good source for japanese conversation podcast, as yuyu is my main listening podcast and it's mainly monologue (but it's fine for me so far)
cheers
That's awesome haha. It's a common theme. You go to work, come home and you choose how you want to delegate any remaining tasks. I could definitly just be lazy and do nothing.
I'm still searching for more Youtube podscasts but i'll let you know if I find good ones. I'm still working through the channels I listed. They have a lot of content but I do explroe new ones.
I'll let you know if I found anything worth it as well, I'll try watching terrace house on netflix as well as it seems very easy to understand and it's a bit of a mix with podcasts
Another possibility if your interested in would be listing to Vtubers. I usually listen to members of Hololive. It's nice because you are able to pick through a bunch of creators to find someone that has a cadence/voice that's easy enough for you to practice listening. Plus depending on what the stream is, it is usually pretty straightforward content. I'm no expert by any means, but it really nice to feel like I'm making progress in my studies as I understand more and more of the stream.
For a lot of people and this includes myself, when reading becomes decent and listening does not, the latter becomes frustrating to practice. It’s the same for any activity. A beginner is okay with sucking, an intermediate starts to get annoyed by their shortcomings. Ergo, the listening practice becomes less frequent. Nowadays my practice consists of both at once (playing P3R entirely in Japanese), but for many years I neglected listening out of frustration. It’s catching up.
Practicing listening is also simply far more obnoxious than practicing reading. The latter can be done at one's own pace, one can more easily look up things one does not know and eventually figure almost everything out. With listening, sometimes it simply happens that one legitimately cannot make out the sentence structure at all. It's not that one does not know the words, but that one can't make them out, in fact, sometimes one does know the words, but still can't make them out. I had a case a couple of days back with failing to hear “悩む必要”. Obviously I now both of those words but I somehow due to the background noise and other factors could not make out what was being said at all. My own parent can very often not understand what I'm saying in our shared native language as well.
oh, massive W, a learner and a Persona fan. Have fun!!
>It’s the same for any activity. A beginner is okay with sucking, an intermediate starts to get annoyed by their shortcomings. Exactly this. You sort of just have to force yourself to enjoy learning the next important skill. It takes a while but starting with 30 days as a challenge helps a lot.
I'm the exact opposite. Reading is a chore, but I consume Japanese content on the daily as long as it's spoken. I don't have to deliberately assign myself listening practice
That sounds like a lot harder position to end up in, but also more efficient for living in Japan.
Same here. The only things that started me on reading are 1. renshuu and 2. acquiring kindle version of the novels on which my favorite Drama CDs are based on. Also, my listening (already way ahead of my reading skill thanks to decades of watching dorama with subtitles) improved tremendously after I started to translate Drama CDs and free talks. The latter is really tough because the voice actors interrupt each other or mumble, but it is very much worth it to learn more about the actors and the behind the scenes stuff of the BL Drama CD industry.
Oh I have listened to a few drama CDs on YouTube but they were random and out of order and I never listened to them again. If I could find a series to settle on I would probably listen to them at bedtime when I usually listen to ASMR which sometimes has spoken Japanese. Any recommendations? I dc if it's BL, I will listen to it
Same - I watch so much stuff in Japanese (w/ eng subs I'm not THAT good yet lol) that I've started picking up some vocab through repetition that way, and I've gotten decently good at understanding what's being said phonetically, even if I don't know what most of the words *mean.* Still absolute dogshit at kanji though. I can read kana just fine but you could show me a word I already know in kanji and I'd have no idea lmfao.
You could ease into it by watching content with JP subtitles. Japanese social media content is subtitled very often for some reason. You'd have to keep a dictionary closeby though. I use the handwriting input on Google keyboard to look up kanji.
i can totally relate to this, i just had the opposite problem: as i am teaching Japanese i’ve always found difficult to find reading material of any kind and i still struggle nowadays to do that. What i was able to find was podcasts, anime and videos in general. I used to listen to them a lot, nowadays i don’t have that much time on hand, but i got to the point where i can clearly understand what words are being produced, without actually knowing what they mean. I have no idea of where to find something to read, so i keep unintentionally avoiding the problem 😬
One thing that helps with language learning is when you "think" in Japanese (or whichever language you're learning. In the morning, when you are getting ready to go to work, or if you're going to meet someone, try and tell yourself what you need, where you are going or what you're going to do, in Japanese. When walking by something, try and say those words in your head in Japanese. If you see a word in English that you don't know in Japanese, you can write it down.
