Kind of a rant-ish post, but mainly looking for advice.
Everything I look into (Grammar, vocabulary, reading and even Kanji in some sort of twisted way) seems easy for me, even speaking, but when it comes to listening it feels like the world stops.
For each practice audio, I need to replay 2 – 3 times to get it. Obviously I get some words and sentences here and there, but when it comes to understanding everything I can’t seem to get it in the first try.
This mostly concerns conversational audios (Between 2+ people), if it’s a single liner (Like a question) it doesn’t happen.
Is this happening to anybody else? Or can I just assume that it’s my weak link.
3 comments
Reading is widely believed to be the easiest of the four skills (reading, listening, writing, speaking)
Even though Japanese has a particularly hard system (kanji), reading is *still* the easiest. Insane as that may be.
Listening is just a much more difficult task because you can’t control the rate of input. You can’t stop and think about grammar and you can’t stop and look up every single word. Also if your ears aren’t ready or are tired, it just sounds like sea of noise. Listening is exhausting.
One thing about speaking is, you have more control over the topic. So at least it can gravitate towards topics you have some knowledge of. Listening doesn’t always give you this luxury, unless you are listening to things which specifically interest you and you have a lot of knowledge about already.
Though my listening isn’t great, I still think that *vocab* is super important. If you are missing enough vocab, even a sentence you can understand grammatically won’t make any sense. Vocab is such a huge thing.
Listening has been my WORST skill. It took me 10 years before things became available that allowed me to actually work on my listening skills.
Things were so bad I couldn’t even pick out words I KNEW.
I started out with anime/j-dramas on netflix since those (as long as they’re Netflix Originals) have matching Japanese subs and dubs.
I’d work through them slowly. Looking up new words, and replaying lines using Language Reactor until I could match what I was reading and listening to. Once I could split the words apart while reading, I would listen a few times without looking at the subs.
Eventually I didn’t always have to look at the subs.
Shortly after I switched to watching American shows with Japanese dubs (no VPN required BTW). I’d still have the subtitles on, but the subs and dubs of those don’t tend to match up 1:1, so it forces me to listen more. And the subtitles are there only to grab new words. …. that can be hit and miss though.
Now my listening is good enough that I can watch and understand some shows without subtitles at all and get most everything that’s said (EG: Inuyasha, Ouran, Good Morning Call), and now it’s been kind of improving enough to be able to watch things like Hololive and pick out chunks of what’s going on. (I do most of my listening at work…. :/ Hololive kind of necessitates WATCHING as well as listening. So I’ve found anyway.)
with things like hololive, podcasts, or other quick conversational things I still struggle. But there’s constant improvement.
I also keep picking things to watch that are like… STUPID above my level. Besides candid conversational things, difficult items include specialty genres of TV shows, such as:
* Military shows
* High Fantasy (lots of politics and things in those)
* Crime (Carmen Sandiego, a children’s show, is one of those… it can and WILL kick your ass)
So I spend my active study time picking through those line by line for new vocabulary (since that’s like 99% of my problem now), and the rest of my time passively listening while working and catching far less than I probably can actually understand. X_X which just leaves me feeling like I’ve gotten nowhere. XD
But yeah, it’s hard. For some people it’s easier. Some people can watch a show in English, watch it again in Japanese with English subs, and then watch it in Japanese and pick up a TON.
Some people can just watch an episode in Japanese a few times and be able to pick apart what’s said without too much issue.
And then there’s me…. who spent a few YEARS listening to the same small handful of things for as around the clock as I possibly could and it NEVER stopped being gibberish…… well not until Japanese subs became easy access.
🙂 So hey, 2-3 times to get something… you’re already doing better than me!!
Listening is surely not the weak point I have when I i.e. talk to my italki teachers. But then again I listen to a large amount of jp audio everyday, be it in the form of podcasts, audiobooks, let’s plays etc. If i have free time I try to always put something in the background.
Maybe it’s your weak link because you don’t listen enough