LLearn Japanese

Looking for Japanese audio/video with no background music at all – any recommendations?

I find that a lot of Japanese-learning video/audio has repetitive and distracting background music. Typically, it is a cute, high-pitched melody — something that would be playing in the background of a Nintendo DS game. I don’t want to be a huge grump about it, because a lot of these creators have little to no funding, but I just personally do not prefer it. Any recommendations for podcasts/channels where the speaker has a high-quality microphone, a clear speaking voice, and no added music? I also prefer videos with conversations or monologues; I’m already familiar with the popular lesson-oriented channels. I’m roughly at an N3/N2 listening level.

6 comments

  1. As for podcasts made by natives for natives these two are my favorite

    ひいきびいき (2 people talking about general things)

    4898 American Life (A Japanese woman living in the USA talking about living in a foreign country)

    But both of these have music, But not during the talking part.

    >!PS: I think background noise can help improve listening ability!<

  3. So recently Kaname Naito gets pushed a lot into my recommendations. The caveat is he speaks mostly in English, so it might not be what you’re looking for. I agree it’s quite hard to find Japanese focused videos without any sort of background music.

    I’m also around your listening level so the topics he covers in his videos, you most probably might already know. But anyway, he doesn’t use any music, and he speaks extremely clearly and speaks quite good English as well! So you might want to check him out.

    [Example video from Kaname Naito](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OHpKotJ3yQ)

    Another channel you can try is Daily Japanese with Naoko. She speaks mainly Japanese in her videos. I really like her videos and the format is really nice. Also she has just such a soothing voice to listen to lol. She does use a little sound effects from time to time, but the videos are mainly without any music. I listen to a ton of her videos.

    [Example video from Naoko](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYEutL_zQQc)

  5. I once had the idea to watch Japanese Ammo from the beginning.

    I think I lasted about 30 seconds into ep1 because of the music.

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