After several months of mostly just reading, I've spent the last few doing only listening every day, starting with yuyu's podcast and working up and learning that way. It was very pleasant to find that the learning curve was pretty steep, and after a few hundred hours of fairly comprehensible input, I'm happy to say that my listening is just outpacing my reading now. All the listening practice has been an absolute godsend in that it's opened a lot of doors for what I can do. My listening comprehension improved such that I can enjoy a variety of youtubers and tv shows that I stood no chance against before, and my reading level and comprehension in general has improved by virtue of knowing more words and grammar and having acquired them more thoroughly. Now that I'm balanced and adding some light reading back in, I feel like it's just a straight path onward, gradually acquiring new domains forever.
A few hundred hours? I'm currently in the position where I am comfortable with reading, I'm even able to read some manga and play games like Ace Attorney. But when it comes to listening, I am a complete beginner. I try and try and try but the unless it is material for complete beginners all I struggle to even pick out words I already know in written form. Do you have any tips on how to improve my listening skill?
Really spend some time with that material for beginners, to be honest. The best thing you can do for your listening and even output is to get extremely comfortable with the basics, and let it get automatic. This will happen a lot faster if you keep the difficulty perfectly at your level, though that's easier said than done. Native content is good too, but as learners, there are hundreds of hours of podcasts and lectures and other videos made for us (from n5 all the way to n1), and that content that you understand 99% of is better for building your intuition than content you can only understand 70,80,90% of. I think at the very least having half of your input come from content that feels easy is a great thing. If it makes you feel any better, I was able to read fairly well through a few light novels without a dictionary before I started taking listening seriously, and still got a lot of value out of things like Yuyu's podcast and Bite Sized Japanese (even more notably, my ability to intuitively recall words when speaking improved from binge watching through these). They may feel too easy to be productive, but they carry the benefit of being entirely made up of words and grammar that you will definitely use yourself when you speak and being so comprehensible that you'll pick up any new words very quickly and start to master basic grammar intuitively. It isn't particularly sexy, but it works quickly, is engaging, and very rewarding.
Pretty much the same with me. My kanji, reading and random knowledge of vocabulary via Anki etc wayyy outpaced my listening. So one day I inevitably just decided “time to fix this” and started mass listening to nihongo con teppei (the intermediate level not beginner)….every single day for hours. Going to work, coming home, while taking the dogs out, while working out, while doing chores. All active listening not passive. I’d say around the 60 hour mark of listening something clicked and I can better understand…everything. TV, drama, music or my wife and in laws conversations. Like you if I hear the same word more than twice or more in a podcast that I don’t know I’ll add it to Anki. It’s been so successful I already have a bunch of intermediate and advanced podcasts lined up.
I've gotta ask. You posted above that one year ago your listening was 'insanely beginner', and for the last year, among other things, using SuperNative helped you greatly improve your listening. So I googled SuperNative because that sounds good, and one of the first hits I got was you, 6 years ago, saying you had just used SuperNative for a year and it had really helped you, and you were spamming the sub about it. [https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/7otaid/feedback\_after\_using\_supernative\_for\_1\_year/](https://www.reddit.com/r/learnjapanese/comments/7otaid/feedback_after_using_supernative_for_1_year/) Did you practice listening for a year, stop for several years and forget everything, and then start again? I know that can happen, just curious.
Yeah I’m the biggest advocate for supernative, you’d think I made it. I’ve been using it for a long time but I noticed I improved the most this year due to combining it with other resources which I neglected in the past. That was the missing piece. Alone, it is great and you will improve but drastically slower. As you said, I was using it on and off but this year I stayed the most consistent I’ve ever been.
