Storytelling/Poetry/Letter-reading/Dramas
Storytelling:
- "Japanese Classical Literature at Bedtime"
Rating: 7.5
Ease: All levels.
Review: Amateur story-reading podcast (she makes mistakes and has to repeat herself sometimes, medium quality of audio), but great for sleeping. If you are interested in listening to the specific stories she reads (銀河鉄道の夜、羅生門), there are better recordings by other readers, but it’s great for just the calm voice and lack-of-dramatic story-telling that allows people doing JPN immersion to go to sleep to Japanese each night
Every night I listen to Rashoumon to sleep.
astrangerhere's review: "This is a lady who reads classic literature in a very soft and pleasant voice. She sells the audiobook readings in Japan, but they are free here in the US. They are all classics. There are bits of Genji, The Pillow Book and alot of other smaller short stories. If you add her RSS to a podcaster, you'll only get about half her archive. I spent an hour one day downloading her entire run from her blog. Lovely listening."
Note: go here for astrangerhere's uploaded zipped files of many stories off the podcast's blog.
- 童話・昔話の朗読」【ちょびひげ文庫】 - “Japanese Stories for Children”
Rating: 7
Ease: All levels
Review: Only 6 episodes. The narrator for these is so funny. Her dramatic acting in「キャラメルと飴玉」and 「二つの鞄」are especially hilarious. These stories are short and sweet and are a good way to add variety to your listening.
- 「日本みじかい昔話・珍獣の館ポッドキャスティング」 - “Short Japanese Stories”
Rating: 7.5
Ease: Leans toward intermediate and advanced learners more.
Review: Another good way to add variety to your playlist. The stories are also short and there’s the big bonus of the narrator talking about each story when she’s done reading them. I consider this to be the most valuable part.
- “Fanta Jikan”
Rating: 8
Ease: All levels, but like with all audio, intermediate and advanced can enjoy more.
Review: Excellent story-telling in high-quality with fitting background music that’s different with each story. If you are a 宮沢賢治 fan, you’ll find many of his works being read. There are also translations of Western fairytales being read.
- ヨミキク文庫 - フジテレビのポッドキャスティング『フジポッド』 - “Listen and Read Library”
Rating: 7.5
Ease: All levels, but like with all audio, intermediate and advanced can enjoy more.
Review: This is right in the same league as Fanta Jikan. Excellent! Edit: I took half a point off for lack of variation in storytelling/music/narrators. Fanta Jikan is better when it comes to that, so I realized I needed to sacrifice the half point.
- 日本童話名作選－新美南吉、鈴 木三重吉他 - “Japanese Children’s Tales by Famous Authors - Niimi Nankichi, Suzuki Miekichi, and Others”
Rating: None
Ease: All levels can enjoy, I think.
Review: I got a ton of these and used them for listening to while sleeping and relaxing. These are really good for listening in those phases when you’re awake enough to know what’s going on, of course including before sleeping and upon waking. You never know what interesting passage you’re going to be hearing. This is, however, only a sample of all the 朗読 you’ll find. Go here for a directory of 朗読。
- 「ゆめよみ おはなし ひなたぼっこ」 - "Dream Reading Stories - Basking in the Sun"
Rating: 7
Ease: For all learners.
Review: Amateur storytelling with a little boy and a woman (maybe mom and son?) There's something memorable about the way they tell the stories. Examples of stories: The first kotatsu (it was a horigotatsu and the mayor thought you were supposed to get in naked as you would before bathing...), the three little pigs, the beginning of the world, momotarou, and many others. Some also have Youtube videos with pictures that go with their reading. If there's any way for you to trim the intro off so you can just hear the story for each episode, I'd suggest it. (I use MP3 Trimmer for Mac. Hearing the narrators with their high pitched voices saying that same intro over and over gets pretty annoying.
- 朗読の森 - "Storytelling Forest"
Rating: 7.5
Ease: All learners
Very skillful storytelling with different background music for each reading. Stories & authors include The Gift of the Magi (as listed in the audio book thread), one story from the Brothers Grimm, Akutagawa Ryuunosuke, Miyazawa Kenji, Natsume Soseki, Dazai Osamu, and many other famous Japanese authors. There are also a few readings of 昔話. Look for the category section on the left side of the page about halfway through scrolling down.
Poetry & Letter-reading:
- 「盲導犬ユーザーの詩」 - “Poems by Seeing-eye-dog Owners”
Rating: 6
Ease: All levels. You should be able to get some enjoyment out of it without having to know the whole Core2000.
Review: Blind people who own seeing-eye dogs submit their poems about their lifestyle with their dogs and a 朗読家 reads them. The reader's voice is very calming and there is also calming music before and after each reading. If there was more variation in the way these are individually podcasted, I would have given it a higher rating. I do think this is a very good idea -- the owners of seeing eye dogs have a lot of insightful things to say.
- 「拝啓お父さん」 - “Dear Father”
Rating: 5
Ease: Definitely good for all levels. The letters are especially simple, just not the haiku.
