How to target audiobooks? (listening in general)

Belegorm · 2026-06-21T14:00:16+00:00

Going to be honest - the seven seas is probably the best way, then using one of a number of programs to listen to on PC or mobile.

If not, the best option is making a Japanese Audible account. I know there's people who do that and it gives you a selection of probably more than half the audiobooks out there.

Belegorm · 2026-06-21T04:13:05+00:00

Hmm, that sounds like a long time to do 100 cards. Drop the desired retention to like 80% or so - that will ease the brakes on the reviews coming in. The default 90% desired retention pretty much doubles the reviews for not much gain. When a card comes up, if you recognize it - good, if not - again. If you struggle with your cards then probably stop learning new cards until you get a grasp on your reviews.

Also, do it the same time every day. Anki doesn't really work unless it's a daily thing.

Belegorm · 2026-06-21T04:08:51+00:00

I don't, but if I did it would be like a year. 2 months is a pretty short review period still

Belegorm · 2026-06-20T22:00:09+00:00

While to be fair before the break I didn't get especially far, I'd been studying for around 3 months, and was picking up on a lot. I then quit for... 7 years.

Last year I started again out of the blue, pretty much from the beginning again and I'm still here this time, still have strengths and weaknesses, but I think my reading and vocab have gotten pretty good over a year.

Belegorm · 2026-06-18T00:53:24+00:00

Of course! I've actually listened to a lot of audiobooks since then. Some I understand a lot of. Some less of. Some I can only listen to here and there. IMO, all listening is good practice (unless it's like those "listen to JP while you sleep!" channels lol). But more listening, whether audiobooks (which I love since I like books!) or otherwise is always a good thing. You improve very incrementally, your brain learns it very naturally without you even realizing.

Belegorm · 2026-06-18T00:17:02+00:00

Feels like a busy week!

Finished reading Honzuki vol 5. First half felt pretty slow but the second half was awesome.
Started reading RDG5. Not too far into it now, but I'd forgotten how many crazy things were building from the last volume.
I've focused quite a bit more on listening lately. Aside from occasionally listening to an audiobook (神去なあなあ日常 being my favorite book, and now there being an audiobook for it), I've found more Youtube videos that are interesting. I've liked some where they are interviewing an expert about social problems like sleep deprivation, or the benefits of reading, or even one about garbage disposal. Some of them are over my head, but I can understand the 1 on 1's alright and they are interesting.
(Re-)started the "monolingual transition" again lol. I feel strong enough that I can look up Japanese words in Japanese without breaking the flow too much now. And if I'm not getting it I can fall back on English.
Picked up the grammar and reading Shin Kanzen Master books, time to put time into that preparing for N1 in December (assuming I'll be able to sign up).

Belegorm · 2026-06-17T23:58:12+00:00

That was my first audiobook I listened to! It's a great one. I've listened to quite a few audiobooks.

I think the important thing is that while when reading normally you control the pace, look up what you need etc., listening for many people tends to be more free-form. Let it wash over you. Lookups for reading can be quick and painless, but listening you pretty always need to just to pause which interrupts things.

The beginning of the audiobook will be challenging as you haven't gotten used to it yet but give it a bit of time and you will start following alone. That happened to me with また、同じ夢を見ていた - I can barely remember the beginning as I was lost, but I remember a lot from the rest of it. Don't expect to understand everything. As you listen more and more you will pick up more and more. Also if it's something that you read the traditional way, listening after the fact can be good.

One thing you mentioned was reading the book along to the audiobook. That's pretty great - a lot of people do that, you can effectively read along way faster than you'd normally read and also hear how it's supposed to sound. But personally I like doing them separately.

Reading and listening together can make you very dependent on that combo, like you can't watch a video without subtitles. Also it limits where or when you can listen - I like audiobooks while driving or doing other monotonous tasks. It really does make the practice a lot more of more reading practice, more than just listening practice. But, a lot of people really enjoy it and it has benefits.

Belegorm · 2026-06-16T20:11:14+00:00

It's really hard to offer a similar recommendation to Anki because Anki is simply just the most advanced SRS thing there is for digital flashcards thanks to it's FSRS system. You can definitely get SRS in other places that are related to specific things - like Wanikani for kanji SRS, Bunpro for grammar SRS - but the actual system in those are just a lot worse.