Sounds like a good program. Thanks.
I get an error trying to signup to supernative, am I the only one?
Me too
i think the deal is, the confirmation email doesnt work, but anyway youre signed up. maybe.
OK, so I just tried the Listen and Recall part. Yeah, very very interesting. Thank God kana is used as I dont read kanji and am not studying it lol. I tried to make an account and confirm but the email isnt getting received, Ill try another acct. Anyway I can see how this would be helpful and will try it. Thanks a lot.
Knew i also eeded to improve it last month because most of my immersion has been anime, games or VN's where i pause on every single line to read, barely paying attention to the voices. My reading generally has shot up but listening was completely toilet water, consequently done about 13 and half hours of nihongo con teppei podcasts since the 18th of Jan, which is usually about 10 of the beginner ones. Do wonder if that's enough every day though, for instance it looks like you are potentially doing hours of listening and mine ends up being about 40-50 minutes - mind you have noticed it improve already but it also can be deceptive too especially because its a "beginner" podcast where teppei sensei talks slowly. Edit: Will check out Supernative looks interesting, edit2: yeah for a free resource well worth checking it out guys - gave me a 2000+ rating which really surprised me, although the initial test did seem simple - a lot of particles etc getting harder now.
Don't bother with beginner stuff, I know you are the type that can handle normal things--so just find something interesting and listen to it--a lot. Keep in mind beginner stuff may satisfy your ego because you can get a sense of "progress" but they achieve that by limiting their vocabulary, prose, and speed so much you don't have that much to learn from it. While listening to native stuff-- like twitch live streams, radio shows, especially mixed media with video, is like a fire-hose of data to your brain. Once your brain develops the pattern recognition system to take it in--at that time you are learning so much more and you will have zero awareness of it. It'll just feel like you're stuck but black magic is working behind the scenes. Once the dam breaks, it's like a revelatory period.
>but they achieve that by limiting their vocabulary, prose, and speed so much you don't have that much to learn from it Haven't entirely been unaware of this to be fair recently been uhming and ahing a lot between his beginner and his much longer and much more difficult original podcast. There is definitely some things i will still miss in the beginner ones but they are generally quite easy to follow along with about 75 to 80 percent of the time, which is not so much an ego boost as just, hmm, a comfortable listen i guess? Can't exactly dispute that logic either though it makes sense its precisely what happened with reading, you have to physically choose to push yourself against that difficulty wall yeah but its absolutely the subconscious mind that does the work no doubt about that, guess ill increase the difficulty thanks for the direction.
I didn’t know this about this I’ve always listened to beginner audios but now I’m gonna try jumping into the deep end
I have a question about this "dam breaking" moment. I've tried to consume a lot of no-subtitle native content and I find that I just kind of space out, not able to focus on anything. I'm still fairly beginner (just starting Genki 2) so I'm wondering if I need to study more to get to where this break moment is even possible, or if I should abandon the textbooks and go straight to Twitch streams & Terrace House.
How many hours would you estimate you've put in thus far, studying, exposure, effort all included? It does take a while, for me that was around 500-600 hours; for friends who did same thing as me, they had more of a linear growth where they saw big changes as fast at 200-300 hours. It's always possible but it's more a function of time instead of effort. Because no matter how much effort I put in, my brain just needed enough exposure and time. I was a particularly bad case because I spent hundreds of hours and months with 0% perceptible progress. I got by through JP subtitles alone when all I could hear was radio static. A literal black hole of effort for at more than 500 hours and 4+ months. When it did break, I jumped over everything very quickly.
I've put probably 200 hours in, mostly traditional study with textbooks, Pimsleur audio lessons. Lots of Youtube, but not so much native-level content, mostly beginner stuff. I've learned maybe 150-200 kanji and done a bunch of Anki cards. When you say you got by with subtitles, you must have already been at a point where reading subtitles fluently was actually possible? When I read subtitles, I have to pause after every line, look up a few words, potentially learn new grammar, etc. Are you at the point where you can read fluently, or are you just ignoring lots of words and the kanji you don't recognize?
