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Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - cophnia61 - 2016-03-29
When I started studying kanji with RtK I was sceptical, and full of doubts concerning the effectiveness of that method. But after 500 kanji I started to see results, and after 1000 kanji I was sure about it's effectiveness. So in the end it was just a +1 activity. Just add one more kanji to gain more knowledge.
The same is with reading and mining words to put into Anki. In the beginning it was a mess, there was mostly only forgetting and frustration, but now I see that basically the more books I read, the more words I mine, the more words I put into Anki, the more will my knowledge increase. Now even if I forget a lot, if I don't understand some sentences and so on, I know for sure it will take care of itself in the future if I continue to apply the method.
But with listening comprehension I'm still unsure of what I need to do. Obviously the general rule is "the more you listen the more you will understand". But I have some doubts:
How many times do I listen to the same material? I've seen a video of Moses (laoshu505000) where he says he listen to the same content hundreds of time. While other people like Steve Kauffman say they listen like 10 times to the same content and they switch to other contents when they get bored (the same with the jalup admin and even katsumoto).
If the "listen hundreds of time" is true, how much of this need to be active listening?
What to listen to? Is native content ok, as long as it is mostly n+1, so it's purely listening comprehension activity and not new vocabulary acquisitions?
As an example, I'm watching "Nanase futatabi", and with japanese subtitles it's really easy, but it gets difficult if I remove the subtitles. There are many words that I know if I read them, but if I listen to them (or if I read them in hiragana form), I don't know what the hell they mean, even if they are pronounced clearly and slowly.
To the ones who already have a good listening comprehension skill (you can follow drama and anime easily without transcript), how did you got there?
About speaking: if I want to get a little more conversational, it's better to put apart native contents like drama, and to use content most focused on speaking, like the flr courses (see moses again) or the shadowing books?
I'm really tempted to buy the flr course because it focuses exactly on the kind of conversations I want to have to begin my speaking adventure. I know there are many resources like jpod101, which I think is great, but they are mostly focused in situation like where you are a tourist in japan or a student.
I don't know what to do outside what I'm already doing (repetitive basically reading and listening of japanese drama with japanese subtitles avaiable).
Thank you all in advance
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - yogert909 - 2016-03-29
Hey cophnia61,
I don't have any good advice for you but it sure is inspiring to hear you getting better at Japanese! When I first joined here, I believe you were making your way through rtk and probably getting started with core and/or genki. Now, I'm a little further than you were then, but now you're watching J-subbed television and calling it really easy! Like you mentioned, I am convinced of success if I just keep putting in the work, so I can't wait to have the problems you have now! By then, these problems will be a memory for you and I'll be able to follow in your footsteps once again.
Btw, I suspect if you just keep watching with j-subs a while longer, sooner or later you won't need them anymore. Meanwhile, you'll be enjoying a lot of japanese tv and hopefully forgetting you are doing it in a foreign language.
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - sholum - 2016-03-29
My listening isn't the best yet, but as far as easing oneself into it, I think I have some advice.
If you like VNs, I highly suggest finding one with lots of voice acting (pretty much anything from the past decade on PC) and listening to each box before you read it. Even better, if its one where you can replay the voice (again, most of them; it'll either be in the text box or the backlog), try to listen first, then read it, then listen again and try to pick out what you missed.
Of course, like anime, the voice acting tends to be exaggerated, but its still the same words.
You can do something similar with subtitled dramas or anime and your favorite video player with a keybinding for 'go back a bit', but it's slightly more annoying in my opinion, since you can't really relax into a TV watching posture while doing it.
In the same vein, a lot of people like subs2srs. I also think its a good tool, but I never incorporated it into my usual Anki time, since sound is inconvenient at my normal study times.
Anyway, you can make audio cards from your favorite dramas, movies, anime, etc. (probably even radio dramas, with some fiddling; would require a timed transcript of course), with the subtitles as the answer; it uses the timing on the subs file to pick the time to cut each audio file, so it's really quick to use once you work through the process once or twice.
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - SomeCallMeChris - 2016-03-29
My listening comprehension is definitely better than it was, and improving still.
