Konnichiyall! How's your Japanese studying going? Today I have another Japanese self-study method recommendation post for you, and when I tell you this method works, I mean it! Today's post is a How-To Guide all about using podcasts to level up your Japanese!
This is one of my favorite methods to recommend because I find that it's one most people haven’t considered, and in my opinion, it’s one of the strongest out there. I’d easily rank Japanese podcasts in my top three methods of Japanese study overall. I credit the podcasts I use with my ability to actually speak and understand spoken Japanese, as well as achieve a perfect score in the JLPT N2 Listening Section.
Today I'll talk about:
Let's get started!
Why Listening to Podcasts Can Take Your Japanese to the Next Level
If you’re only going to take one piece of advice from my entire series of Study Method Recommendations, let it be this:
Listening is the secret to becoming a speaker of Japanese.
Well, of any language really. Sufficient listening is what’s missing from most language study. When we just can’t seem to voice our thoughts, when the grammar that we already learned just won’t pop into our heads fast enough, the issue isn’t necessarily that we lack study time.
It’s often because we aren’t listening enough. Listening is such a huge part of how people get good at speaking. Input, input, input baby.
If you’re having some trouble believing that input is as important as output, then let’s think about how we learn our mother tongues. Because it isn’t through a textbook, it isn’t by intellectually understanding the grammar, and it isn’t through knowing the written characters perfectly. It isn’t even through Duolingo! (Though I do really appreciate that they try to mimic the contextual repetition we get as babies!!)
Anyway, my point here is that we learned our first language(s) by listening to and watching our caregivers, and learning to associate sounds with certain meanings and messages. Our brains can still do this same thing.
It might look a little different now from when we were infants, but we can still learn so much just from using context clues and our own prior knowledge to make these same connections between meanings and sounds.
THIS IS IT Y’ALL. THIS IS THE LANGUAGE LEARNING HACK! If you listen enough, it becomes EASY.
Or so much easier, at least.
You don’t have to study it all out of boring books. Just listen.
When people here in Japan (mostly my students) complain to me that despite so much studying (6+ years of classes that mainly focus on grammar) they can’t actually catch or produce any English, I always ask how much they’re listening to English. The answer is usually something like “only in your class” which, for context, meets for 45 minutes a week.
And this is why I feel for these poor kids, and why I spend half my life wanting to beat the Japanese English education system over the head. How can anyone expect to produce words and structures with their mouths that their ears barely even know?
This isn’t to say that input is the only important thing. Research shows that both input and output are important for improving in a second language. Which is why when you pair a consistent listening habit with another study method, like Duolingo for example, things get really fire. That natural review coming at you in all these awesome different contexts is the sweet spot for language learning. Your progress will go from zero to 100 faster than you can say konnichiwa.
How to Choose the Right Podcast For You
Now that we’ve covered why listening practice is awesome, let’s talk about how to listen for our studies.
First of all, why do I even recommend podcasts specifically? There are a ton of different media we can choose from as Japanese learners. Many people’s first thought here would be anime or J-drama or music. But to be honest, these aren't great for beginners or even intermediate learners as the main component of a listening habit (though I love them as a supplement!).
Don’t get me wrong, the act of taking in as much auditory language as possible, of any level, to train your ears to the patterns and rhythms of a language, can be really useful. But in general, you grow the most when you aim for something close-ish to your own level. Which is why I prefer content that is not created for the entertainment of native-speakers, because it’s simply too hard when we're first learning. Content created at a learner level is going to help a lot more.
Both Youtube and podcasts have a ton of awesome content geared towards people learning Japanese. I go with podcasts simply because I like not having to be in a place to watch and listen to something to get my practice, but whatever suits your lifestyle and your usual routine best will likely turn itself into a study habit more easily.
So, how do we find a good podcast or channel, and how can we avoid ones that won’t actually help with our Japanese? Well, when choosing a podcast or a channel to learn from, I always look for three basic (and personal!) criteria:
The correct level for you
They only speak in Japanese!!!
Topics that are interesting to you
In general, optimal listening practice occurs when we can understand about 80% of what’s being said.
An 80% understanding rate stretches our limits and allows for natural, context-based learning (i.e. using the words and sentences around an unknown word to understand its meaning) without our brains tuning out because they just don't understand anything.
Again, this isn't to say don't watch anime. I learned so much from watching 1000 episodes of One Piece. What I am saying is that you're going to get the most bang for your listening time at ~80% understanding. If you love anime, keep enjoying it as a hobby and revel in the fact that it is a hobby with benefits! Relaxation in Japanese in super important. But when you're studying, keep this 80% number in mind.
#2, the Japanese-only requirement, is because the quantity of language is just as important as the level. Podcasts and videos that are mainly in English and only teaching phrases are not what we're looking for here. If I hear English, I always turn it off immediately. Seriously, it is a waste of time to be thinking in ENGLISH when we’re learning JAPANESE. Language can't be learned by understanding facts ABOUT that language in your native tongue (looking at you, English classes in Japan). A word here and there is fine, if it’s something that can’t easily be explained in simple Japanese, but Japanese listening practice should be in Japanese more than 90% of the time.
And finally, the last and arguably MOST crucial requirement when searching for a podcast, interest. There’s two things we need to understand about our brains going into language studies. We need to understand them, and work with them. Not against them.
The first is that our brains are going to tune out what they don't find fun and/or important. The second is that, conversely, if we really want to know what’s being said, because think it is interesting and/or important, our brains are going to work SUPER HARD to understand.
