English File Listening Intermediate

[Glendora Spink]

Areyou a learner at B1 English level (intermediate)? This section offers listening practice to help you understand the main points of clear, standard speech about everyday or job-related topics. Situations include phone calls, meetings and interviews.

100% Listening Intermediate provides ready-to-use lessons for students grades 3-5 to boost their listening performance. Contains 174 pages of lessons organized into 14 units, including answering questions, following directions, grammar, inferences, and more!

A2 is still elementary or basic - still beginner - albeit high beginner. The higher the level you reach, the more hours are needed. The above is just the minimum number of hours. Depending on your native language, and the number of languages you speak, you may need even more hours.

It took me 300-400 hours for me, a native English speaker, to reach an intermediate/B1 level in Italian. It would have taken me much longer, if I were learning Thai or Hindi or any number of the many languages in the world, which have a minimum number of cognates.

Thousands of hours of language learning content to choose from in 42 languages, including audio and video, with full transcripts. Import content from your favourite sites and create personalized lessons.

Have you ever started to feel confident about your Japanese ability, only to try and turn on a Japanese movie or TV show and not understand more than a smattering of words? Don't worry, this is totally normal. Listening can be one of the most difficult skills to improve, but luckily, like any skill you just need more practice.

Podcasts are great for this. There's a huge selection of free podcasts, comprising hours and hours of listening material, across a wide range of topics and styles. Because of all this, it's never been easier to improve your listening ability, no matter where you are.

Previously, I rounded up a handful of what I felt were some of the best beginner-level Japanese podcasts around. This time, I'm back with another group, for intermediate Japanese learners. If you're ready to take your listening practice up a notch, take a look below at some of the best options available!

Beyond that, all the same sorts of general podcast criteria apply. How long are episodes usually? Are the host or hosts ' voices clear and easy to understand? How is the release schedule? While these are the same sorts of considerations you might think about when looking for a new podcast in your native language, they're only more important when looking for podcasts in a language you're learning. After all, how can you hope to study if you have a hard time making out the dialogue?

Of course, I tried to pick podcasts that I felt already matched this criteria. Additionally, I looked for series with a large catalog of episodes, frequent release schedules, or both. That way, you can be sure you won't run out of episodes to listen to too quickly, allowing you the time you need to get accustomed to something so that it's as good a practice as it can be.

When writing about beginner podcasts, most tended to follow the same sorts of guidelines. Most series were hosted by a single person, who spoke relatively slowly, on a variety of topics for only a few minutes at a time. While this makes for an easy transition into listening practice, in most cases, it's something I expect learners to progress beyond fairly quickly.

Still the focus is on immersion. And with that in mind, be gentle with yourself. Listening is hard! Like reading a book in another language, I find it takes time to settle into the speech patterns and rhythms of anyone new you're listening to, even in a relatively controlled environment like a podcast. You might feel out of your depth with some of these at first, but stick with it, and see if it gets easier a few episodes in. Hopefully you'll just adjust as you're able to hear more, and can go back through those early episodes later, or if not, feel free to jump back down to the beginner recommendations for the time being. Language learning is a process, and one with many different domains, and a journey that isn't always linear. Just be diligent, and you'll get there.

Compared to the beginners podcasts, these intermediate podcasts have a wider range of difficulty, topics, style, and more. I've done my best to group them roughly by difficulty, but know that this isn't an exact science. What's easier for one person might be more difficult for another, and that's totally normal.

In this first group, the podcasts still tend to offer some sort of help to Japanese learners, be it in the form of slowed speech, easier topics, and shorter episodes, they represent the first step up in difficulty from the beginner tier.

