I'm having a really hard time finding Japanese audio that is of the conversational type, real Nihon-jin speaking in a spontaneous way. I'm getting tired of listening to news broadcasts, and even watching videos, because everything is scripted, clean. I'm missing the humanistic side to everything. I want to hear real conversation.

I was thinking that radio talk shows would be a good place to begin, but I'm having no luck finding anything. I've been searching on the web and through links previously posted on this forum, and I either find myself lost trying to decipher a Japanese site or the links are bogus.

Any help?

Get KeyholeTV. It's made for watching Japanese TV but there are several radio stations as well.

I'm hoping more people will start making 'sound walks' in Japan, akin to Tokyo Realtime or Sarah Peebles' "Walking through Tokyo..."

Other sources might be documentaries such as by Kazuhiro Soda. You can find his documentary Campaign online in full. He aims for 'Direct Cinema' style realism. I hope there's more documentaries like that.

There's also, as Tobberoth mentioned, radio stuff, not to mention off the cuff interviews or little video blogs that people make. Since often those who make such videos or get interviewed are well known, you could probably even find some with subtitles. I'm thinking of people like Japanese voice actors such as Romi Paku, or actors such as Ikuta Toma--I think a lot of media people in Japan cross-pollinate, as it were, and do a lot of diverse works that would allow one to pick up different types of unscripted, low-key dialogue. No links because I'm lazy, but I'm sure there's plenty, even on YouTube, it's just not as neatly packaged and presented so that's why I still complain and speculate about the need for more unscripted, contextually genuine stuff (ie not tailor made to be recorded and distributed).

just go to jp.youtube.com
and just keep browsing/searching around till you find the japanese shows you like.

I 'm with you on listening to that type of Japanese.. .and I get it from youtube...

I don't recommend keyhole b.c. the quality is shit. the audio quality too... it's juts not worth it in my opinion to listening to such low quality. unbearablle ( i'm not an audiophile it just is low)

you mean like this? like natural japanese where they talk mad fast/mumbly/etc.

(mad funny video)

( this is mad funny too)

( tomo chika!)

( tomochika <3)

　
（柳原）

(they're comedy duo - don't like 'em theat much presonally but this vid is cute/funny)

　
（I don't know if it's patr 1 or 2 With the 裸　Thing）

　
（Not as much talking but mad funny)

Love My showa x heisei）：　All the good eps/clips are gone on youtube tho..
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/uNjVdDPVr6Y/
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/nmS3zgq0jLA/
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/Y748jK4cGfY/　
（I don't know most of these animals...)
some of these are obviously scripted in a way but like what the way they talk isn't like.. in a drama etc.

do you even like the japanese you're listening to? i mean you should listen to stuff you like. For me I listento music when i'm not on computer and listen to youtube when i'm on the computer. Or watch then listen or listen a bunch of times then watch. It all depends on how much I want to understand the video.

honestly there's some types of Japanese I hate listening to (yelling - ie 90% of comedians/those voices that just sound annoying/old men (usually)), but I also found japanese i like to listen to.
===
by watching jp.youtube (stuff I like) I get to find about some interesting/famous japanese people, japanese culture, etc. There's juts mad funny stuff in there too...

I don't think this was the kind of stuff he was looking for, thanks for the links though. Watching the first one now, certainly fun stuff

What about all those podcasts out there? Most are not scripted.

Make Japanese friends. If you can't find any, use Skype or Mixi.

But what if you STILL can't make any because you have all the social graces of a sun-baked troll? :o

Then you will never need productive Japanese skills anyways. Focus on comprehension.

TBS Life Radio. Radio talk show - a group of 20 somethings talking about culture, media, etc.

I've linked you a list of past topics (going back to oct 2006). Each theme has 4-5 shows (30 minute mp3 downloads) so there's a chance to hear new vocabulary repeated. It's nice having a longer (2 hr) program to listen to while on planes, etc. There's RSS and iTunes feed. The mp3 downloads are located with the description of each show.

There's a moderator, but the conversation is free and unscripted. They interview invited guests and read email questions from listeners. It has its silly moments, but on the whole there's more substance than most stuff and some topics are quite interesting. You can read about the topics (useful as vocab/comprehension aid) and the hosts (and their respective projects) on the site.

Hey, good point! Thanks for the tip!


More seriously, thanks to howtosavealif3 for the links. They're interesting.

http://www.voiceblog.jp/japaneselistening/

Conversations in Japanese that have been transcribed~

Try this podcast, Its from a radio show broadcast every saturday and it features guests talking about just about anything. Genuine Japanese meant for japanese listeners.
Unfortunately, there's no transcripts though.

http://www.tfm.co.jp/podcasts/avanti/

Nuriko Wrote:http://www.voiceblog.jp/japaneselistening/

Conversations in Japanese that have been transcribed~

That's the site I was trying to remember and suggest!

This whole site is just users' audio blogs. I found a few a while back that were entertaining, even though I didn't understand hardly a word. It's not exactly 'spontaneous', but it's pretty close... Some of them obviously give no thought whatsoever to what they're going to record.

Thanks for the links! This is more along the lines of what I am looking for.

hmm i'm not sure if these white peopl's japanes eis good and they just have accent. i would guess that's the case they are on the show where thy talk abt politics or whatever. accents are pretty ~~`

These podcasts are like listening to a radio program, and they are directed to a Japanese audience.

眞鍋かをりのTokio Local
This podcast features 3 young people talking about all sort of things -mostly trivial things like your ideal valentine or diets... It won't change your life, but it's fun.

情熱大陸＋p
情熱大陸＋p is a television program that is aired weekly -if somebody knows a way to watch it online, please show me. After each program, they release a podcast about in some way related to the topic of that week's program. This one is much easier to understand and includes a full transcription for all the audios.

Japanese Ball Players
If you like baseball.

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:

Nice! This is the first time I've seen and heard non-native fluency. It's kind of weird....

damichan Wrote:

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:

Nice! This is the first time I've seen and heard non-native fluency. It's kind of weird....

I don't get how it's even possible to have such awful pronunciation while otherwise being fluent in the language. Surely in the period of learning a language to fluency you'd pick up semi-decent pronunciation? That second guy's pronunciation sounded like that of a typical gaijin tourist who only knows the phrase "SO DESS NAY".

Paludis Wrote:Surely in the period of learning a language to fluency you'd pick up semi-decent pronunciation? That second guy's pronunciation sounded like that of a typical gaijin tourist who only knows the phrase "SO DESS NAY".

It's all about how you spend your time. I'm afraid I'm going to be just as bad. I'm very much concerned with reading manga, watching anime, and playing games... Nowhere in there is practice speaking. I'm going to suck at it.

And yes, I realize this ahead of time and I'm still doing nothing about it. It's simply not fun for me and would kill my buzz. So I'm not doing it.

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:

hmm i'm not sure if these white peopl's japanes eis good and they just have accent. i would guess that's the case they are on the show where thy talk abt politics or whatever. accents are pretty ~~`

he's like the guy above except his accent is better....

Nuriko Wrote:http://www.voiceblog.jp/japaneselistening/

Conversations in Japanese that have been transcribed~

Great link, thanks !