So I just started the N3 sou-matome listening and I'm doing pretty poorly. Additionally, I don't think that it's making me better - it just kinda feels over my head and frustrating.

I've been reading NHK Easy News for a while now, and it's done wonders for my reading ability. I read the news in English all the time, so this has been a pretty good fit for me.

I'd like to find something similar for listening practice. I'm considering buying a subscription to fluent u. But before doing that I thought that I'd ask here for suggestions.

PS I know that NHK Easy News comes with audio, and I've started listening to that as well. But news articles don't have any dialog, which seems like a big limitation for listening practice.

ariariari Wrote:So I just started the N3 sou-matome listening and I'm doing pretty poorly. Additionally, I don't think that it's making me better - it just kinda feels over my head and frustrating.

I've been reading NHK Easy News for a while now, and it's done wonders for my reading ability. I read the news in English all the time, so this has been a pretty good fit for me.

I'd like to find something similar for listening practice. I'm considering buying a subscription to fluent u. But before doing that I thought that I'd ask here for suggestions.

PS I know that NHK Easy News comes with audio, and I've started listening to that as well. But news articles don't have any dialog, which seems like a big limitation for listening practice.

I know a guy who hires a private tutor for one-on-one speaking/listening practice. I'm beginning to think that's the way to go in order to make progress. I did try listening to the DVD's that come with some of my textbooks but that is just so boring I always give it up. Have you thought of hiring a tutor? I think it's important to practice with a real live person right in front of you as opposed to someone "over the internet" even if they are "live" on a webcam or whatever.

ariariari Wrote:So I just started the N3 sou-matome listening and I'm doing pretty poorly. Additionally, I don't think that it's making me better - it just kinda feels over my head and frustrating.

I've been reading NHK Easy News for a while now, and it's done wonders for my reading ability. I read the news in English all the time, so this has been a pretty good fit for me.

I'd like to find something similar for listening practice. I'm considering buying a subscription to fluent u. But before doing that I thought that I'd ask here for suggestions.

PS I know that NHK Easy News comes with audio, and I've started listening to that as well. But news articles don't have any dialog, which seems like a big limitation for listening practice.

Can you tell what the problem is? If you read the corresponding script in the book, do you understand it? Is it a problem understanding the content, or hearing the divisions between words?

Have you tried reading the passages in 総まとめ first, and then attempting to listen to the clips over a couple of days? That worked well for me at the N3 level.

Definitely recommend iTalki and other 1:1 tutoring resources. Ask your teacher to make your lessons completely in Japanese.

I've been experimenting with FluentU this weekend. I like it a lot; they have a lot of content even at the upper intermediate/advanced level. And I like the tools they've built. I don't think this is any different in kind than what a book like 総まとめ offers. The only differences are that there's more content spread across a wider range of listening ability, and it may well be more interesting (JLPT prep books aren't known for their page-turning storytelling).

Have you considered trying to shadow the conversations in your listening book? Listening and speaking have always been my weakest areas, but in the few weeks since I started shadowing (granted, since I due it on my commute to college, my time spent on it is just over 2 hours, three times a week), my listening ability's sky-rocketed. Dialogues that once seemed ridiculously fast to me are now pretty standard fare, and that's a good feeling.

So, you could either look up a guide on how to shadow (it's not that hard, it just takes some getting used to), or, if you'd like a book dedicated to shadowing specifically, check this out: http://www.amazon.com/Shadowing-Speak-Ja...g+japanese

I've been using the intermediate/advanced version of that, but for N3, the one I linked above should be just right.

nihonpoi Wrote:

ariariari Wrote:So I just started the N3 sou-matome listening and I'm doing pretty poorly. Additionally, I don't think that it's making me better - it just kinda feels over my head and frustrating.

I've been reading NHK Easy News for a while now, and it's done wonders for my reading ability. I read the news in English all the time, so this has been a pretty good fit for me.

I'd like to find something similar for listening practice. I'm considering buying a subscription to fluent u. But before doing that I thought that I'd ask here for suggestions.

PS I know that NHK Easy News comes with audio, and I've started listening to that as well. But news articles don't have any dialog, which seems like a big limitation for listening practice.

Can you tell what the problem is? If you read the corresponding script in the book, do you understand it? Is it a problem understanding the content, or hearing the divisions between words?

Have you tried reading the passages in 総まとめ first, and then attempting to listen to the clips over a couple of days? That worked well for me at the N3 level.

Definitely recommend iTalki and other 1:1 tutoring resources. Ask your teacher to make your lessons completely in Japanese.