Review: I like how these are letters from a little girl to her father (not sure if they’re real letters), but I feel like most of what I’m listening to is just her reading her haiku poems over and over. Her voice also gets a little annoying after awhile.But it’s kind of nice to have on my playlist
- 「神戸市心かよわす市民運動」- “Koubeshi People’s Movement[?]”
Rating: 7
Ease: This probably leans toward intermediate and advanced, but beginners can get something out of it, I think.
Review: This podcast is of people reading letters from children. There's one about a kid talking about his autistic brother, another one with a kid talking about his grandpa who uses a wheelchair and another one about kids who are teased. Very easy to understand. I just wish the guy they use to read them didn't sound so newscaster-like and impersonal. There's a woman who reads some of them and it sounds better.
Drama:
- ドラマ配信 「きんぎょの耳」- “Drama: A Goldfish’s Ears”
Rating: 6.5
Ease: All levels, including beginners, since you can get a lot from the context in the drama.
Review: This is a podcast in story form about a female goldfish and her friends in the tank she lives in. The interesting thing is that they sound just like humans -- the actors don’t add much of a “fishy” quality to them, but of course it’s obvious they are fish and are dealing with living in a fish tank. I didn't give this a higher rating because the abrupt transitions between narration and actual events taking place in the production tends to get a little old. And the voice of the goldfish is pretty whiny and annoying.
- Replica Blue The old website was taken down along with the old files, but Sebastian has shared them HERE. There is a new site, but you have to pay to listen to them.
User Blahah's recommendation.
Rating: None yet
Ease: Since it's a drama, I'd recommend it for all levels, but this may lean more towards advanced and intermediate learners.
My comment on it: This is a sci-fi radio drama with excellent production and very good actors. Almost too good for a podcast radio show...?
- タマホームプレゼンツ マイドリーム 大作戦！ - "Tama Home Presents: Big plans for my dream"
Rating: 7.5
Ease: All levels
Review: Each episode is about 5 minutes, a little over half of which is a drama about a recently married couple (who just bicker most of the time). The husband is a bit of a worry wort and his wife seems to have a case of OCD. Situations include: picking out furniture for their new home, the wife's pregnancy, throwing a "no-more-rent" party, family trip, etc. Needless to say, you'll hear lots of valuable every-day conversation. There's also a narrator (w/ typical announcer-style voice) who throws in his explanations before and after each drama segment. The drama is what makes this very suitable for beginners, even though there may be many words the typical beginner doesn't know. However, the context becomes more obvious in dramas such as these.
Storytelling:
- "Japanese Classical Literature at Bedtime"
Rating: 7.5
Ease: All levels.
Review: Amateur story-reading podcast (she makes mistakes and has to repeat herself sometimes, medium quality of audio), but great for sleeping. If you are interested in listening to the specific stories she reads (銀河鉄道の夜、羅生門), there are better recordings by other readers, but it’s great for just the calm voice and lack-of-dramatic story-telling that allows people doing JPN immersion to go to sleep to Japanese each night
Every night I listen to Rashoumon to sleep.astrangerhere's review: "This is a lady who reads classic literature in a very soft and pleasant voice. She sells the audiobook readings in Japan, but they are free here in the US. They are all classics. There are bits of Genji, The Pillow Book and alot of other smaller short stories. If you add her RSS to a podcaster, you'll only get about half her archive. I spent an hour one day downloading her entire run from her blog. Lovely listening."
Note: go here for astrangerhere's uploaded zipped files of many stories off the podcast's blog.
- 童話・昔話の朗読」【ちょびひげ文庫】 - “Japanese Stories for Children”
Rating: 7
Ease: All levels
Review: Only 6 episodes. The narrator for these is so funny. Her dramatic acting in「キャラメルと飴玉」and 「二つの鞄」are especially hilarious. These stories are short and sweet and are a good way to add variety to your listening.
- 「日本みじかい昔話・珍獣の館ポッドキャスティング」 - “Short Japanese Stories”
Rating: 7.5
Ease: Leans toward intermediate and advanced learners more.
Review: Another good way to add variety to your playlist. The stories are also short and there’s the big bonus of the narrator talking about each story when she’s done reading them. I consider this to be the most valuable part.
- “Fanta Jikan”
Rating: 8
Ease: All levels, but like with all audio, intermediate and advanced can enjoy more.
Review: Excellent story-telling in high-quality with fitting background music that’s different with each story. If you are a 宮沢賢治 fan, you’ll find many of his works being read. There are also translations of Western fairytales being read.
- ヨミキク文庫 - フジテレビのポッドキャスティング『フジポッド』 - “Listen and Read Library”
Rating: 7.5
Ease: All levels, but like with all audio, intermediate and advanced can enjoy more.
Review: This is right in the same league as Fanta Jikan. Excellent! Edit: I took half a point off for lack of variation in storytelling/music/narrators. Fanta Jikan is better when it comes to that, so I realized I needed to sacrifice the half point.