You should’ve seen the amount of English my college students suddenly knew when I once let slip I’d gone on a date that weekend. They were suddenly so creative about conveying their message and also intently focused on understanding my replies. When the interest is there, communication becomes more important than the rules.
Listen to whatever you usually like, just do it in Japanese. If that’s horror, listen to content about scary Japanese stories. If it’s make-up or travel or cooking, listen about those topics. If you love anime, listen to podcasts about anime.
But how? How can I do that without it being way too high level?
Well, there are some really lovely podcasters and YouTubers out there who have made content for learners of Japanese that is just them talking about all kinds of random awesome stuff in simple Japanese. I’ll link some of my favorites below.
My Japanese Learning Podcast Recommendations
Let’s Talk in Japanese (Spotify | Apple Podcast) - A Japanese Teacher called Tomo-sensei who makes free podcasts about requested topics, often revolving around life in Japan, culture, traditions, stories, holidays, and so on, as well as language study and other interesting things. Episode titles include JLPT level and range from N5 to N1.
Any (generally appropriate) topic is OK - when I thought I had a cavity and was nervous to visit the dentist, I asked for an episode about going to the dentist to prepare. He’s a super nice teacher and has hours upon hours of free content.
The Real Japanese Podcast (Spotify | Apply Podcast) I found Haruka sensei pretty late in my Japanese studies (around the 2 year mark), but I wish I’d found her earlier! Like Tomo-sensei, she separates each episode with the JLPT level, and she also has videos for a lot of the episodes, if watching content is more your thing.
She also allows requests and talks about basically anything, from anime to the Japanese birth rate crisis to her travels. Although Tomo-sensei and Haruka-sensei’s channels are similar in content, I’d definitely recommend listening to BOTH because they’ll give great insight into standard Japanese for women and men.
Thinking in Japanese (Spotify | Apple Podcast) - Iisaku-sensei is also a Japanese teacher who talks about philosophy and learning and what makes people tick, all in simple and very slow Japanese. Mostly, he reads really interesting books or studies and then talks about them at a level that learners can comprehend.
I know the subject matter might sound a bit daunting, but I will emphasize that he speaks extremely slowly - it wasn’t long before I sped him up to 1.25 and then 1.5x speed. He’s also a Japanese teacher by profession, so he’s very good at explaining things in basic level grammar. Definitely give him a listen. I love his content.
Japanese Podcast for Beginners (Nihongo con Teppei) (Website | Spotify | Apple Podcast) - There are actually three Nihongo con Teppei podcasts with this same guy because he is wildly productive. I’d recommend this beginner one for anyone new to Japanese studies. He starts from the very basics on episode 1, and focuses a lot on naturally repetitive language input to help listeners level up quickly from the absolute beginner level without feeling like you're listening to some ancient textbook CD.
How to Listen to Get the Absolute Most Out of Japanese Learner Podcasts
Okay, so these lovely people have created the content for us to study. But it’s up to us to use it correctly. It isn’t going to be enough to just listen to the new episodes when they come out.
For a solid year, I listened to these things every single day, often on repeat. I’ve probably listened to every episode on Tomo-sensei’s channel a dozen times or more. Tomo-sensei and Iisaku-sensei were with me in the car on daily drives for work, while walking in town, while grocery shopping. They were with me while doing my makeup and sometimes even in the shower. I was ALWAYS listening. I worked my way up from only listening to the N5 and N4 podcasts to now requesting content at the N1 level.
Listening works. It can work fast, as in you can learn to speak and understand in months, but you have to put in the listening hours all the same. The more you can listen, the easier it will become, so it's best to think of ways to insert listening into your daily routine.
One note here is that this wasn't always active, focused listening for me. Oftentimes the podcasts were just playing in the background. I’d catch a sentence here, a phrase there. It adds up. Just… listen all the time if you want to understand a language. That’s the key.
An extra tip for leveling up even faster is shadowing. I don't recommend this for the first time you listen to an episode, because the focus there should be understanding the content. But after that, you might try to repeat as much as you can of what the speaker is saying to get in some Japanese mouth-muscle training as well 💪.
When I started using podcasts to study, I’d been studying for about six months using methods like Duolingo, grammar workbooks, and writing a Japanese diary. Although these helped my basic understanding, I was still having so much trouble speaking and actually catching anything said to me. However, within three months of listening to these podcasts, I finally had my first real conversation with a Japanese person using no English. Of course, I stumbled through a lot of it, and translated a few words, but I actually sat at a restaurant counter for an hour or so and talked to an old man and the shop owner in Japanese. In a conversation that actually flowed.
I can remember leaving the restaurant and immediately calling my girlfriend and screaming “I DID IT!!” into the phone (I had had a few beers). It was such an awesome feeling, and a moment that validated nine hard months of study that had felt pointless at times. From that point on, I was addicted to practicing and listening, and it helped me get better and better. Not slowly, but fast, like I could finally use everything I'd worked for. I want you to have this feeling too, so don’t be like me and wait to start a listening habit - start now!
Do you want more on how to self-study Japanese from the beginner level? Here are some of my go-to study and practice methods:
That's all for today! I hope you enjoyed this How-To Guide for using Podcasts for your Japanese Language Study! If you have any of your own podcast or Youtube recommendations, comments, suggestions, corrections, etc. let me know below!
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いつも読んでくれてありがとうございます！
Thank you always for reading!