I don't post too much here lately but you may remember I made a thread about this time last year detailing my issues in improving listening comprehension. Still it proves a difficult hurdle to overcome. I signed up for N1 again this year and never want to take that miserable test again, so I need to pass it. A few weeks ago I got a new job and currently have a long daily commute to and from work (at least until I move soon). Right now I'm listening to Harry Potter audiobooks to keep me from slowly dying inside. For the first week of my commute I actually listened to some Japanese podcasts. The problem is my mind always wanders when listening to Japanese audio. It's an issue that's difficult to control.

Well I don't know how in-depth to get. Basically I'd like to get a general idea of how to improve my listening. I do watch dramas as well when I'm home. If possible I want to take advantage of my lengthy commute in some manner, but is there a more efficient route than podcasts? Can I do something to help myself focus on the podcast more while driving? It's for sure a side-effect of just having bad listening. If you lose track of the conversation you quickly lose interest and drop focus that way.

What about queueing up a number of short clips - e.g., 杏のAnytime Andante, Last Wave, essays/stories from the Read Real Japanese series, etc.? You could listen to one clip, take a breather, and then dive in to the next one.

I also have the wandering attention problem when listening to a 30-60 min. podcast episode. It takes perseverance. I try and actively think about what's going on. What is the current subject? How does what is being said now relate to the subject? If I find I'm lost, I rewind and try and figure out where I lost the thread of the conversation.

If your mind is wandering the content is boring. Don't be afraid to hit skip. Even if it was boring just because you couldn't understand try something fresh and free your mind of the burden of that unnecessary stress. Especially right before you gotta go to work.

Also if you like dramas(or variety or even youtube videos) you should experiment with ripping the audio from episodes you liked and listening to that instead of dry old podcasts and audiobooks. I did that on top of having studied the new vocabulary from the episodes via subs2srs & anki and it really helped me get more confident in my listening.

You could also try sticking to stuff you are already familiar with or stuff you quite simply enjoy. You could rip the audio from a movie, a drama, an anime or whatever, as long as it is something you like, and play that during your commute. Since you'll be familiar with the context, it'll take less effort to remain involved, and it'll allow you to drift on and off with less worries.

I'll try some podcasts tomorrow during my commute and see what happens. I may listen to podcasts in the morning when I'm more attentive, and English audio books on the way back in the evening when I'm more tired. Maybe that'll help. For anyone else looking for good little bite-sized clips you should definitely follow FNN or ANN news on YouTube. Then you can click on a video and it'll automatically generate a playlist of the recent videos, thereby presenting you with several shorter news clips. Much better than going to the website, the video players on the respective news sites really blows and takes so long to load.

I didnt' know about the FNN feed. Thanks for that!

Anyone else know any great YouTube channels to subscribe to?

I’m not sure whether this is going to be helpful to you or not but since, like you, I also happen to listen to HP audiobooks, I thought I could share my thoughts on listening practice.

In general, when you listen to raw Japanese audio your problems with understanding will be related to one or a combination of the following: unknown vocabulary, sentence structure, speed.

Dealing with unknown vocabulary is easy (but tedious at the same time) - you just need to look the things up. Sometimes, when you have bilingual text you can have a guess at the vocab based on the translation. For this, your ability to parse the sentence has to be good though.

To be able to parse sentences you need lots of listening with full comprehension – different things work here: A-B listening until you resolve the grammar so your understanding of the sentence is full (you need to know all the vocab at this point), listening to the same track after some break, having the original text that you can actually read. Again, having text in your first language is very helpful as it makes it easier for you to make links between words in the original sentence.

Speed is an interesting one – even when you are familiar with the vocabulary and are able to parse the grammar, the shear pace of the speech gets you lost. I know a person who is around N2 level but when they heard ”読んでいないと片桐が言うと” they had difficulties with understanding what it could mean. There was no problem when reading though. Myself, I find parsing numbers (things like dates, times, people, machines) challenging all the times. To practice for speed I use audio that plays at 0.7 to 0.9 of the speed of the original audio. Repeated exposure to the same tracks obviously helps too.

In general my advice would be: listen to things that you can understand often, listen to things that are hard to understand less often – these should become easier after some time since first exposure has passed.

EDIT:
Ahh, the last thing - get yourself one of these (not necessary that model):
http://www.sony.com.au/product/nwz-e574/...-e574_bm+e

When buying, make sure it has this function:

Sony Wrote:Language Learning
Pick up a new language on the go with the A-B repeat, playback speed control, and easy rewind functions.

This "Language Learning" function seems very interesting and helpful. I didn't know anything about that. Is it only available on this kind of device?
Thank you,

A quick google on android players with "A-B repeat, playback speed control, and easy rewind functions" comes up with "Maple Player Classic" as an app in the Google play store. Anyone who tried that program or anything similar?

There's also Parrot Player for iOS, which works decently (caveat: I don't think it's been updated in a while). Parrot Player lets you define your own sections of an audio and loop select portions. I've used it a lot for listening to podcasts, the Read Real Japanese audio, and audio rips of anime.

@sarocchia76

I’m sure there are other MP3 players that implement functions to facilitate language learning (I used iRiver before it broke and it had A-B playback too). What I like about Sony’s Walkman though is an instant access to functions you need (in iRiver defining A point was taking 2-3 keypresses).

Things that I find particularly useful are:
- A-B playback (one keypress to define A, second keypress to define B, third keypress to cancel the selection).
- Skipping backwards - this takes few seconds back into the recording and you can it do multiple times, of course.
- Control over the speed of playback.
- Fast rewind on keypress-and-hold (with slower rewind when the playback is on and faster rewind when the playback is off - good thing for longer recordings).

TheVinster Wrote:I don't post too much here lately but you may remember I made a thread about this time last year detailing my issues in improving listening comprehension. Still it proves a difficult hurdle to overcome. I signed up for N1 again this year and never want to take that miserable test again, so I need to pass it. A few weeks ago I got a new job and currently have a long daily commute to and from work (at least until I move soon). Right now I'm listening to Harry Potter audiobooks to keep me from slowly dying inside. For the first week of my commute I actually listened to some Japanese podcasts. The problem is my mind always wanders when listening to Japanese audio. It's an issue that's difficult to control.

Watch your favorite movies/series dubbed in Japanese.

Just keep taking the test and filling in random answers until you luck out.

momur

Easy to understand videos of a bilingual girl:

http://www.youtube.com/user/cyoshida1231/videos

Be prepared for high speed Japanese here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ARIKEITA113/videos