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The original was posted on /r/learnjapanese by /u/These_Trust3199 on 2024-12-23 14:16:37+00:00.

I’ve been studying for over a year now (and I actually studied for ~6 months 5 years ago before quitting, so it’s more like 1.5 years total). I started out with Genki I & II, a Common 2K Anki deck, and RTK. I tried listening to Nihongo Con Teppei after that, but couldn’t understand shit, so I decided to spend some time focusing on reading to increase my vocabulary using Satori Reader. I just finished reading all the advanced stories on Satori Reader and am now reading a 1年生 level graded reader, which feels like a good level for me. It’s not too frustrating, but I’m still running into words I don’t know.

But I just tried going back to Nihongo Con Teppei for Beginners (yes I double checked it’s the beginners level podcast, not his intermediate level one). I could pick up some words and phrases, but lost the overall meaning of the monologue after maybe a minute in. I’m honestly just really frustrated and discouraged because all I’ve heard about that podcast on this sub is how super super easy it is, and how it’s the perfect resource for beginners to start with listening comprehension. But even after a year of serious work I still can’t understand it.

The only other “beginner” listening resource I’ve found is CI Japanese. I’ve been listening to their beginner level videos and can mostly understand those. If I use (japanese) subtitles and stop to look up words I don’t know, I can get close to 100% of the meaning. If I just listen straight without subs or pausing, I get maybe 50%. But I feel like Teppei talks faster. It’s also harder when there’s no visual ques.

Am I the only one who’s finding Nihongo Con Teppei to actually be pretty difficult? Am I doing something wrong if I still can’t understand him? Should I just continue with Teppei even if I’m not getting the full meaning of the episode or should I focus on only watching CIJ videos until Teppei starts to make sense?

Edit: Someone pointed out to me that the Nihongo Con Teppei are meant to be started from episode #1 and get progressively harder. That was the issue, I had assumed they were the same difficulty level and started with the most recent episodes. I listened to the first few episodes and yeah, they’re pretty easy.