I was recently informed about Yahoo! ポッドキャスト and added it to the links page. I just started listening to various podcasts there during work and am having a gay old time. I thought I’d share some of my favorites so you can too.
What I’m listening to
In particular, I’ve been enjoying 眞鍋かをり’s podcast, which is talk radio about random topics such as 「こんなものに、はまっていました。」 I like 眞鍋さん’s voice as it’s bright and clear without being too girly. If you visit the show’s blog, you can also read an intro to each show, participate on various アンケート, and send messages that might even be read on the show. You may want to skip the first 3 or 4 minutes which is the Proactive promotion section of the show.
In addition, I’m also enjoying humor shows, in particular the aptly named JUNK podcasts and their 下ネタ（しもねた） about sex and what-not. There are even some semi-sexy shows that are pretty interesting. Who says the Japanese are conservative?
Now that I’m living in the States, I find these podcasts great for maintaining my listening comprehension and vocabulary. I’ve also been learning new vocabulary here and there by looking up words that I didn’t recognize.
Too hard? Try the reverse approach
If you find that the all-Japanese podcasts are too difficult to understand at your current level, you might want to try a reverse learning approach by listening to Japanese shows for learning English. It’s still a bit advanced but at least you’ll have some English to give you some clues and you’ll still get the learning benefit of listening and getting accustomed to real spoken Japanese. For the less advanced, I recommend ECC 英会話 because there’s quite a bit of English in the show itself, most of which is interpreted by the Japanese speaker. In addition, there’s 毎日ちょこっとリスニング特訓~podcast~ and melody.の『Oh！カンチガイ ENGLISH』 was also interesting for learning strange カタカナ usages (unfortunately, that show is already over). In any case, I suggest you browse through the list of popular podcasts and find what looks interesting to you. Here’s also a list of podcasts related to English.
Oh, and here’s a tip for navigating through the Japanese interface. Click the button that say 「聴く」 next to each podcast to listen. That’s it!
Does anybody know a similar site for Mandarin?
Nice! Was I the one that suggested Yahoo’s Japanese podcasts to you?
Yes! Thanks for the tip! By the way, one thing I thought was cool was the part where they asked listeners questions and read the more interesting responses on the show. I was thinking wouldn’t it be neat to have something like that on Chinesepod? Maybe like a question in Chinese related to a future show topic or something? It might even be helpful to point out some common mistakes in the responses.
Anyway, just an idea I had. Maybe it’ll work better for the more advanced levels?
Sounds like a great idea, tho it would be for the little more advanced students as you point out.
Thanks, let’s hope John comes back to read this!
Tae,
Hmmm… Not sure exactly what you mean. We have two shows that rely largely on user questions. One is Qing Wen (about grammar and other language-related questions), and the other is Dear Amber (about culture).
But you’re talking about asking the listeners questions? How would that apply to ChinesePod? Questions about learning Chinese?
I’m certainly open to suggestions!
I really like Qing Wen but as far as I’m aware, you don’t read specific questions from users on the show right? I think reading and talking about stuff directly submitted by listeners like 真鍋かをる’s show is really cool because it really makes the listeners part of the show and motivates them to actively participate. And it also brings up some interesting topics.
One way I thought to integrate this aspect into ChinesePod was to ask a simple question beforehand to get listeners to actively practice their Chinese.
Excuse my poor Chinese but for example, something simple like:
你有空的时候最喜欢做的事情是什么？
Then take a couple minutes to read and discuss some of the more interesting responses. Especially useful if the question and responses are remotely related to the lesson.
It’ll also be an opportunity to learn how to correctly say the most common responses like, “I like to nap”. (No really, I’m wondering right now how to say “nap” in Chinese.)
It probably won’t work very well for the Newbie or even Elementary but certainly seems possible from Intermediate and up depending on the difficulty of the question.
At the end of the show you often invite comments on lesson topics but I think it would be cool to get comments beforehand and incorporate them into the discussion to some degree. That way we get more interaction in the lessons themselves. Even better if it became a kind of reward (by having Jenny read our stuff!! yeah!) for practicing our Chinese. Just a thought.
I see. Yeah, that’s a cool idea. We actually do do this, in various LanguagePods (not just ChinesePod), to various degrees, but not very systematically. It’s one way to make the podcast experience a more cognitive process by engaging the listener’s brain.
Anyway, good suggestion, and I’ll see how we can put it to use.
Great. Can’t wait to see how it works out.
According to a reliable dictionary I’ve checked, to nap/a nap in Chinese is called 小睡 (xiao3 shui4) or 打盹 (da3 dun3 -> da2 dun3).
小睡 literally means “small sleep”, while I’ve never seen 打盹 being used before where I’m from (Singapore). Perhaps it’s used more frequently in certain parts of China.
Most often, people will just say “我想睡个觉” for “I’m thinking of taking a nap”, whereas “I like to nap” would be “我喜欢睡觉” or better, “我喜欢睡午觉”(I like to take afternoon naps). It’s kinda understood that an 午觉 is a nap. But if you are a shift worker and sleep in the day time/afternoon, you might want to say “我平时在白天／下午睡觉”. This indicates that you’re sleeping in the day/afternoon not because you like it like a hobby, and would probably elicit a “why” response as it is unusual.
Actually I’d say a big part of understanding the sentences above correctly depends on context and the social conventions adopted by a speaker and hearer.
Thanks for the clarification. I looked at a bunch of example sentences and I still haven’t got a good sense of how to split up words like 睡觉. For instance, in the following examples, it uses 个睡午觉 vs 睡个午觉. 我不懂这样的用法。
我有个睡午觉的习惯。
It’s my habit to take a nap at noon.
父亲下午总要睡个午觉。
Father always takes a nap in the afternoon.