I already do the japanesepod101 podcasts, which are lessons in Japanese, with culture and some other fun mixed in. I'm looking to add more subscriptions to podcasts. I've just got the vague idea that there is too much english in the JPod podcasts. I want some that are more "pure japanese", more like the weekly blogs that Miki does there.

I've done some searching and haven't really turned up anything that really catches my attention. I'm curious to see if any of you have other podcasts that you would recommend?

I second the request. Miki's blog is pretty good, but it only comes out once a week. Does anyone else know of something equally good or better?

I third it, especially if anyone knows of a good Osaka/Kansai local talk radio kind of thing. Everything online is Tokyo-centric.

I do like these, though, which are free on iTunes:

Radio Sakamoto, which is Ryuuichi Sakamoto's podcast, and has music as well as his musings about the environment/art/culture. He's the electronica musician who founded YMO, and did the soundtracks for The Last Emperor and Wings of Honneamise.

JUNK, which is a manzai podcast Khatzumoto recommended at AJATT.

(Khatzumoto recommended Marimoeo, too, but they stopped doing it, it seems.)

CharleyGarrett Wrote:I already do the japanesepod101 podcasts, which are lessons in Japanese, with culture and some other fun mixed in. I'm looking to add more subscriptions to podcasts. I've just got the vague idea that there is too much english in the JPod podcasts. I want some that are more "pure japanese", more like the weekly blogs that Miki does there.

I've done some searching and haven't really turned up anything that really catches my attention. I'm curious to see if any of you have other podcasts that you would recommend?

How is the japanesepod101? Do you recommend it?

zazen666 Wrote:How is the japanesepod101? Do you recommend it?

Yeah, how is it? I should be finished the RTK book by Christmas and I'm considering it as a sentence source for my SRS, especially since I should be able to copy/paste a lot of content from the lesson notes and get the matching audio for listening practice.

I did try listening to some of the free lessons before, but gave up due to the annoying host. I would stick it out, however, if I could make good use of the content. I'll probably sign up for a month to make up my own mind about the usefulness, but would appreciate any comments from existing users.

PS... back on the main topic... There are a lot of free native japanese podcasts hidden deep in the podcast section of the itunes store, but I haven't explored particularly much. Open itunes, click on podcasts and then, in the quicklinks section of the page, click browse. This will open up the standard itunes browser where you can explore the various categories.

Floatingweed5 Wrote:I did try listening to some of the free lessons before, but gave up due to the annoying host.

If you think Peter is annoying, then I wouldn't recommend it. I have only been listening to the beginning pod casts so far (up to lesson 70), and so far there has been a lot of him. I mainly just listen to the dialogs with the native speakers. If you can stomach him, I highly recommend it. It is a great way to "shadow" real speakers. They say some things too fast the first time to repeat but you can get it when they slow it down.

Floatingweed5 Wrote:I'll probably sign up for a month to make up my own mind about the usefulness, but would appreciate any comments from existing users.

By the by, I never signed up. You can listen to the free podcasts on itunes without having to sign up or pay for anything.

I recently found this site which looks decent.
http://www.njuku.com/

njuku is also sadly dead, it seems.

I listen to the Yomiuri podcast every day. Just a 16 minute or so news podcast.

Yomiuri's really good, esp. because you can cross-reference it with their news that day. I like to do about one a week with deep cross-referencing to pick up vocab.

Australia has a broadcast service called SBS that caters for all languages. Including an hour long weekly radio show in Japanese. Essentially a variety show with music, news, sports, interviews, and local information from resident expats, and such.

Clicky!

The latest broadcast (in Real Media [why!?]), along with some past particulars in MP3 can be found in the left hand navigation bar. Since it airs Tuesday evenings, the newest episode should be available Wednesday morning EDST.

I've saved a couple of the earlier Real Media broadcasts if anyone is particularly keen.

I wonder if there is a Sci Fi Japanese podcast, or maybe S.F. non-professional audio books?

laner36 Wrote:If you think Peter is annoying, then I wouldn't recommend it.

When I last listened it was purely for leisure, something to keep me amused and keep my vocabulary fresh while I completed RTK. The "Peter" thing definitely became a problem. I'd be approaching it from a more ruthless "sentence-mining" perspective this time, so the "Peter" thing would be incidental if the content was good and I was making good progress.

laner36 Wrote:By the by, I never signed up. You can listen to the free podcasts on itunes without having to sign up or pay for anything.

It's actually the premium content that's got me interested. It would seem that for each podcast there are transcriptions, grammar notes and the ability to download an mp3 of each individual sentence, separate from the podcast. This would be great for getting sentences with full notes and audio into the SRS with minimum hassle. You could almost dispense with the podcast altogether and just head for the sentences and notes!

Anyway that's what I hope. It's just conjecture until I try it out.

Hmmm, Didn't use the word "Conjucture" very much until Fingers the Thief got caught with that Turkey ;p

From my bookmarks:

Nippon VoiceBlog -- sadly, appears to be dead like njuku

japancast.net

Talking Drunk-- for those who like Japanese and beer

Osaka dialect lessons

Try:
http://www.tbsradio.jp
http://podshower.com/pod
http://www.radio-locator.com/

The TBS site has at least 10 different podcasts catering to broad range of programming. There is even a weekly radio drama series.

