Hey everyone. Anyone use JapanesePod101? I really wanted some more listening practice so I tried it out, and it almost seems like great practice, but a few things aren't working for me.

The main problem is the amount of English they use. It seems like they over-explain everything, and, even worse, all the chitchat (which could be great listening practice in Japanese) is in English. I moved on to the lower intermediate lessons and after one or two in which they chatted in Japanese (getting my hopes up) it went right back to the heavy English, with a few Japanese words thrown in here and there. It's kind of amazing to me what a high percentage of almost every 10-20 minute lesson is in English.

Also, I kind of wonder about their choice of words and expressions at times. It seems like they're just trying too hard to make the conversations funny or interesting. They even sometimes use seemingly obscure/metaphorical expressions or words and then, in the explanation, say something like, "But this expression is really strong! You NEVER want to use this one!" or "That's a pretty odd thing to say, huh? We're gonna have to talk to our writers! Haha!" But if a lot of conversations have this kind of stuff, and then they spend a minute laughing about it, it seems like kind of a waste of time.

So... has anyone listened to more of these? Does it get better? Most importantly, does it start using only/mostly Japanese at some point? While I find a lot of the style and quirks of it kind of annoying, I think I could stand it if it were mostly in Japanese.

On the other hand, has anyone found listening practice alternatives? I get lots of listening in with the TV, but it would be great to have something while I'm running, traveling, etc. I do plan to start listening to audiobooks and Japanese language podcasts, but I thought it might still be useful to do this style of learning podcast as well.

Thanks for any suggestions/info!

For more listening, just refer to the stickied podcast thread at the top of this forum.

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5572

I agree with a few people there when I say that Hotcast is actually quite good. Can I understand it? Not really, but the Japanese is clear and concise while still real.

http://www.voiceblog.jp/hotcast/

Forgive my lack of BBC code.

The 'upper intermediate' set of lessons has a much better ratio of Japanese to English, but is rather unfortunately limited. Still, I've used Jpod101's upper intermediate series, and at a lesson a day it's still a couple months or so of study.

It helps to also download (if you are a paid subscriber) the 'dialogue' tracks, so that you can listen to just the example dialogue many more times than you listen to the explanatory discussion. Perhaps the vocabulary tracks have value too, though I'd just as soon put words or sentences into Anki. With a little effort, of course, you can edit the files, they are just Mp3s, and then make your own vocabulary and/or dialogue files.

The 'advanced' Jpod101 lessons are more or less voice blogs with discussion in Japanese before and after about the voice blog, and are really only 'lessons' at all if you are a paid subscriber and can access the lesson notes and other tools.

Also, I don't recall encountering them saying any expression was too weird or unusual to be worth learning, but there are a number of times they say something is very strong and you shouldn't use it. Of course, that means 'don't use this expression unless you are trying to start a fight', essentially, but if you like any kind of stories with any amount of action in them, you will need to -know- those expression even if you never encounter them in real life. (I sincerely hope you never meet someone saying 「この野郎、死ね！」)

(And why the heck can't I switch to hiragana entry mode now? Is Norton blocking my IME? Hmmmm..... will have to look at this. A-hah! A reboot fixed it. !#@* Windows... )

I used to listen to JapanesePod 101 when I was first learning but I soon gave up on it for the same reasons you are talking about. Once I got to a decent level it really didn't help much, and Peter's accent when he speaks Japanese annoys me :|

Don't get me wrong, it's not too bad and plus you can download all the podcasts for free, but I think you are better off studying the grammar yourself and listening to native level podcasts like people have said.

The english in the Intermediate series fades but never entirely goes away. I went back and listened to the first episode again recently and was stunned by how much english is in it. They definitely toned it down in the later parts of that series. And much more of the banter is in japanese later on.

But the point of JPod101 isn't to be a japanese-only podcast (although their Advanced series is exactly that), it's an audio-only japanese lesson. So just like the argument that J->E dictionaries have their place, so does the english in their lessons. The amount of it drops off as you go up the levels, but if they can't explain what they're trying to explain in japanese, they'll resort to english.

Peter's accent is quite annoying. Not so much the accent actually as outright mispronunciation of words (wrong kana). His involvement seems to have dropped off though. I mean, he voiced one of the characters in the Intermediate series but they killed it off after like 3 episodes lol.

Edit: If you find it quirky or annoying, imho, don't bother. The non-serious style is pretty much the norm. Personally, i like it. I listen to them when exercising and don't really focus too hard.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

Hmmm... maybe I should just switch to actual Japanese language podcasts now, and not worry about understanding everything. I'll check out that main podcast post.

For some reason, I felt like I should have some kind of listening lessons (with repeats and some explanations) as part of my study diet, but maybe that's not necessary. But I rarely encounter new grammar in Japanesepod and it's not really a good way for me to learn vocabulary, so maybe just pure listening practice with normal podcasts is the way to go.

Thanks again!

The upper intermediate ones are definitely better in terms of Japanese content. Also the hosts' Japanese sounds a lot more natural than Peter's, which tends to prevent the random chat from ending up in English.

Between the English, Peter's accent in both Japanese and English, and the content itself I gave up on it after like 3 episodes. It's just not worth it. I find JLPT listening drill books or other listening drill books to do a much better job at being a kind of graded listener. Usually the exercises or chapters will have helpful themes like "the supermarket" or "the body," and give you a list of new vocab words to study at the same time as working listening.

That's what helped my listening a lot. Though, what also helped my listening was listening to a lot of Japanese between video games, drama, real life, etc.

I started using JapanesePod101 about a month ago and think it's great.

Specifically, the dialogs. There is a huge amount of material at various learner-appropriate levels of difficulty with Japanese transcripts in multiple alphabets and English translations. There are also vocab and grammar points with each lesson.

The reason people thinks the whole thing sucks is that the lessons themselves (everything except the 2 minute dialog) are corny and slow moving. (Basically each lesson is 20 minutes long. There is a 2 minute dialog and 18 minutes of (mostly English) tedium. (I just listen to the dialog.))

Personally, it is exactly what I have been looking for (and what I think Krashen prescribed): tons of japanese material I can (almost understand).

You do have to subscribe to the level where you get access to the raw dialog tracks and pdfs to make it worthwhile, but personally I am finding it well worth it.

Yeah, the dialogs are great. The lessons are pretty much optional if you can't understand the dialogs. That said, I found some useful stuff when I was first starting out in Japanese from the early survival phrases and the beginner stuff... especially the stuff about how to use taxis, use the trains, subways, and buses, etc.

It was pretty helpful even though there was a lot of English. It saved me from wandering around JR Shinjuku like a ragged ghost trying to figure out what do to next, and it helped me figure out what to do with the paper tickets you get on some of the buses.

But the only stuff I can listen to now are the Upper Intermediate Lessons, and they killed that series. (No new episodes.) Lower Intermediate and Advanced are the only two "upper level" series that they have going now... and neither one really does much for me. :\ I can get the Advanced material from real JP podcasts, and the stuff in the Lower Intermediate lessons just doesn't do it for me.

If only ことばのおじさん had a podcast! ;_;