So, this July I'm gonna start WWOOFing in Japan.
I can just lead a simple conversation in skype, but when it comes to slightly specialized words, I get about NOTHING.

Soooo, how can I improove my listening skills in a little time? (I don't care of Kanji, grammar etc etc etc)

I have a social life made up of girlfriend, friends, studying, Judo training... and I DO want to keep it on.
So I can dedicate MAX 1,5-2 hours a day to Japanese.

The only way to improve listening skills is to listen, and it sounds like you've already got the perfect setup for that.

Edit: Unless you mean that none of those things are done in Japanese...

If that's the case, just listen to things... Radio, TV, Podcasts... Whatever.

You say you only have 2 hours a day, but if you listen to podcasts you can do it on the train/car/bus/walking whatever and fill in the cracks.

AJATT church says: listen to Japanese, all the freakin' time.
If you really want to improve your listening skills in such a short time then you really should look for more holes to fill in with Japanese.

So yea, to improve your listening skills aint rocket science. You just need more
You'll have to be creative to squeeze that time in. Not everybody can listen to Japanese 24/7, but you should be able to get in more hours than two a day.

Looks like you just found an excuse to finally get a Japanese girlfriend I am just getting at a decent listening level myself now. I've been at the Japanese thing for about 1 year and 1/2 now. I passed JLPT 3 back in december. I listen to Japanese tv for about 2 hours a day, listen to random podcasts, audiobooks, and anything else I can get a hold of. On top of that my wife is Japanese so I get speaking practice in there too... It'll take time buddy trust me but! Don't despair because I can literally notice myself improving everyday.. Focus on learning a lot of grammar because that definitely helps sort things out from context even if you've never encountered a word before

more vocab would be a massive help so I would learn as many words as possible. Only recognition is fine for listening. And then try to listen to a load of Japanese while you are doing other stuff. i.e podcasts when surfing the net or cooking, music if your hanging out with friends.

Do u know hiragana and katakana?
At the very least you should know them (even if you don't intend to learn kanji).

I memorized them in 1 day. So it's not too hard.

And yes listen to podcasts all day.

Freshverse.com has streaming Japanese tv channels.
Just tune in and leave it running in the background.

Good luck.

jino123 Wrote:Soooo, how can I improove my listening skills in a little time? (I don't care of Kanji, grammar etc etc etc)

Improve listening by acquiring vocabulary.
Improve listening fast by obtaining vocabulary at a rapid pace.
If you want to maximize your listening skills in 2 months, you're going to need more than two hours per day.

If you just want to get the best out of those two hours, use iKnow and study 90+ items per day then move completed items over to anki for maintenance. To give yourself rest you should stop and watch 10-15 of a show every 30 items. Do a few dictation sessions each day as well.

Having a social life and studying at this pace is possible (especially since you haven't mentioned a job). Just make a schedule and keep to it.

I don't know whether to laugh at your associating study with hikikomori or raise an eyebrow.

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People have told me many times that the first book is amazing. I haven't used it though.

Hi everyone, thanks for your replies...
First of all, I'm not an absolute beginner at all... I learnt hiragana and katakana centuries ago (learn them all in 1 day is something well beyond my immagination, though XDD) ... And all the RTKlite Kanjis (I'm currently SLOWLY doing KO2001, but I think I'll dump it, since I'll need to speak and most important to understand... I'll think again about my writing skills when I'll come back)

So,
-first of all, I'll temporary replace all the music in my mp3 player with podcasts etc etc, and I will try to listen to it again and again when I'm out.
-Everytime I'll turn on my PC I'll listen passively some TV channels
-I'll watch some drama (Do you think it is better to watching it with subtitles or without it?)
-I'll try to do more conversation in Skype with my japanese friends


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I found it http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/...16748.html in mediafire!!

Perfect perfect... I'll add the audio files in my mp3 player!!

jino123 Wrote:-I'll watch some drama (Do you think it is better to watching it with subtitles or without it?)

If you understand even half of it, do it without subtitles.

In your case... It might be better without subtitles no matter what, though, since you're training listening skills.

What really helped me was listening to dramas I understood at almost near 100% comprehension on a sentence by sentence level.

The only way I pulled that off was running a drama through subs2srs and figuring it out line by line. Anki could then ensure my comprehension stayed at near 100%. That hour of drama then became the perfect listening aid. Doing this to just two or three dramas made listening to other dramas (or anything in Japanese) so much more easier that it defies description.

oh wow!
I didn't know it! subs2srs is simply amazing!
I'm going to dump all that boring stuff of KO2001 forever!