I've been experimenting with FluentU this weekend. I like it a lot; they have a lot of content even at the upper intermediate/advanced level. And I like the tools they've built. I don't think this is any different in kind than what a book like 総まとめ offers. The only differences are that there's more content spread across a wider range of listening ability, and it may well be more interesting (JLPT prep books aren't known for their page-turning storytelling).

Lol, yeah, umm ... problem #1 is apparently that I didn't know that the book came with a script.

Totally embarassed now, gonna hide my head in shame for a bit

ariariari Wrote:Lol, yeah, umm ... problem #1 is apparently that I didn't know that the book came with a script.

Totally embarassed now, gonna hide my head in shame for a bit

Bet it now seems a lot more useful than you thought Enjoy!

You can also try Rhinospike website. It's basically a site where you place a body of text in your target language (日本語) and natives will make a recording of themselves reading the said material! I've heard it's a great pairing with lang-8. I might just create an account and first have my old lang-8 entries be read by natives. Maybe I'll become more motivated to write in the damn thing lol xD

Here are some language learning sites talking about uses of Rhinospike

http://www.tofugu.com/2010/04/09/getting...hinospike/
http://www.mezzoguild.com/why-i-love-rhi...and-forvo/

This is something I didn't know Rhinospike featured. Great for people with selective hearing such as myself aka only really hear words they know and tune out the rest.

Quote:It has an excellent feature to request a transcription of an audio file or YouTube video. If you’ve ever watched a foreign language video or listened to a radio segment and haven’t been able to ‘catch’ what’s being said, this is a really useful option to have.

Finally, I found a post for Japanese audio with 2 recordings. Just so you can see what it is exactly about
https://rhinospike.com/audio_requests/arkan/29032/

Adding a link for news in slow japanese. You can listen to the slow version or full speed and there are transcripts. If you're into podcasts like me, you can [url=http://newsinslowjapanese.org/feed/podcast/
]podcast it too[/url].

Another listening resource for casual vernacular is the [url=http://podcast.1242.com/an/index.xml
]anytime andante podcast[/url]. Somebody transcribed the first 10 episodes in both english and japanese so you can follow along.

yogert909 Wrote:Adding a link for news in slow japanese. You can listen to the slow version or full speed and there are transcripts. If you're into podcasts like me, you can [url=http://newsinslowjapanese.org/feed/podcast/
]podcast it too[/url].

Too bad the fast version seems very slow also. I'm looking for something like actual news casts with transcripts in Japanese.

Hi guys,

So I wanted to post a little update here.

Even with the script I am lost with the soumatome N3. Someone above asked me to describe the problem and the truth is I just feel lost. Maybe if we were in person and reviewing it together I could be more articulate about the problem, but via writing on the internet I just can't explain it.

The N3 reading soumatome is really rough for me too. But with a lot of hard work I can now answer some of the questions.

I guess I feel like I might do better with different study materials. Perhaps something that starts out easier, so I could do a little bit every day and not feel like I'm bringing a knife to a gun fight. So I just bought the N３ドリル＆ドリル books, and the N3 kanzen listening.

I also just subscribed to the podcasts that someone recommended.

Between all of the above + fluentu I'm pretty sure that my listening will improve a lot in the 69 days until the exam. Whether it becomes good enough to pass is another question entirely!

I've never taken the JLPT tests but have gone through the study materials through N1. Listening is difficult and something I am working on at the moment. But you are indicating you are having problems reading as well. Did you go over the N3 grammar books already? Also is your vocabulary sufficient for N3 level? If your issue was just listening I would say just focus on that but maybe you need some more work on the fundamentals.

PotbellyPig Wrote:I've never taken the JLPT tests but have gone through the study materials through N1. Listening is difficult and something I am working on at the moment. But you are indicating you are having problems reading as well. Did you go over the N3 grammar books already? Also is your vocabulary sufficient for N3 level? If your issue was just listening I would say just focus on that but maybe you need some more work on the fundamentals.

So this is a fair question. I passed N4 last year with an A on vocabulary and a B on grammar. Since then I've mostly been improving my language knowledge by taking the N3 grammar classes at Japanese Online Institute and using anki. I've also learned vocab thru the kanzen kanji book and the sou-matome vocab book, though I haven't finished either book. I've had steady improvement and with regard to vocab on anki it looks like I have about 1,500 more mature vocab cards now than I did a year ago. I don't know whether I'll be able to pass N3 language knowledge this year, but given that it's only offered once a year, and that I passed N4 last year, I thought that it made sense to try.

