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Are you struggling to keep up with spoken Japanese?

Many learners want to understand spoken Japanese but find it difficult.

In this post, I show you the easiest way to follow spoken Japanese.

Have you ever had this kind of experience?

When you listen to Japanese audio material, you bump into an unfamiliar word.

“What is this? What does it mean?”

While you are thinking about the word, you lose track.

But here is the good news.

You can improve your Japanese listening skill.

What is needed to listen to spoken Japanese well?

The answer is, You need to follow the speech speed.

Once you listen to a first word, it disappears, and the following word comes and goes, and the next word appears and goes.

You cannot stop audio and examine what is going on.

It is scary.

That’s why When you listen to Japanese, you feel anxious that you might not understand the meaning.

Once you listen to an unfamiliar word, your fear is realized.

“Oh, I cannot understand!”

Your brain is trapped by the particular word at that moment and tries hard to process the meaning.

While your brain is working hard to recall the word’s meaning, the speech is going on and on.

And when you realize, you are off the track.

To listen to spoken Japanese well, You need to develop the skill to follow the speed of spoken Japanese.

No time to stop.

But How?

The easy method to improve your listening skill.

[Hint] It is counter-intuitive.

To keep up with spoken Japanese, you need to get used to the speed.

The better way to do it, listen to faster spoken Japanese.

What?

Because if you listen to faster spoken Japanese, you can train your brain to keep pace with the speed.

Let me show you exactly how you should do.

The Easy Step to Listen to Japanese better

1. Get a recording of spoken Japanese.

It may be a movie, news, or audio of your Japanese textbook.

Make sure you can control the speed of audio. YouTube or podcasts may be easier to handle.

2. Change the speed setting to 1.5 times.

Yes, it’s much faster than average speed.

3. Listen to the audio.

How do you find it? It’s fast.

No worry, even if you cannot get any word.

At this stage, you don’t have to understand the meaning.

4. Change the speed setting to Normal.

Listen to the audio.

Surprise, surprise. Your brain feels it SLOW!

You are more relaxed when listening to the recording.

You may find it much easier to keep up listening and understand the details.

You trick your brain!

Recap: To keep up with spoken Japanese successfully

It is counter-intuitive, but if you want to listen to spoken Japanese better,

make audio faster, listen through.

Your brain works hard to process the information with the faster speed.

Then, change the speed to Normal and listen again.

Now your brain feels, “oh, it’s slow!” and keep up the information much better.

Trick your brain and improve your Japanese listening skills!

If you’d like, use unit 1 of this podcast.

You can access lots of listening materials.

You can also download the scripts and translation so you can check how accurately you understand it.

Please click HERE to learn more!

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Asuka

Asuka sensei is an award-winning Japanese Educator, Psychologist, and Amazon #1 Author. She teaches the authentic Japanese language and culture and provides interactive, easy-to-follow lessons in various places, including the University of Southampton, UK.