Learning Program
Intermediate Japanese Listening: Real Speech Patterns
Program outline
Program Structure
- Module 1
- Contracted speech forms and phonetic reduction — 3 sessions
- Module 2
- Unscripted interview comprehension with pause-and-predict exercises — 4 sessions
- Module 3
- Regional accent orientation: Kansai, Tohoku basics — 2 sessions
- Module 4
- Workplace and service-industry Japanese — phone calls, meetings, announcements — 4 sessions
- Module 5
- Extended audio passages up to 8 minutes, note-taking and summary tasks — 3 sessions
Total: 16 live sessions plus self-study audio sets between each module.
About this course
The gap between studied and spoken
Written Japanese and spoken Japanese are genuinely different registers. Words get swallowed, verb endings change, and sentences trail off mid-thought. This course addresses exactly those gaps.
Audio sources used in this program
Clips come from radio broadcasts, unscripted interviews, casual phone calls, and train station announcements. No slow-paced learner material — everything is at natural speed.
A specific challenge this course addresses
Contracted forms like ている → てる or ではない → じゃない confuse even solid intermediate learners. There are dedicated sessions on the 14 most frequent contractions with ear-training drills.
- Regional accent comparison: Kansai versus standard Tokyo speech
- Filler words and hesitation patterns native speakers use constantly
- Indirect refusals and implied meaning in conversation
How progress is tracked
Bi-weekly comprehension transcription tasks — you listen and write what you hear, then compare to the actual script. Errors reveal specific patterns worth focusing on.
Dmitri Vaslenkov, software engineer — I passed JLPT N3 but could barely follow my Japanese colleagues in meetings. Two months into this course that changed noticeably.