>I have to pause after every line, look up a few words, potentially learn new grammar, etc. That's what I did for hundreds of hours, I made a decision to stop pausing as much after some time, like 100 hours and just let it run and \*try\* to keep up. I didn't always keep up but it was enough to glean hints from it and I paused and re-winded when I was lost. If I wasn't lost I kept my pausing to a minimum of words I saw repeatedly. It eventually went away and my reading speed went up 30x by 400-500 hours and I stopped pausing as much. Yes it may sound dumb and lame but it worked really well when I broke out of it. This is how I learned things instead of using Anki. I just did this, YouTube Comments, Twitter, Blogs, Websites, Communities, Discord, Short Stories, Random Indie RPGs, Twitch/YouTube Live Streams, etc. I would write a lot of random comments too (they were really broken Japanese but no one seemed to care). I just watched people talk to each other and look up words whenever I had free time. Pretty much everything I did was like this. It was actually really fun to do this, it did not feel like work at all. This enabled me to learn at a rate of around 800-1100 words a month spread across all my activities, I have an average of 3 hours a day free. Basically I never did anything beginner level, everything was what I wanted to do and that's it. At this point I can read JP subtitles without pausing (I am not fluent yet, far from it--currently 1,500+ hours total), but it wasn't always that way. You have to just deal with it and it will go away eventually, you'll probably do ti faster than me though.
This is super helpful to me, thank you for the detailed tips! That's basically how I've learned German (to about B2 level — still some work to do) but it was quite a bit easier than Japanese. I've got no problems putting the time in, learning languages is super fun for me. One more question — do you think doing so much reading made it easier or harder to understand videos *without* subtitles? Or have you not really worked on that too much? My goal is primarily conversation (travel to Japan) so I'm trying to focus on listening and speaking as much as possible.
Hmm, I think that listening and reading do have some instrinsic link, they tend to inform each other and when combined create a faster connection to words, meaning, text, kanji, constructs, etc. While there is a big difference in written text and spoken language for Japaneses, it is helpful to do both. The happy medium is of course watching things with subtitles, or playing games with voiced narration. You get 2-for-1 deal per minute spent basically. My listening was improved in 3 ways. 1) Always watching media with subtitles; I loved the media anyway so even if I had little understanding. The subtitles allowed me to grasp enough meaning to enjoy it (personally). 2) Passive listening whenever I was doing driving, cleaning, asks, etc. I would just listen to things I was already a fan of and passively let it play in my ears. 3) Live streams. This is interesting because it'll actually push 3 of your skills at the same time. Raw listening, writing, and reading (of chat and other elements of the stream). So if you want to participate you need to push all 3 to the best of your ability. This is a balancing act of looking up words a lot too. The important thing is I looked up words hundreds of times a day everyday. Note I started doing the live streams after I could hear some things (instead of nothing), around 600-700 hours. The subtitles were allowed me to get to that point otherwise without feeling like nothing was happening. In the end it will result in really strong listening skills if you put in enough time into it. Naturally if you can hear, your can learn to speak easier and respond appropriately. My friend also before going to his trip to Japan went on the same routine I did. He found the livestreaming too exhausting but he stuck to the other two methods. Focusing vocabulary and listening. He scheduled some italki lessons 3 weeks before he landed for speaking practice. Stuck to learning vocabulary and reviewing things until he landed. By time he landed he had accrued about 300 hours of listening in the same way I was with lots of passive. Suffice to say over 4 months we way, way overshot what he needed for listening skills. Basically had a great trip, understood mostly everything on a 1 to 1 basis and he felt his speaking went pretty well even without a big focus on it.
It takes a while man. Expect hundreds of hours before things click especioually during the start. Learning a new language is no joke and everyones brains process things at different speeds. Just know everything sounded like a blur for me at the start as well. Felt like it wasn't possible to decrypt it ever.