Easy Japanese is a podcast YouTube channel that's also available on a wide range of podcast services, aimed at providing practice for Japanese learners around the N3 level. The intro promises no script, no editing, just natural, simple Japanese, and that's what's provided. Started in January of 2021, hosts Masa and Asami have now logged hundreds of podcasts between then and now, covering a wide range of topics. There's no English used, but instead the hosts try to stick to simple words, or explain concepts in simple terms when necessary. Since launching, the podcast has become a video podcast on YouTube, and every episode from the very beginning has worked well with the closed-captioning provided on YouTube if you'd like to look at subtitles while you listen. Additionally, the pair livestreams twice-weekly, adding even more content to an already rich archive.

Among a crowded and ever-growing podcast pool for Japanese language learners, Easy Japanese manages to stand out as an extremely high-quality and useful resource for Japanese learners. By catering to Intermediate learners rather than absolute beginners, they've created a resource with a much longer shelf life, while still being fairly accessible. Easy Japanese sort of strides the perfect balance between natural, unscripted speech, while still being clear, articulate, and simple enough to be comprehensible to a large number of students. This is a great offering for anyone looking for a bit more practice, and really, who isn't?

Following the mold of great podcasts hosted by Japanese teachers, Learn Japanese with Noriko is no exception. Updated almost every-other day, Learn Japanese with Noriko has grown to over a hundred episodes, and has a second season.

Thinking in Japanese, a podcast by Iisaku, deviates from the standard Japanese language learning podcast in a few key ways. For one, while Iisaku speaks slowly, they do so by pausing more between words and phrases, rather than slowing down their entire speech like some other podcasts do, which is more natural and makes it easier to understand. Secondly, rather than some of the generic sorts of topics discussed in other Japanese language learning podcasts, or simply chatting, Iisaku covers both topics in Japanese language learning, such as Japanese pronunciation and tips on specific types of practice, and philosophical discussions from their perspective. Because of this, it's sort of like a language learning multiplier: you're practicing by listening, and by listening, you might learn something new about Japanese practice too!

While the production quality is nothing to write home about, Iisaku also offers a patreon for $5/month to give listeners access to vocabulary lists and bonus articles. Thinking in Japanese is a unique podcast, pairing beginner-friendly pacing and vocabulary with interesting concepts meant to expand your language ability through the content in itself. For language learners who love the process of learning, Thinking in Japanese is a great option.

In this group, the name of the game is speed. Not "fast," of course, but these podcasts are the first in the intermediate tier to get closer to native speed. Additionally, many of the episodes tend to be longer, so they require you to hold your attention for a longer period of time.

I think you can think of listening practice sort of like music practice. You might start really slow, just making sure you're not going to make any mistakes, and then slowly increase the speed as your abilities increase. And with these podcasts that expect you to do that for longer, or are conversations, or use more complicated grammar and vocabulary, that makes it even more of a challenge.

After starting the series several years ago, Teppei has gone on to record almost a podcast a day, leading to hundreds and hundreds of episodes, and even a beginner and advanced series, along with collaborative podcasts with other teachers like Noriko sensei.

The Real Japanese Podcast, launched in 2020, is a monologue-style podcast hosted by Japanese teacher Haruka. The podcasts tend to mirror videos from her YouTube channel, where she spends time speaking unscripted on a certain topic. Despite this, transcripts are available should you want to check your comprehension, or read along.

The Real Japanese Podcast is a solid addition to the growing field of intermediate-focused Japanese podcasts. While the format is very familiar to Japanese learners at this point, her personal look at topics and natural speech elevates this podcast among some of its peers.

Not to be confused with "The Real Japanese Podcast," The Miku Real Japanese Podcast comes from the host of popular Japanese language learning channel, Miku Real Japanese, who we wrote about for our YouTube Grammar Channel recommendations article.

Episodes tend to run slightly on the longer side, with these conversations coming in around 30 minutes a piece. There are also a sprinkling of other episodes Miku hosts alone in the mix, often closer to about 10 minutes.

For intermediate Japanese learners looking to get into conversation practice or start listening comprehension practice with more than one person, The Miku Real Japanese podcast is a great way to expand your horizons.

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