One thing I do that pretty much nobody else does, is to always make a kana as well as a kanji version of my vocab cards. I have a sentence on the front so disambiguation of homonyms is pretty easy from that. In any case I always learn the kana version of the word first and then the kanji, and this has helped bridge the gap a bit between my 'reading' and listening vocabulary.
Anyway, to start with, I read all buonoparte's stuff about L-R and adapted a lot of the techniques to my own learning to listen. http://forum.koohii.com/thread-6840.html
I used Erin's Challenge https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/ just for the videos with dual-language subtitles. Early on for a lot of hard-to-catch lines I would go to the script page where you can play line by line, and listen repeatedly to troublesome lines until I could pick out all the mora that made up the line.
Then I used L-R methods on a bunch of stories at hukumusume, http://forum.koohii.com/thread-6840.html as well as the first two volumes of Harry Potter.
I spent some time on NHK News Easy http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/ as well as on the main NHK, and some other news sites here and there. The stories on main sites are not quite word-for-word between the written and the spoken, but on the other hand the Easy is a synthesized voice rather than a natural one. Still, my 'news' vocabulary is very weak compared to my swords-and-sorcery vocabulary, so it was helpful to read the Easy version first; or sometime -just- the easy version if I was just trying to squeeze some practice where I had ten or so minutes to spare.
I went through a some classes at http://www.nhk.or.jp/kokokoza/ , just reading the pdf notes first and then watching the video. Depending on the class the notes can be more or less word-for-word what's in the video, but in any case they certainly cover all the important words that you'll want to be listening for.
I found some stuff on podcasts searching for オーディオドラマ and listened to those.
Of course I've also watched a bunch of anime and dorama with Japanese subtitles.
I don't do a lot of passive listening (other than music), but I did for awhile listen or re-listen to audio dramas, nhk news podcast, hukumusume stories and the harry potter audio books while commuting. Which is more like 'semi-active' listening, really. If you do any passive listening, I think it should be to stuff that you've been through carefully before so that you can at least in theory understand it. I don't really have any faith at all on passive listening as a learning technique anyway, and certainly not in somehow developing skills by playing noises you can't understand in the background. Listening semi-actively to stuff you can understand while doing something else (commuting, jogging, washing dishes, etc.) is another matter and pretty good practice.
During active practice time, I think it's important to do a fair bit of repeated listening to tricky bits. I found I could adjust my ear very quickly to certain words or phrases, or to certain misheard consonants and so on, by just listening and reading along for a few repeats. Each time I do that, it's one more thing I'll have an easier time hearing correctly in the future.
Similar improvement comes (much more slowly) from just listening to stuff that you can mostly understand, when you recognize words that you know to read but not to hear suddenly come clear to you, or you figure out what a sloppily pronounced consonant must be from the context, etc, etc. But that takes a lot of time and only works when you already understand most of what you are hearing.
頑張って！
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - RawrPk - 2016-03-29
(2016-03-29, 1:15 pm)yogert909 Wrote: Hey cophnia61,
I don't have any good advice for you but it sure is inspiring to hear you getting better at Japanese! When I first joined here, I believe you were making your way through rtk and probably getting started with core and/or genki. Now, I'm a little further than you were then, but now you're watching J-subbed television and calling it really easy! Like you mentioned, I am convinced of success if I just keep putting in the work, so I can't wait to have the problems you have now! By then, these problems will be a memory for you and I'll be able to follow in your footsteps once again.
Btw, I suspect if you just keep watching with j-subs a while longer, sooner or later you won't need them anymore. Meanwhile, you'll be enjoying a lot of japanese tv and hopefully forgetting you are doing it in a foreign language.
Hello! I don't have any real advice either but just wanted to congratulate you on your progress!
I'm trying to improve my listening skills too but I have no method. Just kinda make sure I have some sort of listening input to listen to. As for speaking skills, I don't really have anyone to talk to so I will have to delay that for some time until there is an opportunity to in the future. Good luck!
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - yogert909 - 2016-03-29
I re-read what you wrote and this stuck out as possibly part of the problem.
(2016-03-29, 11:40 am)cophnia61 Wrote: There are many words that I know if I read them, but if I listen to them (or if I read them in hiragana form), I don't know what the hell they mean, even if they are pronounced clearly and slowly.