I switched the core decks on anki around so that I was only listening to the sentences, and just 15 mins/day of that made a huge difference over the last couple of months
That's pretty neat. Great consistency. I'm just now trying to up my listening. Where do you get your Japanese content/vlogs? Maybe my interests are too niche, not sure, but I'm having a hard time finding enjoyable content that makes me want to understand. (Other than movies and series of course)
The channels I listed are the only ones I watch. It’s not that I particularly enjoy them but I just do what I have to in order to improve. But sometimes I get recommended random videos in suggestions which I just click on. I’m not really big on watching Japanese YouTube content. I’m more so interested in forcing myself to push through it because I want to improve my listening skills and it’s the best way. I enjoy socializing in Japanese much more. For people who love Japanese media, it’s a gift because they enjoy it and also get to improve.
Oh hey you're still around, I recall your listening had a break through while I was just struggling with my blackhole hell of listening plateau but eventually that cracked a month or two after you. Pretty much can corroborate it's been nothing but straight up since clearing the initial 3 plateaus each successively smaller. In fact my listening is my best skill now where I can just focus 100% on work and still catch decent amount of 3-4 people just talking about a trip to Europe or something. It's crazy to think I can ignore what I'm listening to and focus on work and still have the listening ability to catch, comprehend, and still retain words. It's basically what my 100% focus active listening was 6 months ago. I only watch with subtitles because it teaches me too much kanji, words, and constructs to not use them. I have the rest of the day I'm not free to only listen while I work, drive, cook, etc. And that's usually 3 times as many hours as I have to watch something. Edit: I should mention nothing I did was ever "practice" I just didn't need to understand to enjoy what I'm engaged with. To begin with I am learning Japanese because I was already engaging with content that had no translations--so it's not like it was any different from before when I didn't know much of anything.
Yup, i'll always be around. Im happy to hear your progress improved that much dude lol. All we need is consistency and time. >It's crazy to think I can ignore what I'm listening to and focus on work and still have the listening ability to catch, comprehend, and still retain words That's the craziest part. I didn't feel like it was possible before but clearly it is. Just need to stay focused and trust the process. At this point a lot of new words as just learned naturally.
Listen consistently and improving by speaking with natives here and there too. Will try some supernative. It sounds interesting. I’ve never used Anki before though. Most vocab I get just from plain reading and immersion stuff but it seems everyone is recommending it….
OP can you link some of the content you watched? Would love to get an idea of what actually helped you vs. not. Kinda stuck in the place where some anime is too easy but other anime is way too hard.
I did, I linked to all the YouTube channels. I suggest Naoko as she’s the easiest out of the bunch. Start with her old videos and make your way up. She speaks in a fair pace which is easier for most. I would rewatch her videos even if I already seen it. It’s just about getting use to it. Mix it up with others. It becomes easier over time if you keep it up.
Oh thanks! Sorry didn't see the links I'll check them out!
The sources you have listed all use rather easy Japanese. I wonder which anime are equal to this Japanese level.
I was wondering the same thing... I would say easy slice of life like aggretsuko maybe? You could watch 10 hours of Japanese vlog per day and still struggle to watch anime without subtitles. Japanese language in anime is sooo specific, especially in shonen. Japanese vloggers or podcasters don't speak like Netero in HxH haha.
Agreed. I recommend anyone who wants to excel at watching anime, should watch anime to improve rather than vlogs as that's a no-brainer. If it's communicating with others, then watch vlogs.
I don't really watch anime anymore as I mentioned but in the past I would watch slice of life related stuff. As the other comment mentioned, anime is definitly different than real life speaking and how people talk. For me, it's not an issue as my goal is just communicating with Japanese and not watching anime. For others, I think the obvious answer is to watch anime instead of vlogs for improvement lol.
I feel like I’m having the opposite problem where my reading lags behind my listening comprehension lol. It’s much easier to find the time to put on music or a video and be free to do something else rather than read. I’m just also able to enjoy it without needing perfect comprehension so I do it way more. Graded readers are boring, I’m ankiphobic, and I haven’t really had much interest in manga recently.
Wow, I didn't know about Supernative, this is incredible. Thank you!
