I believe this to be my first post on a forum, so be gentle So, where to begin? Well, tomorrow is the JLPT and I just miserably FAILED the listening portion of a practice test. I signed up for the N4 and the audio for the old level 3 tests (which they say is a fair estimate of how well you'll do on the N4) just kicked my butt. If you asking yourself why the night before I'm asking for help, it's simply because I underestimated the difficulty of the listening section. I need both short term and long term advice on HOW to listen to Japanese. With all due respect to those who would reach out to help and give advice, I would prefer that answers not resemble "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" I know deep down that I should have listened more, but I genuinely believe there is a correct way to listen, and I never hit upon it. When you're not good at something you're loathe to do it, and I have little love for listening no matter the media.

Studying specifically for the test seemed perverse to say the least as it would not be a gauge of how well I actually know the language. However, I have recently been through a vocab list and know that I know all of it. I compensated with LOTS of Anki and consequently I rule at grammar and vocabulary, and can read with the best of them. Everyday for the 100 days leading up to the test I did 25 new sentences a day which were a mix of A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, core 2000, and core 6000. In the 8 months to the day (today) I have been studying sentences, Anki says I have cashed 361 hours and 17 minutes, and since the timer in Anki stops counting time spent on a card after 1 minute, it could be double that for all I know. I say none of this to brag, I just want any who wish to proffer advice to know EXACTLY where I am at with my studies. Here is a link to my deck statistics: http://i54.tinypic.com/1zyuat5.png

Thank you to both those who can find time to chime in about what to do at the 11th hour as well any having advice on how to listen in the long term!

-トラビス

"I have little love for listening no matter the media." That's not the way to start.

Looking at your progress you have a great start, the first step to better listening is to have a large vocabulary. *marks a green check*

Secondly you need to have a understanding of the grammar used.

Now this is where it get's tricky for those at N5-N4 level: often it is hard to understand the sentence if they use a word in a different conjugation than memorized. For example, "食べました" is easy to understand when spoken but can you recognize, "食べ過ぎないでください！"? The grammar may be easy an understood when written but it can be tricky to "catch" until you hear the words used in different forms as such.

Of course the more you listen to Japanese the better you get naturally. So finding Japanese music/movies/anything that interests you like JRPGs to StarCraft. You are studying a language to use it (hopefully) so there should be something of interest to you. I talked to myself a lot when I learned Japanese a year back. Yes I sounded silly but I got lots of practice and I think it helped me catch some of those expressions.

If you can get 19 points in the listening and good scores on the writing/grammar then you can still pass. がんばってください！

Wow, thank you for your quick reply. I would have replied sooner but I am a slave to Anki. I should rather like to expound on your advice but for the present I have to rush off to bed, as a good night sleep is half the battle on the eve of a big event. I hope when I wake up it will be like Christmas come early with all the replies because I am going to need all the advice I can get!

I also have a lot of difficulty as a beginning language learner when it comes to listening comprehension. You need to be very familiar and comfortable with a language before you can listen and comprehend it. I recommend you not just memorize single words, but absolutely always use them in the form of a sentence. You may or may not memorize the sentence, but you will grow more familiar with the language's structure. Since Japanese is a S-O-V language, it's very difficult for English learners to catch on to the spoken word. At least with reading you can take your time and review it.

Dramas and movies are helpful over time, but saying aloud sentences is the best way. I also recommend you read passages in Japanese, and write passages yourself, perhaps in the form of a blog. Lang-8 is a good site for writing foreign language blogs.

I wish you the best of luck (and skill) tomorrow.

AJATT thing on 10,000 hours of listening
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...tences-why

in other words listen to more Japanese. Done deal.

On mobile so short:

Get music listen for 2-4 weeks. Build 'hearing ability'.
Get podcasts listen for vocab words. Later listen for phrases. After sentences, etc.
During all this listen for gaps between words + sentence ends.

Works for me.