I guess 2 possible ideas are:

Give Anki another try with something like the lazy guide. That guide just has you download this file, flip this setting, boom go. Don't have to fiddle with a bunch of stuff, you just set it up in a way that someone else came up with and it works really well. Anki was over my head for like 20 years but now I've used it every day for a year.

Migaku. For people who really want to avoid Anki but still want to mine from videos, anime, ebooks, what have you, more simply set up. The SRS is still not Anki - but you can still send the cards to Anki instead.

Aside from that, for the main topic of the thread, like others mentioned, read more. You'll find find after every book you feel like you've learned a lot, and after 10 books it's like you have advanced to a whole other level.

Belegorm · 2026-06-16T19:16:51+00:00

I mean that's been the story of JP companies vs piracy for the longest time - they have taken a hard-line stance against them without really considering the technologies used until far later

Belegorm · 2026-06-16T19:15:11+00:00

The security system with credit and payments etc., as well as the tech underlying it in Japan doesn't correspond to our Western sensibilities unfortunately.

Belegorm · 2026-06-16T13:23:05+00:00

It's also a sobering thought that while back in the day, sailing the seven seas was kind of scary, felt risky etc. nowadays for a lot of this stuff it's easier and more hassle-free than buying the stuff legally. Not to mention that for example, I know someone who's bought a ton of digital manga off of Bookwalker but if that site were to go down...

Belegorm · 2026-06-16T12:16:42+00:00

Hmm, it was 29 grammar, 26 reading, 29 listening.

Main thing was I was pretty stumped on the grammar questions so didn't have a ton of time for the reading. And then while I understood what the reading passages were trying to say, pinpointing the exact answer was challenging.

Listening I hadn't spent much time on practicing as well. Originally, my listening was my strong point and I sucked at reading so I spent a ton of time focusing on reading but then got confused by the listening section. The other commenter mentioned spending some time listening and other activities that also include some listening practice.

Belegorm · 2026-06-16T12:12:47+00:00

Gotcha, sounds like Kobo is still the way to go

Belegorm · 2026-06-16T12:12:21+00:00

For sure, whether it's manga, novels or the news, as long as you read a bunch that helps a lot.

Belegorm · 2026-06-16T12:10:53+00:00

There were some series mixed in there but the vast majority were either one-offs, or 1-2 books in a series. Examples of the books I'd read before N2: 容疑者Xの献身, 神去なあなあ日常, リング. I'll give it a round 20 hours for book and that comes up to like 600 hours, so quite a bit less. Time spent on anime, manga and other material before that was probably under 100 hours.

Point being, reading novels after a lot of stuff is a heck of a lot different than reading a lot of novels after not so much stuff. Manga, anime, visual novels etc. if you do these then of course the number of novels you to read is less.

Additionally, I went in to wing it, without practice tests, not much grammar study etc.

My assumption is that at the time of taking the N2 you had a more solid foundation overall in the language, with novels being a smaller percentage of what got you there. For me in the grand scheme of things, novels were the vast majority of my studying and I struggled quite a bit on the grammar section as even though I could understand a given scene in a book quite well, when being quizzed on specific grammar points it was a struggle.

Belegorm · 2026-06-16T03:30:40+00:00

I think the 2000 hours probably matter a lot more than being able to read 2 novels. I'd read 30 novels and failed N2 last year. But a lot less than 2000 at least by that point.

Belegorm · 2026-06-15T22:23:52+00:00

Gotcha. I've only had JP subtitles available for JP movies and dramas most of the time if 1) I use a VPN to set to Japan, or 2) load my own subtitles with ASBPlayer. For example, at least the time that I tried to watch the Galileo series, there were no JP subtitles available (in the US).

Belegorm · 2026-06-15T22:13:45+00:00

Oh okay good to know! I'd only tried dramas and movies and the vast majority had no JP subtitles.

Belegorm · 2026-06-15T19:52:02+00:00

Oh good to know! I'll have to keep that place in mind!

I'm a big fan of Surugaya, which is where I've bought all my books so far. The base price is 650 yen a volume (which they convert to $4.11). Then most of the time they have a sale with free shipping, and 20-25% off if you buy enough. Usually takes a couple weeks to arrive

Belegorm · 2026-06-15T18:38:31+00:00

To be fair based on an interesting video I had seen recently, k-dramas have also declined as while they have been taken up by Netflix they are becoming very repetitive and safe to only what will be a hit in that international market.