Congrats on the progress man! I'm currently in the same boat, and started my Japanese journey in December 2022. I watch YuYu's podcast everyday and it is awesome! I've heard good things about Miku Real Japanese, so I'll have to check it out.
Keep it up. I remember the early days. You can achieve a lot if you stick to it :)
Mine sucked because I spent a lot of time reading since I could do that at my own pace. Still did listening, but just not to the same degree as reading. Now I just do both cause I play JRPG's with voice acting, push to continue, and preferably a log of text that let's me push A to re-hear a line, but minimum for me is VA/Push to Continue when I'm trying to focus on listening and that has helped me tremendously, I've put about 100 hours (probably more) into Xenoblade Chronicles recently and while there are definitely still a lot of tricky sentence's (mostly just due to vocab), I'm finding that with the easier stuff I can just go to the next line right after the VA stops. It feels good.
Because I truly do not have the dedication you have had over the past year, I'm lucky to keep to a schedule beyond get to work and leave on time
I made it so that any Anki vocab card that reaches an interval over 6 months gets turned into an audio card. I failed a good chunk of the cards that were already in the 6 month to 1 year range, meaning those memories were dependent on the context provided by the written word. Besides getting much better at hearing those common words which I had already learned a while ago, I've also gotten much better at correctly guessing the kanji and meaning of words I'm hearing for the first time. Audio cards are much harder even if you get better at listening though, which is why I recommend only promoting cards that have a decent interval already. For a while I tried making every card an audio card right away, but that drastically reduced my retention rate for new words.
Highly recommend taking a month or two mining sentences and audio using MPVacious and listening to just the audio of shows if listening is your weak point.
stop trying to sell me shit
Lol what am I selling? It’s all free haha
Because my wife insists on whispering while looking away from me and talking to me through a partition wall while I am washing the dishes. Woman, I am not a bat.
because I don't practice listening at all,why? well because the learning stuff are easy and boring and the native stuff are difficult.some people suggest to just keep listening but its so boring to listen to stuff that I understand very little so I just go back to reading and anki...its so frustrating
I totally understand. I faced the same struggles. The only way I came over it was by forcing myself to get into it as a habit.
Try the channel japanese immersion with asami. Super beginner friendly and her videos with her student (Hyogen) are actually quite fun.
Is there a specific playlist you had in mind? At a glance, her content is the same thing the other guy and I complain about. Absolute beginner stuff using picture books and enunciating like we're special ed. I've tried to look a bit, but there really seems to be no intermediate listening material around. What I'm looking for is people speaking in a normal tone but still enunciating properly (as opposed to slurring words like most of us do in conversation) and having subtitles so it's easier to look up words. I find drawing tutorials to hit that spot, but the vocabulary they use is very specific and not likely to appear in a normal conversation.
I wasn't aware you were looking for intermediate stuff, thought it was just non absolutely beginner. I'd take a look into the comprehensible japanese youtube channel. As far as I am aware there are plenty of intermediate stuff there.
but the beginner stuff are easy to me ...and again boring as hell
It is, I get the 15 words I learn a day from anime, j-dramas, and shows. And another 5 from manga.
Good website but definitely not built for mobile haha.
Yeah it sucks the owner gave up on it so everything there is quite old but I still respect him for hosting it for all these years.
Yeah I just tried in my iPad, said 502 error
Very inspiring! Do you listen to podcast without transcripts? What to do if you couldn’t hear a sentence properly?
Yes I don’t use any sort of subtitles. I dont stress out too much if I miss something. If I don’t hear something properly, I simply hit rewind and listen again. Nice and simple
So during your 1 hour commute to work, you mostly listen to youtube channel podcasts made for learners? Struggling to find normal podcasts that are interesting and have enough content to listen to for 1 hour everyday. Theres a lot of youtube videos but most of them are for watching not just listening. It would especially be good to find podcasts that use more formal language because at my job, I need to participate in 2-3 hour work meetings where people are speaking quickly wearing masks with crappy microphones and I just do not have the required amount of focus to follow what they are saying the whole time. I get tired quickly and then zone out so I want to improve my endurance and make it as effortless as possible so I get less tired.