Podshower showcases a range of contemporary music in Japan.

Radio-locator is a great resource for finding radio broadcasts around the world. If you scroll to Japan, there are currently 29 radio urls listed there.

btw, if you listen to the intermediate lessons at japanesepod101, they are conducted almost entirely in Japanese by native speakers.

I do actually recommend japansespod101. The more advanced the lesson, the less English they use, and they almost always let the native speakers model the japanese pronunciation. But even the "beginner" lessons will stray into interesting phrases, almost every time.

Still, the ratio of beginner to advanced content is definitely skewed towards the beginner side. There are times when talking about Japanese is helpful, but there are times that I just want to hear people talking in Japanese. Y'all have given me some good pointers to start with.

I just found out there's an Englishpod101.com like Japanesepod, but for learning English. Since it's for Japanese people, you'll get to hear a lot more Japanese.

voiceblog.jp has got tons of stuff

Just had to say that I met Peter of Japanesepod101.com while I was visiting Tokyo in November. He's a really nice guy, and he comes across as very down-to-earth.

Personally, I found the survival phrases info about riding the buses (and trains) to be extremely helpful while I was over there. Especially how the slips of paper and the big board full of numbers works... and how you should pay attention to where you put your fare.

The beginner lessons do run a little on the cheesy side, but I think that's more of an effort to try to not scare people away from the language.

The Peter dude may be a nice enough guy, but his voice+mannerisms are annoying as all hell. Dude should probably fall back and work in the background, and let someone else do the lessons. I only listen to the intermediate lessons, and there's just too much of him in there. The ladies are okay, but still it's nothing amazing. I guess it's time I just sucked it up and moved into a by-japanese-for-japanese podcast anyway, though.

But to be fair, I'm spoiled: I'm unfairly comparing Japanesepod101 against the originators (Chinesepod.com - from what I understand, Japanesepod101 - who are unrelated to Cpod - totally bit their site design, structure, and everything from Chinesepod. Even the structure of the lessons is exactly the same as what Chinesepod was doing oh, 1+ years ago).

Chinesepod is so much better than Jpod, as a matter of fact, that periodically I'll get annoyed with Jpod mid-lesson and listen to Cpod instead when I should be studying Japanese - just because Cpod is:

- better produced
- more interesting - the dialogues are engaging without being cheesy.
- doesn't include unneccessary (to me) English translations.

Two Great Podcasts.

1. Learn Japanese (Sekiguchi).
Mysterious SEkiguchi has produced about 15 episodes. They're all designed to provide advanced beginner and intermediate students with well-spoken input. Stories, reports about life in Japan. And Sekiguchi publishes a transcript of each of his transmissions.
Sadly, he hasn't produced an episode since January 5th of this year.

Site URL: http://learnjapanese.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/

2. Learn Japanese with Beb and Alex.
Two friends, a Kansai native and a British expat in Osaka produce a regular show that covers pop culture, contemporary idioms, dialect, the challenges of expat life and other interesting things. They're fun, they've produced around 60 episodes over two years and show no signs of stopping.

Personally, if I were in Osaka, I'd want to hang out with these two.

Site URL: http://learnjapanesepod.com/



Comment on JapanesePod101:
I too found the host Peter annoying--eternally Genki and rather controlling of the dialog. But what really turned me off to JapanesePod 101.com is the hard-sell commercials built into their free podcasts. I don't mind them pitching their service at all, but at $30 plus dollars per month, I'd think hard before I'd invest in it. The recorded dialogs are great (minus Peter) but the additional learning "materials" they offer for monthly subscribers are pretty low quality.

I actually don't agree with the comparison between Japanesepod101.com and Chinesepod.com. Ken can be just as annoying as Peter, and I haven't seen in the 20 or so newbie lessons so far (just starting Mandarin), that there is all that much more production quality. And, on the other hand, while I find "eternally genki" a bit annoying sometimes, I still like Peter, and the tangents that he takes sometimes are the same tangents that my interests go with. Maybe it's just what you're used to.

Another place to look, for intermediate/advanced stuff, is the JapaneseLingq.com, ChineseLingq.com, etc....The idea there is more to hear the language spoken, and have a transcript, but no overt teaching of the language going on.

I subscribe to several podcasts. I'm only in my first 6 months of study, but I find the following two to be very useful.

1. Learn Japanese with Beb and Alex: Humorous podcasts in English and Japanese. It's not so much a study podcast as one that exposes listeners to culture, aspects of spoken Japanese, slang, Kansai dialect, etc. They're a fun group on this podcast and have been doing it for two or so years, so there are lots of back episodes to listen to.

2. Learn Japanese. Mysterious Sekiguchi-san started making podcasts last Fall with the express intent of providing quality spoken Japanese for advanced beginner-level students. I recommend them. He speaks at a natural slow pace, the vocabulary and grammar may be a slight stretch for very new students, but he also posts a transcript for each.

Podcast URL: feed://podfeed.podcastjuice.jp/app/rss_convert.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Flearnjapanese.cocolog-nifty.com%2Fblog%2F

Sadly, Sekiguchi hasn't done a recording since the fifth of January this year. I hope he's not done, because these are really invaluable.