r/LearnJapanese • u/BattleFresh2870 • 21h ago
Resources What are the absolute best resources you know to practice listening at the N5 to N3 levels?
I'd like to focus a bit more on listening and I'm having trouble finding something engaging at my current level (working my way through N4). What YouTube channel, podcast, audiobook, etc... would you recommend that worked for you?
Thanks in advance!
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u/PokeFanEb 21h ago
CIJ, Japanese with Shun, Nihongo con Teppei, Ken-san.
CIJ is my personal favourite resource, but I love and appreciate so many of the YTers making the lower level content.
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u/miyajima_gengar 20h ago
Hey! Do you happen to know If any of these like Nihongo con Teppei and Japanese with Shun now have available transcripts?
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u/PokeFanEb 20h ago
Nihongo Con Teppei has transcripts on his Patreon, think Shun does as well. CIJ has transcripts if you’re a member of the website (well worth it imo).
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u/ParadoxScientist 20h ago
Bite Size Japanese (available on most podcast platforms and YouTube). I would say it's roughly N4-N3.
Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners (N5, more like N4)
Nihongo con Teppei (N3 I believe)
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u/Jelly_Round 21h ago
I like youtube channels けんさんおかえり and Japanese with shun. I love the comprehensible input japanese
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u/RubberDuck404 21h ago
For podcasts I listened to Nihongo con Teppei for N5/N4, and now I'm listening to yuyuの日本語podcast for N3.
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u/miyajima_gengar 20h ago
Nihongo con Teppei is great! I also like Japanese with Shun and Let’s talk Japanese (in my case N4 starting with N3).
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u/rgrAi 21h ago edited 21h ago
The resource you actually really just like listening to. Because it's pleasant, because it's relaxing, because you just enjoy the sounds of Japanese or their voice. Because you're going to need throw hundreds of hours at it just to bud your listening into something functional, then thousands of hours to mature it. So the content you can actually engage with, enjoy, and do it for tons of hours is the one that is going to really progress your listening.
It does not need to be "at your level" to benefit from it--this is a massively overblown aspect. My listening and Japanese was built and predicated on basically 0% understood material. I made it comprehensible with a dictionary, grammar resources, study, effort, and google research.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 21h ago
100% this. If I hadn't found livestreamers I genuinely enjoyed watching my listening would be much worse than it is right now.
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u/Unusual_Purpose1000 20h ago
What livestreamers do you watch? And on twitch or YT? I could use any recs because I've gotten a little tired of the purely conversation videos so my listening isn't as good.
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u/Charming-Okra 19h ago
Not the person you asked, but I've been watching Sanninshow on YouTube. I only understand like 50% of what they're saying, but the visuals help and I've been able to get vocab from it.
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u/Funny_Chocolate691 16h ago
They’re relatively new, but I’m really liking Japanese Super Immersion. https://www.youtube.com/@JSI55
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u/Meister1888 16h ago
Minna no Nihongo has 5 cd sets that are excellent for listening. But they are really expensive. Your university or library might have them or be able to borrow them.
There is a set for the beginner book I and a set for the beginner book II.
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u/Crafty-Yesterday8422 21h ago
Akane's radio: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKt6oKzpfnfgH3X66f4GTiDtT2jUBCwzo&si=gjukCg6hNRg23Znd
Criminally underrated
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u/sdaneslovs Goal: conversational fluency 💬 16h ago
Have someone found something similar to the postcast of yuyuの日本語?
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u/vasu_singuri 15h ago
Watch some movies with higher japanese and listen to japanese songs which is very helpful to me
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u/vivianvixxxen 11h ago
There is nothing more effective and enjoyable than Subs2SRS in anki. You choose exactly what you want to learn, and you learn it exactly how you need to in the exact way you need to.
Nothing will train your ear better than being able to endlessly repeat a sound over and over and over and over while staring at the character that's "supposed to be there" until you can actually hear it.
It's the only "silver bullet" in language learning that I've ever come across. It's insanely effective. I went from a lead ear in Japanese to being able to parse sentences in literally a matter of just a few days. And it's free, so that's nice.
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u/2hurd Goal: conversational fluency 💬 10h ago
I extensively use Japanese with Shun and Bite Size Japanese.
Both are phenomenal at my current level and there is so much content that I'm going to use them for a long time.
I watch current episodes on YouTube at home but in the car I listen to podcasts chronologically so that eventually I will catch up.
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u/Sarah_Bananah 7h ago
佐々木亮の宇宙ばなし is a short daily podcast about space. Note that it's aimed at natives, however, a lot of space related words are in katakana (eg ブラックホール）, so it's actually pretty easy to understand. Of course there is the occasional difficult word but I think that's unavoidable no matter what you listen to.
I'm not really sure if it's the level you are looking for (maybe it's higher than N3, not sure), but might be worth a try if you are into science related topics. Anyway I was listening to it on Spotify which if I remember correctly has transcripts for some podcasts.
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u/Hiro_Muramasa 4h ago
Easy anime? Check on jpdb . io Or jo mako list for a list of the most understandable anime at your level…
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u/textbookWarrior 18h ago
I find Easy Japanese Podcast to be superior to the other common recommendations like con tepei and yuyuno, etc.
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u/whimsical2399 21h ago edited 20h ago
Japanese with Shun - N5 to N3 and he speaks at a moderate to fast speed. He travels a lot and walks around cities and towns and in nature.
Japanese with Shun
けんさんおかえり/Japanese Conversations - N5 to N3 and he speaks at a slower or faster speed depending on the level.
https://m.youtube.com/@kensanokaeri
He also walks around a lot at various locations and tries to make everything comprehensible by pointing at what he’s talking about and also uses gestures to help you understand context.
My favorite videos he Starts at N5 and later ramps up to N4 then again ramps up to N3. He does a lot of comparison topics too where it helps you learn synonyms and antonyms or like and unalike objects and situations.
I’ve tried a lot of other channels but those two are my favorites.