It seems likely that you are relying on kanji to provide meaning, but glossing over studying readings somehow. If it's not too much trouble creating a list of the words that give you trouble, maybe brushing up on your readings or making audio only cards would be some benefit.
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - RawrPk - 2016-03-29
Doh! Forgot to mention this but I had posted this in PotbellyPig's thread in regards to listening comprehension but I'll mention it here too.
http://delvinlanguage.com/
It's a pretty good site in that you're tested with your listening skills by having you reproduce (via typing) the word/phrase. It has the following levels:
- Common Expressions
- JLPT Level N5-N1
- All Available Words (Not sure what this is about...)
I recently finished the Common Expression level and I will tell you that though I knew some of those expressions, I honestly couldn't hear them before as they were just speedy slurs to me lol xD I can read them just fine otherwise. Hope this helps!
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - TheVinster - 2016-03-30
(2016-03-29, 9:49 pm)RawrPk Wrote: Doh! Forgot to mention this but I had posted this in PotbellyPig's thread in regards to listening comprehension but I'll mention it here too.
http://delvinlanguage.com/
It's a pretty good site in that you're tested with your listening skills by having you reproduce (via typing) the word/phrase. It has the following levels:
- Common Expressions
- JLPT Level N5-N1
- All Available Words (Not sure what this is about...)
I recently finished the Common Expression level and I will tell you that though I knew some of those expressions, I honestly couldn't hear them before as they were just speedy slurs to me lol xD I can read them just fine otherwise. Hope this helps!
That's pretty cool, I'm going to try it, thanks!
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - cophnia61 - 2016-03-30
yogert909:
thank you yogert909! It depends much on the kind of media I'm watching. For example I've tried the same technique (with j-subs) with Sword Art Online and I've found it too difficult in term of vocabs. Too many words I didn't know. After the first 10 episodes the list of todo words was too long so I ditched it xD
I think you're right about relying to much on kanji. For example in the first episode of Nanase Futatabi there is a funeral and people burn incense as an offer (I think it's a buddhist thing). The line is ”ご焼香 ありがとうございました”.
焼香 → しょうこう → burning (offer) incense
both the reading and meaning are obvious from kanji, so I don't even need to ad this to Anki. I'm sure that if the next time I read this in 2 years, I'm still able to pronounce it and understand its meaning. But if I listen to it, even tomorrow, I will be like "what the hell does shoukou means???".
I wonder how many times I need to listen to it in order to learn what it means without the need to see the kanji compound :/
sholum:
I suspected the fact that a hiragana form of the card would help me, or even better to add directly the audio on front. Unfortunately I have a low tolerance in regard to Anki use, and it would be hard to do audio cards because I do Anki on the morning when I'm still in bed. I like to get rid of my reps as early as possible, even before my day begins. xD But I recognize the power of Anki and I'm sure this is the most effective thing to do if one has the patience to endure it!
SomeCallMeChris:
I'm a great supporter of the L-R techinque because it's exactly how I learned to understand spoken english. In the beginning I was very good at reading english but I was unable to understand even the most simple spoken sentence. I watched all Dr. House and by the end of it I was "magically" able to follow anything in english. But I fear the kanji issue will invalidate the effectiveness of this method because if I read the japanese subtitles while I listen, I'm basically relying on them for the meaning. It would be great to have an hiragana version of japanese subtitles.
I'm not sure of this though. Maybe it will be still effective on the long run. What do you think about this? Another solution could be to rely on the transcripts only the first time, and then rewatch it without any subtitle, trying to catch and understand all words you're supposed to know.
And yes, for passive listening I mean to listen to things you already understand, just as a reinforcement/review thing. As in my example before, about the ご焼香 ありがとうございました example. I listen to it actively with subtitles, so I'm able to realize that "shoukou" is "burn incense". Then I listen to it actively but this time without japanese subtitles. (And this, obviously, for the whole episode). Then I leave it on for the rest of the day, while I do other things, but while I'm still listening, as you said, semi-passively (or semi-actively). But not as focused as before.
RawrPk, thank for your answer! I will definitely check delvinlanguage.com!
As for now I think I'll continue with my reading-listening with drama and I'll see if it work, thank you all for your help!