- 日本童話名作選－新美南吉、鈴 木三重吉他 - “Japanese Children’s Tales by Famous Authors - Niimi Nankichi, Suzuki Miekichi, and Others”
Rating: None
Ease: All levels can enjoy, I think.
Review: I got a ton of these and used them for listening to while sleeping and relaxing. These are really good for listening in those phases when you’re awake enough to know what’s going on, of course including before sleeping and upon waking. You never know what interesting passage you’re going to be hearing. This is, however, only a sample of all the 朗読 you’ll find. Go here for a directory of 朗読。
- 「ゆめよみ おはなし ひなたぼっこ」 - "Dream Reading Stories - Basking in the Sun"
Rating: 7
Ease: For all learners.
Review: Amateur storytelling with a little boy and a woman (maybe mom and son?) There's something memorable about the way they tell the stories. Examples of stories: The first kotatsu (it was a horigotatsu and the mayor thought you were supposed to get in naked as you would before bathing...), the three little pigs, the beginning of the world, momotarou, and many others. Some also have Youtube videos with pictures that go with their reading. If there's any way for you to trim the intro off so you can just hear the story for each episode, I'd suggest it. (I use MP3 Trimmer for Mac. Hearing the narrators with their high pitched voices saying that same intro over and over gets pretty annoying.
- 朗読の森 - "Storytelling Forest"
Rating: 7.5
Ease: All learners
Very skillful storytelling with different background music for each reading. Stories & authors include The Gift of the Magi (as listed in the audio book thread), one story from the Brothers Grimm, Akutagawa Ryuunosuke, Miyazawa Kenji, Natsume Soseki, Dazai Osamu, and many other famous Japanese authors. There are also a few readings of 昔話. Look for the category section on the left side of the page about halfway through scrolling down.
Poetry & Letter-reading:
- 「盲導犬ユーザーの詩」 - “Poems by Seeing-eye-dog Owners”
Rating: 6
Ease: All levels. You should be able to get some enjoyment out of it without having to know the whole Core2000.
Review: Blind people who own seeing-eye dogs submit their poems about their lifestyle with their dogs and a 朗読家 reads them. The reader's voice is very calming and there is also calming music before and after each reading. If there was more variation in the way these are individually podcasted, I would have given it a higher rating. I do think this is a very good idea -- the owners of seeing eye dogs have a lot of insightful things to say.
- 「拝啓お父さん」 - “Dear Father”
Rating: 5
Ease: Definitely good for all levels. The letters are especially simple, just not the haiku.
Review: I like how these are letters from a little girl to her father (not sure if they’re real letters), but I feel like most of what I’m listening to is just her reading her haiku poems over and over. Her voice also gets a little annoying after awhile.But it’s kind of nice to have on my playlist
- 「神戸市心かよわす市民運動」- “Koubeshi People’s Movement[?]”
Rating: 7
Ease: This probably leans toward intermediate and advanced, but beginners can get something out of it, I think.
Review: This podcast is of people reading letters from children. There's one about a kid talking about his autistic brother, another one with a kid talking about his grandpa who uses a wheelchair and another one about kids who are teased. Very easy to understand. I just wish the guy they use to read them didn't sound so newscaster-like and impersonal. There's a woman who reads some of them and it sounds better.
Drama:
- ドラマ配信 「きんぎょの耳」- “Drama: A Goldfish’s Ears”
Rating: 6.5
Ease: All levels, including beginners, since you can get a lot from the context in the drama.
Review: This is a podcast in story form about a female goldfish and her friends in the tank she lives in. The interesting thing is that they sound just like humans -- the actors don’t add much of a “fishy” quality to them, but of course it’s obvious they are fish and are dealing with living in a fish tank. I didn't give this a higher rating because the abrupt transitions between narration and actual events taking place in the production tends to get a little old. And the voice of the goldfish is pretty whiny and annoying.
- Replica Blue The old website was taken down along with the old files, but Sebastian has shared them HERE. There is a new site, but you have to pay to listen to them.
User Blahah's recommendation.
Rating: None yet
Ease: Since it's a drama, I'd recommend it for all levels, but this may lean more towards advanced and intermediate learners.
My comment on it: This is a sci-fi radio drama with excellent production and very good actors. Almost too good for a podcast radio show...?
- タマホームプレゼンツ マイドリーム 大作戦！ - "Tama Home Presents: Big plans for my dream"
Rating: 7.5
Ease: All levels
Review: Each episode is about 5 minutes, a little over half of which is a drama about a recently married couple (who just bicker most of the time). The husband is a bit of a worry wort and his wife seems to have a case of OCD. Situations include: picking out furniture for their new home, the wife's pregnancy, throwing a "no-more-rent" party, family trip, etc. Needless to say, you'll hear lots of valuable every-day conversation. There's also a narrator (w/ typical announcer-style voice) who throws in his explanations before and after each drama segment. The drama is what makes this very suitable for beginners, even though there may be many words the typical beginner doesn't know. However, the context becomes more obvious in dramas such as these.
Edited: 2011-07-29, 8:37 pm