Thanks thanks thanks

There is a dorama about "farm life" XD
So it would be perfect for me... But I don't know where I can find Japanese subs, and even if Japanese subs exist ...
Any idea? The title of the drama is "Ushi ni Negai wo: Love & Farm"

Jino, be wary about dumping your KO2001 deck. I use subs2srs to train my listening. However, I use Tae Kim/Kanzen master to train my grammar comprehension and Core2k/6k to train my vocabulary (KO2001 is in this area). By doing divide and conquer in each area, I think I'm getting better overall than just sticking to one thing.

I don't know of any subs for your drama. I "acquired" many subtitled dramas these last 6 weeks. and I don't recall seeing that anywhere.

http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/subtitles.php#Japanese

This is where I find the majority of Japanese subs I use. You could also try searching the nether regions of the internet. I managed to find subs on one obscure movie doing this.

Nukemarine Wrote:What really helped me was listening to dramas I understood at almost near 100% comprehension on a sentence by sentence level.

The only way I pulled that off was running a drama through subs2srs and figuring it out line by line. Anki could then ensure my comprehension stayed at near 100%. That hour of drama then became the perfect listening aid. Doing this to just two or three dramas made listening to other dramas (or anything in Japanese) so much more easier that it defies description.

I'm going to start using subs2rs soon, mind telling me how do your sentences for drama decks?

I assume you re-read what was been heard, try to understand/decode, and write out any kanji that you have difficulty with or so?
I've been experimenting around with my production deck lately(kana to kanji) I personally find this awesome, you can recall the kanji easily without much effort actually. But it is time consuming. But the results are far better than the process(this time around...)

every time i say to myself that i want to use subs2rs I cant ever figure out the dern thing. Nukemarine, could you upload some premade decks to the shared decks inside Anki?

Edit: maybe this should be the next big Group project that we all need?

Hashiriya Wrote:every time i say to myself that i want to use subs2rs I cant ever figure out the dern thing. Nukemarine, could you upload some premade decks to the shared decks inside Anki?

Edit: maybe this should be the next big Group project that we all need?

same, I would appreciate this as well.

**Edit: Wait, Hashiriya, did you mean you could not figure out how to create decks using the program? If so, ignore this whole reply**

My deck is set up as: Notes (I put the card identifier here such as "Toki_Wo_Kakeru_Shoujo 0356" which is the 356 card of the Toki movie; Audio (I use a 500ms buffer); Image (standard 240x136 image); Expression (Actual subtitled sentence, I use "Expression" as you need that term to create the furigana in the reading field; Reading (furigana of the Expression field); Definitions (put anything that'll help me figure out the sentence that I don't already know. Usually it's J-E definitions but it can also be J-J or even sample sentences from my Kodansha dictionary).

The review is set-up:

Q: Image, Audio, Expression
A: Audio, Furigana, Definitions

Here's how I do it

Initial Review - If I can understand/repeat out loud a new card 100% just by listening to it, I delete it. I look up definitions/sample sentences for parts of the expression I don't understand. With Kodansha, there are many sample sentences with translations to help out where definitions would not help (usually on figures of speech). In addition, if some cards read better when combined, then I combine them at this time (copy stuff over then delete one of them).

Regular Review - I try to listen to the card first, if I can't figure it out then I read the sentence expession. Either way, I read the expression out loud. On the answer I read the sentence while the audio plays again. I then try to say the expression out loud without reading if I can.

Although I want to be able to understand the card just by listening, I don't mark it wrong because of that. I mark the card difficult if I cannot read properly (mispronounced a word). I mark the card wrong if I don't know the meaning of anything in it or misunderstand a phrase in the sentence. If I think the card has become too easy, I pause it for deletion later.

Really that's it. I don't write out or type out anything. It's simulating watching a show with subtitles on a sentence by sentence basis if you think about it. As such, when you watch the show in its entirety after do this it all makes near 100% sense. The by-product turned out to be an enormous boost to listening and speaking ability if you happened to listen to the show a lot on your iPod.

I could post a sample deck, but it literally would not help anyone but me. My deck is designed based on my current level in Japanese. As time goes on, stuff that becomes simple gets deleted and I'm adding more shows. More and more definitions become J-J. Plus, they're shows that I like.

thanks for the info. I use the same format for my sentence deck.
So for subs2rs i'll use the same format, but to train my listening skills.

jino123,
I just bought 4 listening comprehension books and I will update you of my impressions if you would like.

gyuujuice Wrote:jino123,
I just bought 4 listening comprehension books and I will update you of my impressions if you would like.

Even if he doesn't, I'd like to know your thoughts on them.

You could also use VLC to record the lessons from here:

http://www.nhk.or.jp/kokokoza/library/index.html

I'd try to avoid the maths.

gyuujuice Wrote:http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/...16739.html
...
People have told me many times that the first book is amazing. I haven't used it though.

Here's something similar, for free:

http://japaneselistening.blogspot.com/

does anyone know why the links on this site aren't working?
http://rtk.wikia.com/wiki/Subs2SRS
i can't download any of the rapidspread files