Starting listening immersion, how to get the most out of it?

Japanese
#1

I listen to a lot of japanese music but decided to start with podcast for more natural talking patterns, so I picked up Nihongo con Tappei yesterday, and I’m wondering what’s everyone’s experience with this or other podcasts?

What I’m trying for now is repetitions of:

  1. Listening with minimal looking at the transcription
  2. Listening looking at the transcription to fill gaps for vocab or misheard words
  3. Listening and pausing to look up words and add them to my vocab Anki deck, or just understand phrases
  4. Listening without pauses or looking at the transcription to get hopefully 80%+ of understanding without visual inputs

Very repetitive but on my first listen, I was very overwhelmed even though I understood the subject, but I remembered this youtuber who does lsitening tests first without subtitles, next with japanese subtitles and next without subtitles again, so I tried that and realized on the 3rd and 4th repetition that I understood a bunch, just needed to get used to listening + adding some new words to my vocab.

Very long way ahead, curious about everyone’s method to get the most out it immersion sessions!

4 Likes
#2

Don’t 3 and 4 contradict each other?

#3

Why do you think so? The 3rd is to complete the gaps and listening while writing things down, and then on the 4th, I should be able to listen to most of it without stopping or reading because I already reviewed it on step 2 and 3 if that makes sense :smiley:

#4

I’m a huge fan of Japanese subtitles. I can go from a 50% comprehension on a raw listen to 75-80% comprehension with the subtitles (and it can be even higher if you consider that some of the unknown words can be understood through context). Lately I’ve wanted to do more immersion so I started using Migaku more regularly and my comprehension has increased significantly in a short time. I just watch with subtitles from the start now and then I do pure listening on my commutes. I usually mentally note phrases I didn’t understand at all and then add them to a deck later. It’s been really good so far.

3 Likes
#5

Start with easy content and progressively get to harder audio.

For example, my listening in English is very good, but once I listen to metal bands like Meshuggah, my listening leaves the Earth. I still have to practice, but I am not frowning upon it.

Just as any skill, what matters the most is you put the hours in.

#6

From my limited experience listening immersion becomes easier and more effective the more context clues you get. I know a lot of people like audio podcasts, but you’ll miss out on all the visual clues you would get from video podcasts, anime, drama, news clips and other videos. I also feel watching people talk to each other about things they are currently doing (like a cooking video) is far more beneficial like just a talk between some experts.

In addition, the most valuable tip is to listen to something that you actually want to listen to and where you get some new information you want to have. I noticed I’m way more motivated to watch an unknown anime than one I already watched with english subtitles. I’m way more engaged cause I have to figure out what’s going on to keep following the story.

Lots of folk recommend comprehensible input, where you understand about 80%. But those are almost impossible to find in the beginning and also mostly way to boring (at least for me). I rather take 20%, no lookups and a lot of guessing if I get to watch something that’s interesting. With all the context clues from the visuals I can usually still follow along.

I’m not using japanese subtitles. I tried in the beginning, but it confused me more and I was listening less. My understanding actually went up, when I switched to no subtitles.

For the most part, I don’t look up words. Listening time is listening time for me. Words will come up in reviews sooner or later anyway. No need for me to add them manually at the moment, but I’m also still below 2000 vocab. This might change when I hit around 6000 (so in a few years? :sweat_smile:).

In the end, we are all different, and you’ll probably get a lot of different advice, finding the one that’s right for you is the biggest hurdle but also your greatest chance :slight_smile:

7 Likes
#7

Thank you! This is really helpful, I agree there’s no one way to do it, but it’s interesting to know how others go about it

I do a lot of semi-immersion when watching anime or listening music but I mostly try to identify words that I already know vs. trying to get an entire sentence, which is why I wanted to split it completely without any cues for now, but I will mix it up as it gets easier to train all those listening muscles in different ways.

In my Japan trip, I realized I was so overstimulated by trying to understand every word, I couldn’t even look at hand gestures and it stressed me so much, so I want to train a better ear so I can both listen and learn without having my mind explode haha

1 Like
#8

Similar to Chimmsen, I also find listening with visual aids muuch easier (and also more fun :slight_smile: )

What I’ve found is that choosing the right type of content matters, too - you mentioned your last Japan trip in your latest comment. If you’re planning on going again soon maybe listening to folks narrating their everyday life, going through situational dialogues (like in a restaurant), and similar topical input would get you further than any podcast.

I’ve gone from podcasts to j-dramas to now watching Terrace House with j-subs as the fairly unscripted nature of it really helps me understand how natives actually talk to each other, which can often be very different from podcasts and especially scripted dramas. It’s also great for getting used to different dialects!

