Khatzumoto on his AJATT website (which is no doubt well known to many here) talks about listening to Japanese even when one is sleeping. He only mentions it on occasion and doesn't really elaborate. I've tried searching the site but couldn't find any elaboration (that might be a failure on my part). I'm interested to hear what everyone things about listening to Japanese during sleep. Isn't the whole learning stuff through sleep thing just an old wives' tale?

I don't have any hard data, and I am skeptical of those "learn astrophysics while you sleep" type programs, but I really think any and all exposure to the Japanese language would give you at least *some* benefits.

I sometimes put a Japanese podcast on while I'm falling asleep, it's a relaxing way to get more exposure to the rhythm and intonation of the language.

I think the jury's out on how much information you can absorb while sleeping, but it's an interesting question ...

My experience is I dream in Japanese more when I go to sleep listening to it. It's not a "learn only by doing this" method. It's a "add more Japanese to every aspect of your life" method.

Put it this way, ever have a dream that you wake up to and realize it was your brain playing off of what is playing off of the TV that was left on? Well, getting your brain to play off Japanese is just one more aspect of Japanese you can cram into your life. I do think your brain will utilize this input to shape your dreams. Heck, you might even start seeing RECOGNIZABLE Kanji in your dreams doing this (only one experience for me, so not a guarentee).

Oddly enough, I am noticing I need less sleep when I'm doing this. Before, I liked sleeping in total silence. My bio clock woke me up about 8 hours later on average (yes, I notice stuff like this). With audio in my ear (for me, I've only done this with Japanese but probably anything would do it), I'm waking up about 6 hours later with same mental acquity.

Anyway, don't do it thinking it'll teach you Japanese. Don't do it because you think you have to. Just do it if you're able too (some people need quiet to sleep, or are too restless to wear headphones to bed, etc.), and want to do it.

PS: I just play my iPod, set to random, which will play either audio chunks from TV shows, podcasts, news, music or movies.

well considering if the alternative is not listening to Japanese whilst sleeping, then why not?

it may take 5-10 minutes to get to sleep and normally those would be in silence? so why not get 5-10 more minutes of Japanese in? surely can't hinder your japanese.

I may be wrong but I think it was just a general expression to emphasize how absorbed you should become in Japanese whilst studying, ie. eat Japanese, sleep Japanese etc..

Like Nukemarine, I tend to have dreams that use whatever I was last doing. So listening to Japanese while sleeping, I dream in Japanese. Sometimes it's talking to people who speak whatever it is I'm listening to; sometimes the audio comes over a radio or TV in the dream.

FWIW, language tapes are the worst for this. The monotone, the occasional beep for a quiz, all worse than a loud alarm clock. TV show and movie soundtracks, much better.

Can listening to Japanese tapes at night replace study? Of course not. But it can get your brain more exercise, as long as you can sleep with the noise.

It's probably more important to listen to Japanese as you go to sleep rather than when you are sleeping. Audio devices with a sleep timer are great for this.

For some people it's simply not an option though and don't start thinking it will cripple your studies or something if you don't do it. Lots of people learned languages without any audio programs existing....

For me, I tried it but it wasn't an option. I will just listen to it and not fall asleep for hours.

Khatzumoto also advised to listen to Japanese all the time, but it totally distracts me from concentrating on my work.

I would really like to be able to do it, and I've tried, but it's not working! It usually takes me a long time to fall asleep, and listening to something makes that even longer. Moreover, I'm quite restless, so I haven't yet found a way to keep my earphones in place.

Virtua_Leaf Wrote:I may be wrong but I think it was just a general expression to emphasize how absorbed you should become in Japanese whilst studying, ie. eat Japanese, sleep Japanese etc..

No, somewhere he actually explained it a little more in detailed (I even asked him in a comment), and he said he used medium-sized headphones.

I wonder if anybody knows where to find audio sleep aids in Japanese. You know "you are getting tired, your arms are getting heavy, you are a leaf on a stream" sort of stuff.

Can anyone suggest some good podcasts to try listening to while falling asleep/ sleeping? I've seen the JapanesePod podcasts recommended around this forum but I find those really annoying, to be honest. Natural conversation would be better, I think. There are just so many podcasts out there so it's tough to choose. What do you guys listen to specifically? A few people mentioned movies and tv shows, are you ripping those audio tracks yourselves?

It`s not a podcast, but you can download the audio tracks for previous JLPT tests here: http://www.51gzw.com/ (red links on the bottom with "mp3" in the title)

Even the instructions are in Japanese, and it might give you a head start should you ever choose to take the test.

I've been doing this for a little while and found an interesting drawback... when I listen to Japanese during the daytime I find myself getting sleepy!

It took me a while to get used sleeping with Japanese playing but a couple of tips for those looking to try it:

- Headphones/earphones suck. Avoid.
- Start with the volume so low that it is barely audible. This should ensure it doesn't interrupt your sleep. The next night, increase it a little. You'll find your limit where the volume begins to interfere with sleep. Don't train yourself to sleep in an excessively noisy environment.
- Use audio that is of a consistent volume throughout. Home-brew podcasts with a dodgy mic usually end up clipping and will jar you awake. I wouldn't advise ripped movie audiotracks either considering their usual dynamic range.
- Don't concentrate on what is being said. That's for daytime listening. Just let it flooowwww...

I mainly play the weekly hour-long broadcast from here (click Listen To The Latest Broadcast to stream). It's the closest thing I'll get to waking up in the morning and listening to J-Radio over here.

Those are some inviting tips, aircawn! I'll try them as soon as possible!

blackstockc Wrote:It`s not a podcast, but you can download the audio tracks for previous JLPT tests here: http://www.51gzw.com/ (red links on the bottom with "mp3" in the title)

For some reason I can't get the downloads on that site to work. Is anyone else having problems with it?

Ah, never mind. I just google'd the filename until I found (one of a jillion) Chinese websites that had the file in a server format that would play nice with my computer.

aircawn Wrote:I wouldn't advise ripped movie audiotracks either considering their usual dynamic range.

Yeah, one time I tried listening to an anime drama while on the bus, and with the range of vocals(yelling, normal tones, softer tones) I couldn't get very much of it at all. Anyway, it'd be very hard to sleep with that on.

samusam Wrote:I'm interested to hear what everyone things about listening to Japanese during sleep.

Based on this, I don't recommend it.

leosmith Wrote:

samusam Wrote:I'm interested to hear what everyone things about listening to Japanese during sleep.

Based on this, I don't recommend it.

I also don't think it's a very good idea.
Listening to Japanese while you're out walking, on the bus, working etc is fine but I really don't see the point of listening while you're asleep. At the most, you might absorb a tiny bit of the material but it's going to disrupt your sleep pattern and make you tired. And if you're tired you won't be able to concentrate and remember as much when you're studying.

I tried it a while ago and all that happened was I stayed in a half-asleep state and didn't get any proper rest. If you want to get reinforcement from Japanese audio there are loads of different ways you could do it.
Why not try putting some Japanese music on while reviewing some flashcards? If you work with your hands (washing up, data entry), listen to some podcasts while you do that. Or listen to Japanese audio any time you're travelling.

I know nothing about this topic but all this talk about sleep sent me on a mental tangent about sleep paralysis which led me to this blurb about REM sleep that I found interesting.