About speaking, I'm thinking about buying something to shadow, with useful sentences. So while I shadow I will improve both my pronounciation and my knowledge of correct sentences to use in "standard" situations.
About this, what do you think it's best between the "shadowing japanese" book and the "Mose's flr" (
)? If they are similar in terms of content I will prefer the latter because it's in downloadable format (nothing phisical to send).
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - SomeCallMeChris - 2016-03-30
(2016-03-30, 2:29 pm)cophnia61 Wrote: I fear the kanji issue will invalidate the effectiveness of this method because if I read the japanese subtitles while I listen, I'm basically relying on them for the meaning. It would be great to have an hiragana version of japanese subtitlesErin's challenge lets you run any or all of English/full written Japanese/kana-only Japanese/romanized Japanese as you watch the skits. When listening to a recording alongside an online script (as in hukumusume and news sites, etc.) I could also easily check the correct kana spelling by mousing over with rikai-sama turned on. If you're reading an e-book along with an audio book, you can do the same if you can get it into a format that can be read by your browser.
I think over-reliance on kanji is an issue when simply watching shows with Japanese subtitles; it requires remaining constant self-monitoring if you really want it to improve your listening rapidly. It's quite easy to read a word and know that it goes with that burble of sound, but if you can't reconstruct the mora that make up the word then you're not actually hearing it correctly.
It helps to repeat words or phrases out loud to yourself and to occasionally pause and look up words that you're not quite sure how they would be written in kana. (Long vowel vs. short vowel and glottal stop っ are particularly easy for English-speaking learners at least to gloss over, plus various errors in hearing consonants because many of them are not actually the same sound - or range of sounds - as their nearest English equivalents.)
One thing I thought of but never tried is to simply delay the subtitles by a second. Most viewers let you adjust the subtitle timing, and a small delay should make sure your ears are engaged first and your eyes second. That may help ensure you're listening first and then checking the writing for confirmation.
I do think though, that because of the various difficulties with subtitles on shows that you should spend some time working with other materials where you have more control over the pacing and easier access to the kana spellings. Once your ears start getting attuned from some more focused practice, then the subtitled shows will be easier to hear and time spent watching them will become better listening practice.
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - yogert909 - 2016-03-30
(2016-03-30, 2:29 pm)cophnia61 Wrote: I fear the kanji issue will invalidate the effectiveness of this method because if I read the japanese subtitles while I listen, I'm basically relying on them for the meaning. It would be great to have an hiragana version of japanese subtitles
Reading this again is making me wonder if there is actually a problem to fix, or if you simply need to keep listening with j-subs. You say it is easy to understand with j-subs - maybe making it more difficult isn't desirable. After all, the point is to associate sounds with meaning. Watching with kana subs won't help you with that unless you are mis-hearing what is being spoken. It seems to me that not only does following the subs for meaning enhance your listening, but reading the subs improves your reading speed at the same time. That sounds like a win/win. Recall that L-R is actually listening in L2 while reading in L1 which is even more of a cheat than reading J-subs. Maybe you don't need to make it more complicated. Maybe all you need to do is make sure to keep your focus in on listening while keeping reading of the subs secondary. ....Or maybe, find a series that you can't stop watching and forget about studying for a while enjoying watching (and you'll still learn as a by-product).
Of course I don't know what I'm talking about, but this makes sense to me.
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - tokyostyle - 2016-03-30
(2016-03-30, 2:29 pm)cophnia61 Wrote: But if I listen to it, even tomorrow, I will be like "what the hell does shoukou means???".
I wonder how many times I need to listen to it in order to learn what it means without the need to see the kanji compound :/
I would guess when you finally learn this particular word you won't even associate it with the sound and meaning as much as it will latch on to the context clues surrounding you hearing it. Obvious examples of this are knowing the guy at the conbini just asked you if you wanted your bento heated. You don't need to hear him or listen to him just because it is so obviously the only culturally appropriate thing for him to be asking at that point.
Anki is great but its not a panacea. There will be a lot of words, particularly those with a lot of cultural nuance and built-in meaning, that you brain will need to latch on to in full context. It's just not important to know in a vacuum.