Whatever you decide on doing, enjoy! :muscle:

4 Likes
#9

I’m a native speaker, and I can understand 1/3rd of bleed from obzen. It’s hard to understand on purpose.

Other genres are easier to understand

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#10

Your strategy looks Great!
… I need more listening immersion myself

If it feels repetitive, you can stagger them.

  1. Listening with minimal looking at the transcription
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  2. Listening looking at the transcription to fill gaps for vocab or misheard words https://mochifika.com/podcast/?utm_source=Tofugu
  3. Listening and pausing to look up words and add them to my vocab Anki deck, or just understand phrases Unsupported browser
  4. Listening without pauses or looking at the transcription to get hopefully 80%+ of understanding without visual inputs https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/hitsuji-japanese-luna-0Lifg-TwprH/

Then switch them around. You could do this with different episodes of Nihongo con Teppei. Each podcasts says ‘transcripts for patrons’ and paying 4 or 5 podcasters every month, might be too much.

… I wanted to see what learning podcasts I can find.

I listened to Hitsuji Japanese [her website is down, so no transcripts] and Let’s Learn Japanese from small talk [natural speed, intermediate podcast]
I’ll try

2 Likes
#11

Wow these are really good suggestions! I’ll check them out for some variety and get used to different voices and speeds, thank you!
The transcripts are a bummer, but the Spotify auto version has been good so far. I guess it depends on how good they enunciate but it helps me pay extra attention because the sentences are broken up in a random way, so I have to try to make my own cleaner version in my head, also helps me rely on what I heard vs. what I see written as it doesn’t always match 100%, so good enough for now!

#12

I was thinking the same when I read his comment.

Even though English is my second language, I’m fluent in it (to the point where it’s even slightly better than my native language: Spanish) and I don’t really understand half the things he says. That’s just how it is with metal, unless it’s actual singing. But screaming? Good luck with that!

BTW, I LOVE Meshuggah.

#13

Yeah, music’s not really a good measure of your listening strength in general (and probably not a good way to practice). Native English speakers often mistakenly think they know the lyrics to English-language songs (or just know that they can’t understand them), so I wouldn’t be surprised if the same is true for other languages.

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#14

I use Meshuggah as the final level of listening practice for myself.

If I’ll learn to listen to their songs and understand it, I’ll consider myself fluent.

#15

Personally I just kept listening to podcasts, mostly during my commute or at the gym so around 1 to 2 hours a year. Doing it with a transcript is probably more effective but was not aways possible for me.

For beginner intermediate, I mostly listened Japanese with Noriko, nihongo con teppei, yuyu, and haru. I found them fast in the beginning and there were parts when I understood barely anything, but I found that my ears eventually got used to the speed so my suggestion is to just keep going.

Right now I mostly listen to TBS radio podcasts. The ones on Spotify have all the ads and cms cut out, and the topics and guests change daily so it doesn’t get boring.

From a pure listening perspective, I found podcasts much more effective than movies or anime just due to the sheer density of words.

3 Likes
#16

Ive been trying to improve my listening and have added N3/N2 listening practice tests to my daily routine. Usually I’ll try to listen to the prompt a few times, and then go to generated subtitles if needed to answer the questions

lots of these practice tests are available on youtube

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#17

This is something I havnt seen answered yet, and kinda gets talked about in circles, but Ive been getting hella adds for Magaku recently and seems like a friendly version of having to download like 6 separate apps to watch anime or read manga while mining, which Im in the process of beginning.

Anyway, with the card creator, Ive seen people say it focuses heavily on pitch accent. So does it give you audio with the card as well? Is it pulling the audio from the Anime? I dont wanna talk like an anime character. With their own dictionary library, do they have audio as well? Are they still supporting the anki plug-ins? I have a card set up that works really well for me and wish to continue down that path.

#18

It pulls the direct audio from where you clipped it from, but it also has the audio for individual words spoken by Japanese natives. It’s honestly very easy and convenient.

As for the question about anki, I believe they are still supporting it. I don’t use anki, but I’ve seen the option to send cards there instead (which I could see being beneficial since the SRS system on Migaku itself is almost non-existent).

#19

I see they do have a 10 day free trial so maybe in a couple weeks or so Ill get around to testing it out. Still finishing up a few other things and moving onto the quartet books.

If anything I spend 10 days watching as much as feasibly possible and making cards for a nice backlog. and figure something out with the audio. I would prefer not to have anime VAs since they do tend to speak a bit odd depending on your genre.

#20

Okay, but if you don’t want the anime VAs, what’s the point in even using anime to study? Just use other forms of content at that point. Just watch YouTube videos or reality shows instead.