Resources for Learning Spoken Casual Japanese?

Japanese
#1

TL;DR Can you recommend any resources (apps, books, websites, articles etc) for learning spoken and/or casual Japanese?

My Japanese skills are far better in the written and formal domain than in the spoken and casual one. I am currently studying N2 grammar and vocabulary, and it is overwhelmingly formal and written. The application that I used are also mostly written and pretty formal (WaniKani, BunPro, Genki, Tobira), and since I have not lived in Japan, the amount of Japanese conversations I have had have been limited. I am finally going to Japan soon, and the most crucial skill for me to develop is spoken and casual Japanese. This is both because it is the part I am the worst at, but also because actually talking in Japan is pretty essential to use the language. When speaking, I have issues with for example fast speaking, causal words I have not heard of, abbreviations of grammar and particles and words I only memorize when reading, not listening. Hopefully much of this will improve while actually being in Japan, but I want to try to find the best resources for doing so, like casual word anki-decks, articles, videos explaining casual concepts and so on. The WaniKani and BunPro community have been amazing at this, so I am asking you again :slight_smile: I consider my written level to be N3-N2, and spoken to be N4-N3 (although I easily fall off when someone speaks too fast).

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#2

Let’s learn Japanese from small talk! - a podcast with pretty casual spoken Japanese.

You can also try iTalki lessons to speak with a native Japanese person.

If you watch a ton of anime, you will find a LOT of abbreviations. Here is a good index of common casual contractions: Quick Contraction Reference - Grammar - WaniKani Community

I also recommend watching anime with a lot of male speech - specifically guys talking with guys. It seems like the moment a woman is involved, the Japanese becomes a bit more polished. Sports anime (like Haikyuu or Kuroko’s Basketball), for instance, have a LOT of different contractions, and you may also find some characters clearly come from different areas of Japan and have certain dialects, like using や instead of だ.

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#3

Also, Tobira has sample casual conversations in every chapter, and you can listen to the audio online too: 音声教材 | 漢字・語彙・音声・文法 | 上級へのとびら

Of course, they won’t introduce contractions to the same extent as you’ll occasionally find in the wild, but they made the conversations pretty natural sounding imo. I would definitely consider shadowing the casual conversations if you’re following along on Tobira.

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#4

Thanks, I did read a little bit from Tobira, but I will definitely revisit the conversation parts :slight_smile:

#5

YouTube.

#6

a bit strange… it just redirects me to the home page… but for a moment I can see the correct webpage title. Should I be in some specific location to listen to it?

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#7

The link works for me, sends me to the correct spotify webpage and launches it in the spotify program.

Just search google or spotify or whatever your podcast player of choice is. It should be there.

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#8

I’ve been using Twitch, i’ve played FF7 to death so i can follow quite easily what’s going on and i can quickly pick up what the chat is commenting on and i can interact with the streamers. Generally the streamers are very responsive and happy to hold a conversation :slightly_smiling_face:
I set the language to Japanese as this puts all the Japanese streamers to the front page and visit streamers with about 30 or 40 people (anything more and your message tends to get lost).

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