Another corollary to this is the fact that you don't need to understand that sentence at all to enjoy that anime episode. It seems really unlikely it is pivotal to the story and as long as you process it as some kind of culturally appropriate ceremonial utterance it doesn't actually change your enjoyment of the material. (We all already do this in our native languages too. Do you know what all of those catholic prays are that show up in western media? I know I don't.)
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - cophnia61 - 2016-04-01
tokyostyle, yogert909, I think you both are right! I've already seen some progresses just by watching drama with japanese subtitles. Maybe I'll reach a threesold someday, and then I'll start to watch them without japanese subtitles. Maybe I'll do it gradually, as I gain more confidence with audio I'll gradually rely less and less on japanese subtitles, and I'll use them only as a double check and to confirm if I know a word and eventually mine it.
SomeCallMeChris, I'm going to give a try to ErinChallenge as soon as I end writing this reply! It seems a great resouce, thank you!
About shadowing/speaking, maybe I'll start a new thread to keep the two things separate.
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - cophnia61 - 2016-04-09
UPDATE
After 2 weeks of just watching drama and anime with japanese subtitles my listening skill has already improved!
I find it useful to listen to the same thing two times. One with j-subs and one without them. Even in little chunks. For example in Death Not listen to a dialogue between Ryuk and Light, while reading the japanese subtitles and eventually rewind it if I missa word or two. Then I put jsubs off and I tried to catch the words by listening only.
This way, opposed to just massive listening without any form of transcripts, you know what words you didn't catch because your listening skill is still poor (and the you focus on trying to recognize them), and what words you didn't catch brcause they are words you don't know to begin with.
If you listen only to things withou transcript you don't know what known words you failed do catch, and what words are just unknown words.
With transcripts or japanese subtitles you don't need to select strictly n+1 material because even the most complicated material has chunks of n+1 and with the help of transcripts you don't only recognise those chunks and concentrate on them, but you have a certain source to check unknown words too, and eventually mine them.
With raw audio without transcripts pon contrast, youoften try hard to catch words and srntences you think you are supposed to understand and you blame your listening ability for not understanding them, only to find out that the audio has a lot of words you don't even know.
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - CureDolly - 2016-04-09
This is absolutely right. I think watching with Japanese subtitles and then without is a very good practice.
If you are watching completely without subtitles I would say that it is good to watch a series that you know (with J-subs) even though you don't know the particular episode, so that you have an idea what sort of vocabulary it uses and roughly what amount of it you can expect to know.
I think a key to watching "cold" is to relax. Sounds a bit simplistic but I really mean it. Watching without j-subs and worrying about how much you "should" know and how much you aren't catching really puts one in the wrong frame of mind for getting much out of it, and it can be a demoralizing experience.
I have to say that I really understand how difficult it is to practise what we preach! "Cold" listening should be "warm"! What I mean is that even though we have a tendency to worry about every word, this kind of listening works best when it is an exercise in "fuzzy matching". It is good to stop worrying about how much you are getting from the visual cues and how much from the words. As far as possible try to forget the whole question of language and enjoy the show.
This is hard because it goes against everything else we do in terms of "study". But it is really important because it is how we hear our native language. Listening is somewhat of an inexact skill even in our native language (we often miss quite a bit but we don't worry about it, and mostly don't even notice, because we are confident in the language).
To some extent listening is an area in which our diligent study habits and passion for accuracy can be our worst enemy. Tolerance of ambiguity and big-picture-grasping is vital to listening. Listening, I believe tends to work that way around. From the big picture down rather than from the details up.
And it is frustrating because it takes quite a long time to develop. And with "fuzzy listening" we can't be sure if it is actually doing much good on any given occasion.
However this is not instead of watching "hot" having first watched with J-subs. That is really helpful too and I am glad to see it is helping you so much.
But I do believe that listening in a relaxed, childlike way, just grasping what you can and not worrying about what you can't and concentrating on the story, not the language, Is an important skill to develop as it is the one that helps us with real, non-practice, listening.
Paradoxically it can be hard to discipline ourselves to listen in a simple, undisciplined way! I wrote more about it here and fully admit that I am quite obsessive enough to find tolerating some ambiguity really hard. But I really believe it is necessary.
