I started listening passively to Japanese at work about a month ago and think it's a great idea. I'm an editor in an English-speaking newsroom, so I have to focus on English very closely on the job. There is often English conversation around me - sometimes I listen to it, sometimes ignore it - depending on how important it is and how busy I am at that moment. By having a set of headphones on with Japanese playing softly - not loud enough to block out the boss' voice if he calls me - I can change that exterior environment to a Japanese one. Sometimes I'm too focused on an immediate task to listen, so it fades into the background. At other times, if I am working on a photograph, or a page design, I can listen to the words without them affecting my work.

Anyone who has lived in other countries can understand the effect being surrounded by a foreign language has on the ability to learn it. Passive listening with headphones does something similar - it changes your linguistic environment - and the brain seems to be pick something up, even if you're not consciously working at it.

If you can do it without it affecting your work, I say go for it.

I think the answer to whether or not passive listening is very worthwhile depends on three factors:

1.  Current skill level
2.  Complexity of the audio
3.  Whether you are repeating the same audio or listening to streaming sources instead.

I try to listen passively to about a half hour of  Japanese audio every day.  It doesnt seem to help me learn much at all, but it seems to strengthen the understanding of vocab and grammar that I already have.  It is good to hear what you already know from academic sources in the context of real Japanese spoken by real people.  However, it can also be incredibly frustrating to realize how much you still don't know and, for me, the process can be headache-inducing. 

Passive listening still yields the least results compared to everything else in my study regiment.  As your skill level increases, passive listening will probably become more and more helpful until you can finally even start to guess the meaning of some words.  Pimsleur should be fine for you because it is structured and because the English portions ensure that you won't be flying blindly.  Japanesepod101 is a decent podcast with multiple skill levels.

Last edited by Dragg (2008 July 20, 2:57 pm)

I listen to fairy tales on an MP3 player :0
There's a list of a lot of free material http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=804

DanielC wrote:

How do you guys listen to these? I mean, what medium do you use? An mp3 player?

I have a 4gb sansa clip loaded with audio ripped from shows I've seen, podcasts, etc. that I carry around with me always.
When I'm on the computer I use that.

Oh man, I can't imagine that. Listening with headphones gives me migraines. Makes me sad.