If you want to speak Japanese, you must spend a lot of time listening to Japanese. Listening should take up a large percentage of your study time and be your top priority. Podcasts are an incredible tool for listening practice because they are available at all levels and there is a podcast for every interest. You can put on a podcast and get passive Japanese input while doing chores or exercising, or you can use a podcast transcript and actively go through the podcast bit by bit. How you incorporate podcasts into your study schedule is dependent on your level and study goals. Below you will find great podcasts for every level, but I encourage you to also find some on your own. While all the links below are for Spotify, most of these podcasts are also available on other popular podcast platforms.

Beginner

Listening to podcasts is a big leap because it removes all context and visual cues. Even if you have been studying Japanese for a while, podcasts may still be difficult. You may know every word in a sentence, but it is still hard to understand them when heard. That is why, even if your overall level is intermediate, you may still want to listen to beginner podcasts. You don’t need to understand everything in the podcast, it’s good to stretch a little above your level because you’ll learn new words through context. However, if you start zoning out from the podcast because you don’t understand anything, then you should find something easier to listen to.

Learn Japanese with Masa Sensei

Learn Japanese with Masa Sensei is a podcast for absolute beginners. She will walk you through grammar and vocabulary with English translations. This is a good choice if you just started Japanese, but if you have already been studying for a while, I recommend trying one of the other beginner podcasts.

Momoko to Nihongo

Momoko to Nihongo is a bit more advanced than Masa Sensei but still great for beginners and intermediate learners. Her podcast episodes vary by level and subject, so there is something for every learner. She also offers episode transcripts and vocabulary on her website.

Nihongo con Teppei

Nihongo con Teppei has long been considered the best Japanese learning podcast for beginners. With 100s of episodes available, Teppei covers a variety of topics in easy, comprehensible Japanese. If you like this podcast, there is also an intermediate version.

Japanese with Shun

Japanese with Shun is for more advanced beginners to intermediate learners. The topics are a little more complicated, but Shun uses clearly spoken Japanese and has good explanations. He also sticks to grammar found in the Genki textbooks.

Intermediate

Podcasts at the intermediate level cover a wide variety of topics, grammar, and vocabulary. They are still spoken in clear, slow Japanese, but the vocabulary and grammar are much more varied than that of beginner podcasts. You may find them much more difficult than the beginner podcasts when you first start listening, but after a few weeks of repeated listening they should become easier. I recommend starting with shorter podcasts so you can listen to the episodes multiple times.

The Real Japanese Podcast

The Real Japanese Podcast covers a variety of everyday topics in clear, naturally spoken Japanese. Haruka also includes videos with most of her episodes and free transcripts.

Nihongo no Choukai no Tame Podcast

Nihongo no Choukai is for the more advanced intermediate learner. The episodes are short but in-depth and very informative. You can also find transcript links in the description of each episode.

Everyday Japanese Podcast

Everyday Japanese covers Japanese cultural topics, in clear, slow Japanese. She provides key vocabulary and conversation topics on her website, which can be found in the description of each podcast episode.

Advanced

At the advanced level, it’s time to start listening to podcasts created for native speakers. This will be very difficult at first, but as you listen, it will get easier. I recommend starting with just one podcast and listening to most of their episodes. Everyone speaks differently, and by listening to just one podcast, you will get used to the way the hosts talk, and you’ll have an easier time understanding the podcast. Every time you start listening to a new podcast, you need to get used to the way the host speaks before it becomes easy to understand. It takes thousands of hours of listening, to easily understand most everyday topics, so don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t understand everything right away.

Shinobu to Narumi Dokuzetsu American Life

Dokuzetsu American Life is a podcast about two Japanese women’s daily lives and experiences living in the US. The podcast covers a wide variety of daily topics, and the hosts are very straightforward and entertaining. Both hosts are also fluent in English and will mix it into the podcast occasionally, this can be useful as a non-native speaker.

Kiku Anime

Kiku animes are stories told through dialogue with different voice actors for each character. There are many available of varying difficulty. I recommend starting with 恋は夜空をわたって because it is a simple high school romance. You can find more by searching “聴くanime” or by looking at the “more like this” tab on Spotify.

Yuka on Safari

Yuka is a Japanese safari guide working in South Africa. Her podcast covers both educational wildlife topics and her experiences as a safari guide. She speaks clearly and is easy to understand, so this is a great podcast to listen to if you’re interested in African wildlife.

Coten Radio

Coten Radio is an educational history podcast and is currently one of the most popular Japanese language podcasts. The podcast involves a group of historians getting together and discussing an interesting historical topic over a series of episodes. This is an extremely difficult podcast, so I would only recommend listening to it if you’ve been studying Japanese for a long time, and you’re looking for something challenging.

Other Podcasts

You can find other popular podcasts to listen to by going to Spotify’s podcast carts and selecting Japan. In the charts, you can also see which podcasts are the most popular by category.

Additional Listening Resource

Bilibili

Bilibili is a Chinese video-sharing platform similar to YouTube. You can find a variety of Japanese audiobooks and dramas on it. Look up “日语有声书” (Japanese audiobook) or “Drama CD” and try listening to some of them. There are some you are likely already familiar with in English, such as The Little Prince.

You can also use the Chrome extension 哔哩哔哩助手 to download videos or audio from Bilibili. Start by installing and enabling the extension.

After the extension is enabled, the download window will automatically appear when you open a video on Bilibili. You will then have multiple options for the video you want to download. The first option is 高级 (advanced mode) which allows you to either download the video and audio together as one file or download the audio and video separately. The second option is 兼容 (compatibility mode) which uses less computer memory and downloads faster but only allows you to download audio and video separately. I usually use 高级. Next, under 高级, you will need to choose if 合并下载 (merge download) is 开 (on) or 关 (off). If it is on, you will have only one download link to download the file with video and audio merged. If merge download is off, you will have two different download links to choose from, one for audio and one for video. The top link 音频 will download the audio file, and the bottom link 视频 will download the video file. For audiobooks, I just download the audio file via the top link.

Audible.co.jp – Premium

Audible.co.jp is the Japanese version of Audible, with thousands of Japanese audiobooks available for you to listen to. If you are trying to access it from outside Japan, you may first be redirected to the Audible website for your country. If this happens, click on the banner that pops up and confirm you want to go to audible.co.jp. You get one free book for signing up for the 30-day trial and after that, it’s 1,500円 for one book per month.

Note that the website is entirely in Japanese, but if you don’t feel comfortable navigating a website in Japanese, you can right-click anywhere on the page and select translate to English.

If you are on mobile, click the Marketplace button at the bottom of your screen.

Next, select Audible.jp and sign in with your Amazon account. You will most likely need to create a new Amazon account, but you can use the same email as your main account. Once you’re logged in, you have a wide variety of Japanese audiobooks and thousands of hours of content available to listen to.