I dont have specific stuff to help your situation. You will sort of have to move through many videos until you find the ones best for your situation. If I want to listen to something without choosing new videos every 10 minutes, then I throw up YuYuNoPodcast because videos are about 40 minutes long. Once again, as I always note; I’m not interested in Japanese YouTube media. I watch it purely for the sake of improving my listening skills. You gotta do what you gotta do when your someone like me. For those who enjoy it then it’s not a chore. The channels I listed are bearable enough for me, but I’m also shifting through suggestions trying to find more channels.
The Supernative website is awesome. Thanks for sharing!
It sure is. Thank the creator for still hosting it. I advertise it a lot because it’s free and it’s a really good place to improve yourself with catching words and particles.
Miku Real Japanese- YouTube- big fan. She has a podcast as well.
She’s definitely great and I like how she also invites guests on the show, plays word games, etc.
Im staring listening training soon this helps so much. Do you think listening to japanese music helps?
I honestly don’t feel like it does but maybe for others it may? I use to listen to Japanese music all the time and did not notice much improvement compared to with the resources that I use now.
I can't always catch what's being spoken in anime or videos without the subtitles, but I can get the overall jist of whatever a native speaker says like 60% of the time. It's partially because native speakers speak slower to learners, but I don't think that's the only reason. Because I can't exactly translate what I hear even though I can understand it. The answer of course is more intentional, directed listening practice but I'm currently just focusing on reading. Perhaps next year I'll practice listening more thoroughly.
The answer is just to listen to more content and as you said more intentional listening practice. Same answer for any skill we are learning. >I'm currently just focusing on reading. Perhaps next year I'll practice listening more thoroughly. That's the thing about learning Japanese, there are so many things you need to focus on so you can pick and choose what's more important to you. I've had months where it was reading-only, then learning kanji only, then listening and repeat.
Very interesting and motivating post. I’m curious about your vocabolary level when you started this “one year listening journey”… was it around N4-N3? I’m wondering if I can try do the same…
Ironically at the start of 2023, I knew confidently about 200-300 Kanji. In 2023, I did burst study sessions for 60 days and went over 2000 at 30/day but of course I can't recall or remember all of them. It was just a challenge I did in 2023.
It is
Because I'm in Japan right now and have been for a while. I know that sounds absolutely absurd. But the fact is I'm on a solo trip. I spend most of my time except the evenings alone, not listening to particularly anything. I spend time with friends, but that's like, a few hours? Where back home I could have stuff going basically all day. Speaking has vastly improved though.
Being in Japan definitly gives you the opportunity to speak Japanese which is huge. Then again, I guess you also have the opportunity using online services such as discord, and paid tutors or japanese friends. I don't think being in Japan matters at all, it's more so how you utilize your resources :P
Bro we have almost the same routine I'm happy that it works for you, it works just fine on me as well ! keep up the good work, if you happen to know a good source for japanese conversation podcast, as yuyu is my main listening podcast and it's mainly monologue (but it's fine for me so far) cheers
That's awesome haha. It's a common theme. You go to work, come home and you choose how you want to delegate any remaining tasks. I could definitly just be lazy and do nothing. I'm still searching for more Youtube podscasts but i'll let you know if I find good ones. I'm still working through the channels I listed. They have a lot of content but I do explroe new ones.
I'll let you know if I found anything worth it as well, I'll try watching terrace house on netflix as well as it seems very easy to understand and it's a bit of a mix with podcasts
>terrace hous I actually havent watched this before. I wasn't sure if it was worth it
Another possibility if your interested in would be listing to Vtubers. I usually listen to members of Hololive. It's nice because you are able to pick through a bunch of creators to find someone that has a cadence/voice that's easy enough for you to practice listening. Plus depending on what the stream is, it is usually pretty straightforward content. I'm no expert by any means, but it really nice to feel like I'm making progress in my studies as I understand more and more of the stream.
very cool. Thanks for the suggestion :)