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - cophnia61 - 2016-04-09
CureDolly Wrote:I think a key to watching "cold" is to relax. Sounds a bit simplistic but I really mean it. Watching without j-subs and worrying about how much you "should" know and how much you aren't catching really puts one in the wrong frame of mind for getting much out of it, and it can be a demoralizing experience.
I have to say that I really understand how difficult it is to practise what we preach! "Cold" listening should be "warm"! What I mean is that even though we have a tendency to worry about every word, this kind of listening works best when it is an exercise in "fuzzy matching". It is good to stop worrying about how much you are getting from the visual cues and how much from the words. As far as possible try to forget the whole question of language and enjoy the show.
I know what you mean, CureDolly san! It even happens to me to fail easy Anki cards just because I know I'm testing my knowledge of the Japanese language, and I feel under pressure because of that. When I read for fun instead, I have a much higher recognition rate and even a better overall understanding of what I read.
Stress plays a big role in that, and I find very true what you said about listening. This is why I'm treating listening as a recreational acivity. Subtitles are there only to help me enjoy the show more. Even if I see new words I usually don't mine them. I don't even check their meanings most of the time. I'm watching Death Note for the five time so I already know what is going on, even if I miss full sentences!
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - RawrPk - 2016-04-09
I just recently made a blog post about ways to improve listening skills using Kage Shibari (that's not actually the program's name; nest0r called it that). It's not a new thing, just something I found in the forums and I decided to make a post on how it works.
balloonguy is the creator of the program.
Quote:Kage Shibari: What is it?
It is a program that allows the user to create an “interactive transcript” ideal for controlled listening and shadowing. The program highlights lines of text that correspond with the audio. The user can also select any line they wish to hear/read and the program will continue from there.
Since I watch shows without subs of any kind, I depend on looking at transcripts outside of my watching time. I do this with sub2srs and kage shibari. I haven't been using kage shibari too long, but I feel like it has helped with my vocab and listening skills. Sub2srs is just for pure listening comp.
Hope this helps
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - Stansfield123 - 2016-04-09
Parallel thread, same subject:
http://forum.koohii.com/thread-13364-page-3.html
(2016-03-29, 11:40 am)cophnia61 Wrote: If the "listen hundreds of time" is true, how much of this need to be active listening?I went into some detail about this in the other thread, but short story is that you need to listen to content with a lot of high frequency collocations (phrases, clusters of words often used together) in it. As for n+1, sure: but n+1 doesn't necessarily mean new vocab, it can just as easily just mean a new way to use the same vocab. A collocation you haven't heard before is n+1, even if you know all the words in it. To be honest, it doesn't sound like you need new vocab. If you understand dramas with Jsubs, you know all the vocab you need to know at this stage. Get fluent with what you have, then worry about learning more vocab.
What to listen to? Is native content ok, as long as it is mostly n+1, so it's purely listening comprehension activity and not new vocabulary acquisitions?
As an example, I'm watching "Nanase futatabi", and with japanese subtitles it's really easy, but it gets difficult if I remove the subtitles. There are many words that I know if I read them, but if I listen to them (or if I read them in hiragana form), I don't know what the hell they mean, even if they are pronounced clearly and slowly.
And yes, it needs to be active listening. It's better to do active listening with Japanese subs, than passive listening without.
Ideally, you should also SRS bits of native audio (focusing on high frequency collocations, skipping the unusual, very specific parts that you're not likely to encounter often). It's not a must, but it sure speeds up your progress. In your case, you should just watch dramas with Japanese subs, rip the audio into Anki with subs2SRS, and review without subs. Or watch with subs, and then without subs a few times...whichever is less time consuming (I think the SRS route is probably less time consuming, if you're OK with using all the software involved, but, if it would take you a long time to figure out how to do the SRS thing, then the other option is good too).
P.S. I'm assuming you are watching dramas because you like them (and plan to keep watching them, even after your listening comprehension improves). Otherwise, find something you do like. Different materials use different collocations, so there's little point in working your way through dramas, if you have no long term interest in them. You wanna pick something you like, and stick with it. At first, it will involve some work, but then it becomes pure fun (since you're just watching stuff you enjoy), and you can ride that into full listening comprehension (of everything, not just dramas).
