Hello! I’d like to keep up with my Japanese as much as possible. Could you all please recommend any podcasts that speak on topics / subjects of:
Business News, current events, tech, lifestyle, & social topics?
Would prefer hosts that are not too serious, (like NHK or Yomiuiri) that the 20’s / 30’s generation would be listening to.
よろしくお願いします！
8 comments
1. なんであのとき放送局
I really like this podcast. Its a group of hosts and they all have a great dynamic. I don’t understand half of whats going on but Im sure its hilarious stuff.
Its a purely japanese podcast, meaning not intended to be to for language learners.
Thi is my go to podcast all the time. They have bunch of episodes on Google podcast, I don’t know if they are on Spotify tho.
2. Japanese Go
Her voice ┐(´ー｀)┌ its ideal for times when you wanna listen to someone chill. And she talks about the topics you mentioned.
3. Miku real japanese
You probably already know her. She’s big in the japanese learning comunity. Her content is great for both new to advanced learners I would say. She has a humorous personality.
It’s not completely in Japanese but I really like [Bilingual News](https://bilingualnews.libsyn.com) and it seems to fit your criteria perfectly.
It’s a weekly podcast made by two bilingual, millennial friends that, I think, grew up in the states and are now living in Japan (except one of them recently moved to the UK).
The podcast is called Bilingual *News* but they rarely talk about politics and focus more on recent studies and findings in technology, science, society, and such.
Sometimes they also have special bilingual guests, most of the time experts in a specific topic.
A typical segment starts off with them both reading a paragraph about the topic in English and Japanese respectively. Then they organically and casually discuss it with each other for the next half hour or so. The man speaks in English only, while the woman speaks mostly Japanese with some occasional English.
The language they use is quite natural and not dumbed down or anything. During the discussion, she speaks in タメ口.
They’re both friends so the atmosphere is really relaxed.
Highly recommend this one.
I really like 4989 (Shiku Hakku) American Life, quite fast so listening can be a challenge but I feel the Japanese is very natural and colloquial, so it’s easy to understand. There’s also Let’s talk in Japanese! by Tomo, he has a very soothing voice but it’s catered towards learners (N5-N1) and I feel it’s a bit (too) easy at times, but very nice to listen to when you don’t feel like paying attention. Both can be found on Spotify.
probably not quite what you’re looking for but i like 日本語を大切にしたい. it’s just a guy in his 60s who talks about his day and about anything that comes to his mind, and he’s really sweet and interesting to me.
Nihongo con teppei all the way!!
I used to really like the Nikkei Trendy podcast until they switched hosts. I haven’t followed it lately though so they might have switched back. Lots of great news on new products and trends.
Kyotopia podcast is in English and Japanese with an American host speaking in English and the native Japanese host only speaking in Japanese. They talk about life in Kyoto and other random topics.
Nihongo Switch
Teppei&Noriko
Let’s learn Japanese from small talk
The real Japanese podcast
Nihongo con Teppei
Shiku hakku 4989
Japanese with Shun
Learn Japanese with Noriko
Let’s talk in Japanese
Kevinvin sleepy Japanese
Oyasumi Japanese with Shun
Nihongo for you
I use Pocket Casts app and find these there. I used to use Spotify, but that company is evil and I use it as little as possible.