How to improve listening abillity

Japanese
#1

Hey guys, so I did a few N5 practice tests and I did really well on them: my scores averaged about 90 overall for all of them with all of the sections. So, I’m not worried about the N5 test in December. But, I tried to do the N4 practice test, since I have gone through the majority of the N4 grammar and know ~400 N4 words, and oh my gosh, I was not ready.

The vocab, grammar, and reading weren’t that bad (I only had to look at a dictionary a few times and look up 1-2 grammar points), but the listening was incredibly difficult. They speak so much faster than in the N5, and use a lot more colloquializations. All the listening practice I had done was so much slower, so I was not prepared for it.

So, since I plan on probably taking N4 next year after taking N5 this year, how can I improve my listening to be able to do the N4 next year? Thanks in advance!

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#2

練習、練習、もっと練習！

Personally, I have a similar concern about the N3 聴解 so I’m trying to hammer as much practice in as I can.

You may already know this, but from what I’ve learned, the JLPT listening section is one long audio clip and each question audio is only played once.

That’s the toughest part, IMO. Doing practice tests and only letting myself play the audio once is, at the moment, incredibly difficult and near impossible to answer. However, the more I listen, the more I grasp the nuances of the conversation and handle the speed better.

Unless anyone else has any tips I don’t know of, all I can recommend is practice. Bunpro JPLT mock quizzes, JLPT listening on YouTube, etc…

一緒に頑張りましょう！

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#3

The best way to improve listening is, well, to listen more. :sweat_smile:

YouTube filled with channels that have N5 and N4 material so shouldn’t be too hard to find something. I would advise to turn off subtitles though, even Japanese ones. at least for me, where my reading skills far outclass my listening, subtitles turned into a huge crutch. It wasn’t until I turned them off that i really noticed improvements in listening.

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#4

Got it, thank you!

#5

That sounds like a pretty good strategy. I’ll try that whenever I try to do N4 listening JLPT practice again. Thank you :smiley:

#6

I find the cram feature gives me a ton of content to practice with. Select “listening” as the cram type and pick some vocab and/or grammar. I like to use “complete” mode so I get lots of sentences using the content. I like to do it on walks via the app because you don’t need to be sitting down to listen. I also recommend selecting “random” for the male/female voice lines so you get more variety.

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