Regarding reading, that's improved a ton this year. At the beginning of the year I couldn't read NHK Easy News at all, and at this point I can pretty comfortably handle most of the articles that come out. There's always words I don't know, but it's normally something I can handle.

The JLPT reading is just very different from NHK though. The biggest difference is probably having a well thought out question at the end. Sometimes when I read the articles out loud with my friends I ask them to create a reading-comprehension-style question for me, but they have trouble coming up with good questions that mimic what JLPT throws at you. Honestly, there's probably a business out there for someone to just generate questions based on NHK Easy News articles and fluentu videos.

PotbellyPig Wrote:

yogert909 Wrote:Adding a link for news in slow japanese. You can listen to the slow version or full speed and there are transcripts. If you're into podcasts like me, you can [url=http://newsinslowjapanese.org/feed/podcast/
]podcast it too[/url].

Too bad the fast version seems very slow also. I'm looking for something like actual news casts with transcripts in Japanese.

Try this: http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/videonews

Keyboarder Wrote:

PotbellyPig Wrote:

yogert909 Wrote:Adding a link for news in slow japanese. You can listen to the slow version or full speed and there are transcripts. If you're into podcasts like me, you can [url=http://newsinslowjapanese.org/feed/podcast/
]podcast it too[/url].

Too bad the fast version seems very slow also. I'm looking for something like actual news casts with transcripts in Japanese.

Try this: http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/videonews

That link is not found and redirects me to http://news.yahoo.co.jp/ Is that where you wanted me to look?

As for ariariari, I would suggest getting some N3 grammar study materials and getting up to speed with vocabulary as soon as possible. I think you need around 3500 words or so for N3 if I remember correctly. There may be some decks out there for it.

PotbellyPig Wrote:

Keyboarder Wrote:

PotbellyPig Wrote:Too bad the fast version seems very slow also. I'm looking for something like actual news casts with transcripts in Japanese.

Try this: http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/videonews

That link is not found and redirects me to http://news.yahoo.co.jp/ Is that where you wanted me to look?

Weird, it works on my end. Go then to http://news.yahoo.co.jp and click on 映像 (fourth link from the left right under the search bar) and it should take you to a page where you can choose four TV stations, five categories of news, and a truckload of videos with transcripts. Some last 30 seconds and others, 2 min. or more. Enjoy!

A lot depends on why you are having trouble with hearing. In many cases I think it is because one hasn't internalized the rhythm and real pronunciation of Japanese.

One thing our minds do automatically is "correct" foreign sounds into the nearest similar English sounds (not just pronunciation but also rhythm and intonation). This is actually very useful for hearing English and helps us understand unusual accents and indistinct speech much better than we otherwise could. But it is a big problem when trying to hear non-English. And it really isn't easy to turn this function off.

Shadowing is very good for this. However, a lot of people, myself included, have great difficulty with shadowing. I have actually devised an idiot-proof method of shadowing (necessary for me because I am an idiot). You might find it useful.

The Amenbo no Uta method can also help with this. Both methods are specifically aimed at helping one recognize the sounds and rhythm of Japanese and both involve one's own voice because what we hear is very much tied up with "muscle memory" and what we can produce.

Depending on what it is that is holding back your listening, you might find these approaches helpful.

ariariari mentioned JOI's lessons, which I've never taken but have heard good things about. Additionally, however, they offer free audio blogs with transcripts that you can use to work on your listening comprehension. (I'd go with listen once, then listen while reading in Japanese, then check the English ; but it depends how much tolerance you have for repetition and what works for you.)

Also, Erin's Challenge https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/ provides a bunch of skits and other exercises with Japanese & English translations available as subtitles or scripts.

I used both of those tools, as well as watching videos with Japanese subtitles and reading/listening to the 'Read Real Japanese : Fiction' book and CD. (The non-fiction volume of Read Real Japanese might be more useful for JLPT prep, but passing the JLPT was a side concern, reading fiction and watching shows and movies is much more important to me.)

I don't know why but when I first watched the entire Erin's challenge series (I did this without any subtitles as a gauge/challenge), I was about to relatively follow the story. Much easier to follow with Japanese subs. But when I just hear the audio without visual cues, eh not so much lol

When I watch dramas, I usually get the gist of the plot but lose a lot of specific details. For me, listening is more selective in that I instinctively listen to what I do know. How would I go about trying to instead try to listen to the unfamiliar without it seeming like &^$(^$) nonsense? and @ ari, would this be your problem in your listening skills? If so, I feel your pain

[Edit] for some reason with jrock songs I am able to follow it xD probably due to the fact I play them hundreds (maybe thousands) of times on a daily basis. I just have problem with speech :/