As a language learner myself with a long history of learning English and now a recently started journey with Spanish, I was really helped with all the sea of content on the web, LingQ included for sure.
Spanish is a relatively easy language to find resources on the internet, not only those intended for Spanish learners but also for native speakers.
I always wonder what it looks like for Japanese. My native language is Japanese, and because I’m not actively looking for Japanese learning content I’m not sure what kind of content is available for Japanese learners. I know many people learn Japanese through anime or manga, but I’m not sure if the language in manga and anime could be very helpful for Japanese learners in terms of formality and naturalness. Sometimes the language used in manga or anime is not quite what we actually talk, and some of the words can be very rude if you use it in daily conversation.
Since I was able to learn so much from YouTube, podcast, reading materials from books to personal blogs to learn languages, I started thinking if I can make myself useful for Japanese learners as well. In this case, by creating reading/listening content in Japanese.
I personally don’t like the kind of content where people are talking to you if you are a baby, even when I have only the beginner level of language proficiency. To be able to read more natural, down-to-earth content is a great motivation for me to learn languages. And I would like to contribute in such a way.
In a nutshell, what kind of content do you wish to have in Japanese? And what kind of content are you currently using as a source of reading or listening.
I’m looking forward to hearing from many people who are interested in learning Japanese!
4 Likes
Hi,
I’m probably not representative of the folks studying Japanese here, but it seems like there is room for podcast or youtube content using more accessible language, perhaps targeting intermediate level learners.
In Spanish it seems that there are many interesting and accessible podcasts/YouTube Channels that I can enjoy even with my level (B2). There are the language learning focused ones like How to Spanish, No Hay Tos, Españolistos, Español con Juan, Aprende Mexico, Dreaming Spanish, etc. There is also much native oriented content that is accessible to intermediate learners like El hilo, Bully Magnets, Hemisphero Derecho, Alan X el mundo, Lethal Crysis, Jorge De León, etc.
I’m not sure how much comparable content there is in Japanese.
Of the Japanese podcasts I listen to, I think the Bilingual News podcast could be a great listen to those studying Japanese. Others I listen to seem like they’d be really challenging (あんまり役に立たない日本史, 格闘キャスト, 今朝の三枚おろし, 歴史を面白く学ぶコテンラジオ) unless you already Japanese very well.
It seems like there would be room for a broad range of content like the Spanish ones in Japanese.
あくまでも一意見なので、参考までに
1 Like
Great topic! Thank you! I’m too am probably not the typical Japanese learner, I don’t care about manga, anime or food. So, a lot of the Japanese content (designed for learning) I see on lingq and youtube isn’t really interesting to me. The content I find the most helpful to learning is the stuff about daily life/routines. 50 Verbs to Describe Your Day is one of my favorite videos. I also like real interaction videos, a real person buying something at a real store, or ordering at a real restaurant, etc… There’s real dialogue, but the situation tends to be more formal. Conversations videos or transcripts of conversations between friends can become ‘too casual’ and difficult for me to follow.
Like others have mentioned, I like to consume content about things I’m interested in. I follow youtube channels (in Japanese) about woodworking, trains, recording music and baseball. The ‘automatic transcript’ feature here on lingq is great… to a point… but isn’t always accurate. There’s a big difference between ‘gouhan’ and ‘gohan’… and the auto transcript can’t always make that distinction.
Anyway, that’s my 2yen worth.
こんにちは。私は日本人ですが、お勧めの番組はありません。
それは日本語の文法は多言語と全く違い、文法そのものが話す日本人で変わるからです。
アニメを日本語学習の手本にする方も多いですが、一人称だけでも実際には使わないものが多いです。
日本人と知り合って習得するのが早いと思います。
私は日本語以外は全くできません。
なのでここで学び始めました。学んでる言語はフランス語です。
Hello. I am Japanese, but I don’t have any recommended programs. That’s because Japanese grammar is very different from other languages, and it even varies among Japanese speakers themselves. Many people use anime as a model for learning Japanese, but in reality, many expressions used in anime are not commonly used in real life, even in first-person speech.
I think it’s faster to learn by getting to know Japanese people. I can’t speak any language other than Japanese, so I started learning here. The language I’m learning is French.