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - Stansfield123 - 2016-04-09
(2016-04-09, 3:11 pm)RawrPk Wrote: Since I watch shows without subs of any kind, I depend on looking at transcripts outside of my watching time. I do this with sub2srs and kage shibari. I haven't been using kage shibari too long, but I feel like it has helped with my vocab and listening skills. Sub2srs is just for pure listening comp.Oh yeah, transcripts are great. My favorite thing, right now, is radio shows that have Japanese transcripts. I don't even bother with the audio, first time through. I just slap some furigana on the transcript, and read it like a book, as fast as I can...only use Rikaisama if I'm totally lost, otherwise, I just make educated guesses about stuff I don't understand, and move right along. Then, I add the show to my mp3 player, and go for a walk/run/to the gym while listening to it (I listen two, three times). It's great...at the end, I feel like I took in everything, same as a native listener would.
Here's a really easy to understand radio show, and it has full transcripts, and a bunch of pictures, as a bonus (yes, pictures do help when it's a radio show): http://www.tfm.co.jp/clover/index.php?blogid=335&page=2 . It's Momoclo, so it's idols, but it's not "idol topics". They have a "sensei" each episode, who talks about his subject of expertise in a way that's easy to understand for laymen (including children, the show is aimed at a diverse audience). For instance, in one episode, Sakazaki Kounosuke was the sensei, and he ended up sharing obscure factoids about Simon and Garfunkel and the Beatles the whole show. Plus, it's Momoclo. They're pros, been around for a long time, and their stuff is pretty high quality. They're more tarento than idols at this point.
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - CureDolly - 2016-04-09
This show looks really interesting.
This is probably a very silly question, but while the transcripts look good I can't work out where the actual audio is.
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - RawrPk - 2016-04-09
^ I was wondering the same thing xD
(2016-04-09, 8:29 pm)Stansfield123 Wrote: Oh yeah, transcripts are great. My favorite thing, right now, is radio shows that have Japanese transcripts. I don't even bother with the audio, first time through. I just slap some furigana on the transcript, and read it like a book, as fast as I can...only use Rikaisama if I'm totally lost, otherwise, I just make educated guesses about stuff I don't understand, and move right along. Then, I add the show to my mp3 player, and go for a walk/run/to the gym while listening to it (I listen two, three times). It's great...at the end, I feel like I took in everything, same as a native listener would.
I haven't tried ripping the audio from the dramas I watch raw but it is interesting. Though the problem is that they're like 30+ minutes long @_@ the only audio I ripped were from Japanese Pocoyo as they are 7 minutes/ episodes which is manageable. No transcripts though
Pocoyo Japan
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - kendo99 - 2016-04-09
(2016-04-09, 11:09 pm)RawrPk Wrote: I haven't tried ripping the audio from the dramas I watch raw but it is interesting. Though the problem is that they're like 30+ minutes long @_@ the only audio I ripped were from Japanese Pocoyo as they are 7 minutes/ episodes which is manageable.
Pocoyo Japan
Audacity ( http://www.audacityteam.org/ ) can split that up for you into smaller more manageable chunks if you don't like to listen to them in long chunks. Personally, I just listen to audio dramas ( http://onigiriwagon.sakura.ne.jp/ld/ is a good one. Lots more to be found at http://podcast.dojin.com/ranking.php ) instead of going to the effort of ripping stuff. I think anything with good actors/voice actors, that interests you, and has a narrative, is good for listening practice. The reason I say 'has a narrative' (which rules out news, podcasts, etc) is that the story will have anchors in it, and as I listen to it many, many times (dozens, to hundreds of times -- I let one of these loop pretty much all day while I'm at work, driving, doing anki, etc) the story will drift in and out of my focus, but when it drifts into focus, the events of the story serve as anchors to give me something to grasp on to. Over time, my understanding increases until eventually I can understand the entire story. I've been getting so much out of this, from increased comprehension of things I already know to picking up new vocab just from listening, that I must recommend it every chance I get.
