I’ve been studying Japanese for a couple of years and I would say my reading skills are decent but I can’t understand any spoken Japanese. The few sentences I do understand take me 5-10 seconds to process and by that time I’ve missed the next few lines of whatever I’m listening to.
I understand that pausing and deciphering each line would help, but I have very little time to sit and watch a show, due to work and family. I do, however, have a 3 hour round trip commute to work everyday, so any recommendations for podcasts is greatly appreciated. I currently subscribe to a few “beginner” Japanese podcasts but even those seem too advanced for me.
Has anyone else had this much trouble improving your listening skills? If so, how did you break through the wall?
8 comments
This is apparently a common problem across languages. If your learning system didn’t involve much listening or speaking, then it makes sense that you would have trouble with those aspects. I’ve heard stories of people taking English classes, even excelling at them, only to come to the US and realize they couldn’t actually understand what people were *saying*.
In my limited experience, it’s just a matter of practice. You probably need something with more visual clues, like Comprehensible Japanese or the audio to a graded reader with pictures. That way you’re learning to understand the language in context, rather than as isolated dialogue.
Maybe try visual novels? A lot have the dialogue fully voiced and let you read and listen at the same time, while going at your own pace.
I don’t know if it helps but I fully understand. I knew my listening was awful, I tried downloading podcasts, but they were still too advanced or didn’t translate everything. I ended up biting the bullet and recording all the Genki textbook practice audio into one big audio, with two versions, one slow and repeated twice and one fast. I sat and read along the first time but then after that you can just listen (would be suitable for a commute.) It’s already helping, combined with realizing that there are certain very common combo verbs said specific ways that come up a Lot in spoken Japanese so it was worth investing my time in hearing those specific ~ fifteen combos, especially because the Japanese really don’t put any emphasis at the beginning of a verb word which makes it hard to hear. (I found these via Netflix for language learning chrome app, not good for commuting)
Tangentially, I think listening will always be the hardest part of a non native language. I consider myself bilingual in French having gone to a fully French school for 13 years, married a Quebecker for twenty years , lived briefly in Montreal, but I would still say, when the in laws visit, I can’t pick up everything in 10% of sentences. It’s just hard.
Listening is a seperate skills you need to practice. All is not lost though, listening comes pretty quickly when you’re already good at reading.
Have you sat any JLPT exam? Done any beginner courses in Japanese? The Genki textbooks for example should have plenty of example dialogue in their files. This is solid foundational stuff. Next level is baby tv like Miffy and Doraemon, podcasts are a whole different level.
Just my two cents, but I’ve found that when I learn a language, I try not to just learn the words and phrases and their English equivalent. Instead, I learn the foreign word, but think of the concept of what the word or phrase is instead of the English translation. That way, I’m not constantly trying to translate in my head while people are speaking, which is what takes up a lot of time. You start learning to think in that language just like you do English now.
I had this problem.
I fixed it with the chrome extension Language Reactor and Netflix. I only took about an hour a day, and not even every day. I put on a Japanese show and the Japanese subs (No VPN required BTW) and set Language Reactor to auto-pause after every line.
I’d replay lines as necessary and look up any new words.
Now I have no trouble with listening.
I studied Japanese in university a long long time ago and recently came back to it by impulsively signing up for a course at my local college. A lot did come back for me but the spoken Japanese comprehension part was just killing me. I have the same problem where it took me seconds to process what was being asked of me or told to me in a real life setting.
My teacher suggestion many ways to improve, all of which I had already been doing. I should mention that one of my parents is native Japanese so I grew up hearing the language, watching shows (without comprehension) but not actively learning the language.
I recently was diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder and holy cow suddenly it made so much sense. I could listen to podcasts and watch shows and have an appropriate level of comprehension but then when I was put on the spot in class it was like my brain was an empty vessel. During our aural exam the teacher asked me random questions which I was supposed to answer in Japanese and damn was I ready. I made an auto playing quizlet deck with all the questions and just fired them at myself on my commute and I understood every one. Then in the exam under pressure it was like my Sensei was speaking Greek. There were many awkward moments of her staring at me waiting for my answer while my brain slowly ticked over what she said and parsed it out. It felt awful.
Now I understand that I am coming at this from a disadvantage when I am under any kind of stress and I’ve learned that I have to practice 2 million percent more because of it so that I can reasonably manage the stress reaction that makes my brain short out. But also, and this is a great trick, Japanese has all these awesome filler words that I can utilize while I wait for my brain to catch up.
Anyway, long story to say, I feel your pain, and it really struck a chord for me having just discovered something about myself. Thanks to all the great people that offered suggestions. I’m adding them to my 2 million percent practice routine.