Suggestions to improve my listening?

[Kraise]

I've been studying for 1 year and a 3 months by now, although i'm studying for the JLPT N2 already, I'm nowhere satisfied with my listening comprehension.

I recall finishing the N3 日本語総まとめ聴解本, being forced to read the scripts of almost every conversation because I couldnt figure them out just by listening.

Ive been practicing 書き取り、for a while, creating japanese subtitltes for japanese doramas, animes and so on, but bring me a NHK documentary or some fast paced casual conversation and I'll struggle as hell.

If there is anyone willing to suggest me good exercises to improve my listening comprehension, I'm much grateful

 

[Mike Cash]

You get better at listening the same way you get better at reading (and speaking...and writing); you do it a LOT.

Have something going all the time, even if you're not actively paying attention to it.

 

[nekojita]

This is a nice little website which collates videos from various news channels (not all are available outside Japan). It automatically forwards to the next video so you can just leave it on in the background. If you have some favourite anime, look for something audio only related to it: ドラマCD , キャストトーク etc.

I wouldn't worry about being able to exactly transcribe, focus on understanding and extracting pertinent information - who is involved, what is happening, recognising dates/times/places/ages etc. Perhaps try to take notes while listening. You can't spend too long worrying about something ambiguous - the audio is moving along in the meantime. It might become clear when you hear the rest of it, anyway.

For the JLPT in particular, you do need to get a feel for the structure of their questions which is deliberately made to make it hard to pick out the right answer just by listening for a keyword (with the result that the conversations often become a bit unnatural). Practising note-taking will help there, too.

If most of your study is reading/writing, force yourself to consciously subvocalise (if in public) or read aloud if possible when reading a text. I also do this when proofreading in English, it's a well known trick to stop your brain doing an internal autocorrect and skipping over mistakes. You want to strengthen the link in your mind between the vocabulary you know when you see it written down and the vocabulary you know when you hear it. I personally find reading aloud better for this than listening while reading a transcript (maybe because the vocal part is production in this case?)

 

[Kraise]

Thank you for caring.

I'll definitely keep the hard work going on, it is definitely a matter or insisting and increasing the ammount of hours.

Btw, thats a nice website nekojita, I'll make a good use out of it! Also, you nailed exactly one of my problems, recognizing a large ammount of "written" words, but completely missing them when spoken.

 

[Mike Cash]

Your brain will do a lot of the work on its own without conscious effort if you just give it something to chew on, so to speak. There is no substitute for exposure, so I don't think it possible to overstate the value of just having something going as the background noise of your environment, even when you're not studying or even actively paying attention to it.

 

[Kraise]

Your brain will do a lot of the work on its own without conscious effort if you just give it something to chew on, so to speak. There is no substitute for exposure, so I don't think it possible to overstate the value of just having something going as the background noise of your environment, even when you're not studying or even actively paying attention to it.

Now that you've talked about it, I've noticed a certain ammount of mental fatigue after some hours of passive exposure to japanese audio tracks, especially from games with full japanese support. It looks like because I know something about the language, I'm passively trying to figure out what is going on, the site posted by Nekojita is going to be my personal japanese-audio immersion tool, Now that almost every single software in my computer is in japanese already.

Thank you Mike

 

[Kraemder]

I'm sure all listening will help but what helped me the most was taking online japanese lessons that were taught all in Japanese. The class at my local college was great for grammar but not listening comprehension. If they fall back on English to communicate then it defeats the purpose. Of course just sitting and listening won't do it, the teacher has to engage you.

Now I find all listening is good but without this to kick start it I think I'd be much worse off.

 

[Tora chan]

Hi. I recommend JLA Japanese Listening Advanced.


https://m.facebook.com/JapaneseListeningAdvanced


This one is unique. Two Japanese people upload their free talk with transcript. If your level is N3 or better, this could be a very good training. There are already many conversations uploaded although I don't see any updates recently. Unfortunately a transcript costs USD 0.50 to USD 1.00 but I think the site is helpful.