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - CureDolly - 2016-04-10
(2016-04-09, 11:35 pm)kendo99 Wrote: Personally, I just listen to audio dramas ( http://onigiriwagon.sakura.ne.jp/ld/ is a good one. Lots more to be found at http://podcast.dojin.com/ranking.php ) instead of going to the effort of ripping stuff. I think anything with good actors/voice actors, that interests you, and has a narrative, is good for listening practice. The reason I say 'has a narrative' (which rules out news, podcasts, etc) is that the story will have anchors in it, and as I listen to it many, many times (dozens, to hundreds of times -- I let one of these loop pretty much all day while I'm at work, driving, doing anki, etc) the story will drift in and out of my focus, but when it drifts into focus, the events of the story serve as anchors to give me something to grasp on to. Over time, my understanding increases until eventually I can understand the entire story. I've been getting so much out of this, from increased comprehension of things I already know to picking up new vocab just from listening, that I must recommend it every chance I get.
I have the same experience with on-the-go listening - drifting in and out of focus, importance of narrative anchors etc. And one does get to know the stories very well.
This is also important for the collocation-recognition talked about in this thread. I think knowing collocations just because you've heard them in context hundreds of times is better than anki-ing them myself. I have a feeling that even when the show is out of focus one is getting that sense of "words that just ring together" subconsciously reinforced.
Another advantage of radio drama or narrated stories is that there is more speech and less time spent on action that you can't see!
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - sholum - 2016-04-10
(2016-04-09, 11:35 pm)kendo99 Wrote:(2016-04-09, 11:09 pm)RawrPk Wrote: I haven't tried ripping the audio from the dramas I watch raw but it is interesting. Though the problem is that they're like 30+ minutes long @_@ the only audio I ripped were from Japanese Pocoyo as they are 7 minutes/ episodes which is manageable.
Pocoyo Japan
Audacity ( http://www.audacityteam.org/ ) can split that up for you into smaller more manageable chunks if you don't like to listen to them in long chunks. Personally, I just listen to audio dramas ( http://onigiriwagon.sakura.ne.jp/ld/ is a good one. Lots more to be found at http://podcast.dojin.com/ranking.php ) instead of going to the effort of ripping stuff. I think anything with good actors/voice actors, that interests you, and has a narrative, is good for listening practice. The reason I say 'has a narrative' (which rules out news, podcasts, etc) is that the story will have anchors in it, and as I listen to it many, many times (dozens, to hundreds of times -- I let one of these loop pretty much all day while I'm at work, driving, doing anki, etc) the story will drift in and out of my focus, but when it drifts into focus, the events of the story serve as anchors to give me something to grasp on to. Over time, my understanding increases until eventually I can understand the entire story. I've been getting so much out of this, from increased comprehension of things I already know to picking up new vocab just from listening, that I must recommend it every chance I get.
Super big thanks for those links! That was a nice way to relax at the end of the day; don't have to watch anything, just close my eyes and listen.
It seemed pretty easy too (designed to be audio-only, so the speech and sound cues are really clear compared to normal, but the vocabulary seemed pretty basic too), but I don't know if that's just that program (the first one you linked) or a trend of the medium; what do you think?
RE: Listening and speaking, I'm still a little lost - Stansfield123 - 2016-04-10
(2016-04-09, 9:18 pm)CureDolly Wrote: This show looks really interesting.
This is probably a very silly question, but while the transcripts look good I can't work out where the actual audio is.
Oops, sorry. My bad, should've realized not everyone's using hello-online, the obscure private tracker I get my idol fix off of
Luckily, if you don't feel like subscribing to a private tracker, this show can also be found on youtube. I'm not gonna post a link (they're unauthorized uploads, this is a radio show that airs on Tokyo FM, and I think linking to that would be against the forum rules), but the Japanese title of the show is "ももいろクローバーZのSUZUKIハッピークローバー" . Search for that on youtube, it comes right up.
P.S. If you do subscribe to hello-online, Momoclo also do a TV show called Sakazaki Kounosuke no Momoiro Folk Mura, that's on there. If you like idols and J-music even just a little bit (I don't mean AKB style idols, but idols who focus on singing, like Momoclo, Ebichu, Yamaguchi Momoe, Matsuda Seiko, etc.), that show is must see television. It's not great for learning Japanese (it's mostly singing, they only talk for a few minutes between songs), but it's a lot of fun.