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July 18, 2006

Japanese Tidbits for Your Listening Enjoyment

(Let's see if I can get through this without deleting it again. That's extremely irritating.)

Thanks to the internet and mp3s, today it's easier than ever to listen to the sounds of spoken Japanese (unless you live in a household where it's spoken). Here are some fun sources for improving your language and your listening ability.

1. Tae Kim, author of Tae Kim's Japanese Guide to Japanese Grammar, has taken on the task of teaching beginner lessons in Japanese using Skype and a few random volunteers. The first few lessons are bare basic Japanese but worth hearing for Tae's strict insistence on proper tonality, something rarely or barely covered by most books and teachers.

2. J-Edutainment: Japanese Vocabulary over beats is a pretty simple concept: lists of vocabulary spoken over background music. Sure, vocabulary acquisition and review are tedious work, but this is far more interesting than staring at a printed vocabulary list. I'm going to take these along on my dog walks and see if I can use my useless superpower to nail these in. I also like the inclusion of the -te forms in the verb lists: I think that the -te forms are best memorized along with the verbs and their meanings rather than constructed when speaking. So far there are only 5 of these, but I hope to see more in the future.

3. Nihongo-Juku is aimed at intermediate to advanced learners and provides short texts with audio and vocabulary lists for practice in reading and listening together.

4. Osaka Dialect is somewhat similar, but contains English along with a taste of Osaka dialect.

5. NHK Radio News provides downloadable mp3 broadcasts at normal (ふつう), slow (ゆっくり) and fast (はやい) speeds. Yomiuri Online provides a single broadcast at normal speed.

There. That should keep you busy for a minute or two.

Permalink | Posted by Joe at July 18, 2006 02:44 PM

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