Developing listening skill when self-studying Japanese
Developing listening skill when self-studying Japanese : Understanding is really important in conversations. If you can’t hear the other clearly, or can hear clearly but unable to understand what they are trying to express. The conversation will then become broken and incoherent, sometimes even leads to misunderstanding.
To people who are currently learning another language, bad listening skill will make you feel self-conscious when communicating, which hinders you from utilizing your language abilities. That’s the reason why developing listening skill is the crux to learn any language.
In this article, Learn Japanese daily would like to introduce to you ways of developing listening skills when self-studying Japanese.
Contents
Starting listening from the basic level
When starting self-studying Japanese, you must learn to get used to the sound of each character in the Japanese writing systems (Hiragana and Katakana). In this step, you have to listen to the characters in Minna No Nihongo book multiple times, till you can be able to distinguish the sounds. Listen and repeat to compare your own sound to the original one. You can then go on Youtube, listen and sing along Japanese songs.
Once you have gotten used to the sound, listen to lessons in books multiple times, till you can get the idea of which part is currently being played. This is going to help you train your ears to get used to Japanese sounds, and recognize the sound in sentences and dialog.
Listen to listening books
Once you have taken several lessons in Mina No Nihongo, you can start practising listening with some basic listening books.
For example: Mainichi kikitori.
Try listening once or twice and see where you are at. After that, review the tapescript to trace out which parts you didn’t get, if there is any new words, note down and memorize. When you finally get the idea of the whole lesson, listen again once or twice and move on to next lessons.
Listen repeatedly
After a while (Over a week), listen to the lessons or songs again, it will help reacquaint yourself with the words and respond better with the sound.. When you listen to a word repeatedly for so many times, you will grasp the word easily, and even, understand the whole conversation.
Listening repeatedly to a song is not only an easy but also an interesting way to learn.
Watch movies, dramas…
When you have had practised listening for a while, you can start practising through movies and dramas.
For example: Doraemon…
Short movies are recommended. When listening, watch it without the subtitles, then try to guess the content based on how much you can grasp. Go over it again, this time with subtitles to check, if there are new words, note them down.
While watching, if you find something interesting/noteworthy, imitate the speakers. This helps you not only with your pronunciation but also your intonation.
If you practise hard enough, you can even guess what they are going to say without having to wait for them to finish. This is very good for your communication skills.
Watch the TV
To those who live in Japan, you can watch the TV, even when cooking or having meals. Watching a lot of TV can help you develop your Japanese, just like when you watch movies and dramas. However, things on TV are more reality-related, it will help you more in daily life conversations.
Make the most of your time
Make the most of your time to practise listening Japanese, while cooking, washing dishes, jogging to bus or train stations…even when lying in bed to but yet to sleep. Put songs and lessons into your cell phone, listen to them when you have time.
Above is some of the methods about developing listening skill when self-studying Japanese that Learn Japanese daily wants to share with you. The methods can also be used for all Japanese learners in general.
Hopefully it can make you vastly improve on your Japanese listening skill!
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