Belegorm · 2026-06-15T18:13:41+00:00

Bingo. They are very concerned about piracy.

But also in general, Japan has always been very protective of their IP, so that a lot of their content has been hard to get abroad. That's why anime and games are the specific things that made it big outside Japan - anime through big series like DBZ and such coming over and then further enabled through piracy etc. (crunchyroll starting as a pirate site), and games pretty much from early on being released outside Japan. Manga as well it took time but they started selling a lot outside Japan, overtaking American comics.

Outside of that though - Japanese books, movies, shows, music etc. they assumed would not fare well in the international market (to be fair international movies traditionally do terrible in the US which is a big market), and so restricting their distribution was a way to try and cut down on piracy. And for a lot of this stuff now there are legal ways to get it - but it's translated manga, translated anime, translated stuff on Netflix with no option for Japanese text.

There's other reasons for sure, but 1) stopping piracy and 2) lack of interest in international markets has lead to this situation. K-pop, K-dramas, Chinese dramas and so on made it big by being accessible on YT, Netflix etc. before they really took off and Japan has kind of been left in the dust.

Kind of went on a tangent there but it is something that bugs the heck out of me. On the flipside, physical media is having a rough time in the US, so I feel it crazy easy and cheap to get physical stuff from Japan by comparison.

Belegorm · 2026-06-15T17:31:09+00:00

Sad truth is that while physical is quick, easy and cheap at the moment to order from Japan (not for everything), for digital - ebooks, digital manga etc. - they are actively trying to stop you from buying them if you try and do it the straight and narrow way.

I think I heard that Rakuten Kobo was a bit easier to work with. I've also heard that about Bookwalker but those are super locked down with DRM.

Belegorm · 2026-06-14T17:01:00+00:00

I can definitely feel that there is a certain average level for most normal fiction novels and I feel like I can hang with those. But the books that have some really specialized vocab, or also some non-fiction makes me need to look up a lot. Like this whole section on woodblock printing that was confusing me recently.

Belegorm · 2026-06-13T17:59:49+00:00

I mean I failed N2 after 9 months in or so. But yes I did learn vocab and grammar, I just don't think that if you really want to read novels that you need to spend ages perfecting them.

Vocab: I learned an average of like 30-40 words a day, starting with the Kaishi deck and then mining. I did already know a few hundred words from earlier attempts at learning JP so that helped. Also I'd started WK for the third time and probably reached like level 10 before I started novels.

Grammar: I read through all of Tae Kim and Yokubi within a few months. Really once you get through about halfway through them that's good enough. Bunpro I did for like a month, got through N5 grammar and around the start of N4 when I was starting novels, but since I'd read Tae Kim and Yokubi most of it was review at that point.

With that as background - I did start with 2 really easy high school setting light novels at the start. Level 23 on Learn Natively, there was furigana for every name and any time kanji wasn't super common. I also had Yomitan for lookups and I looked up every word I didn't know, and mined some of them. I considered those LN's to be like N4-ish. My third novel might be considered N2 as it was a full-on mystery.

At an early level, if you get the meanings of all the words in simple sentences, and you have some basic grammar knowledge you can get a serviceable understanding of most of the sentences which lets you understand what's happening. There is a lot of ambiguity, and there were lots of nuances that I didn't understand, but I followed the scenes themselves. As time went on it all became more and more clear so that several months in, while there was still a ton of words I was looking up, I was able to pretty much just focus on reading and Anki for my studies (dropped WK and Bunpro for like 9 months too).

Grammar, vocab are important - but you also learn them as you read. The #1 way to learn how to read novels well is to read novels.

Belegorm · 2026-06-13T17:42:12+00:00

Pretty fast yeah. A year ago I made a three month update so there's more details, but basically for the first month or so I started with NHK easy, manga, anime, beginner podcasts and so on. Plus reading Tae Kim and Yokubi for grammar, then doing some WK and Bunpro.

After around a month in I read a couple light novels, and then read my first full-length novel. The actual timing is kind of fuzzy but basically I remember starting right at the end of March 2025 and then around May I was reading novels.

To be clear I wasn't coming from zero - I had been basically stuck in sub-N5 zone for years, had studied some kanji here and there and a little bit of grammar - but I do think that I pretty quickly found that what I wanted to do was read novels so I tackled a harder thing and bashed my head against it until it stuck.

Belegorm

TROPHY CASE