“Fun Japanese Listening” Japanese Podcast Language Learning Review

“Fun Japanese Listening” Japanese Podcast Language Learning Review

The “Fun Japanese Listening” Japanese podcast is for beginners/upper beginner level Japanese learners. The earlier episodes are better if you are an upper beginner level. Dr. Asuka Tsuchiya produces this Japanese language learner podcast. The episodes for this podcast are released very sporadically, so heads up if you like consistency. Asuka Sensei released the first podcast in 2014, and there are only 37 episodes. Although, she did recently release 9 episodes in February of this year (2022). Nevertheless, it is a great podcast to listen to in order to improve your Japanese listening skills. Each podcast is fairly short, averaging around 5 minutes in length.

Asuka Sensei speaks entirely in Japanese throughout the podcast on the first 20 episodes. The first 20 episodes of the “Fun Japanese Listening” Japanese podcast are in a question/answer type lesson format. They are basically the spoken narrative of a textbook type lesson with questions and answers. A benefit of this podcast is that Asuka Sensei posts the transcripts of each episode on a website (here) for listeners to follow along.

Beginning from episode 21, Asuka Sensei uses a lot of English in the episodes. She doesn’t explain why she changed from exclusively Japanese, to using English more than Japanese in the later episodes. So, here is where the “Fun Japanese Listening” Japanese podcast changes to a beginner level. This is where I stop listening, because at this point I am looking for content in Japanese only.

Asuka Sensei also has a YouTube channel with over 100 very useful videos. Video topics range from writing Japanese to grammar points and everything in between. And, of course, the later podcasts are posted on YouTube on her channel. 

You can find “Fun Japanese Listening” at the following links:

Spotify: Fun Japanese Listening

Apple Podcasts: Fun Japanese Listening

Instagram: asuka.sensei

YouTube: Fun Japanese Listening

Check out my list of Japanese Language Resources.