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While I'm at work I'd like to listen to audio in Japanese (I'm a software developer).

I can't understand anything now, but I'd like to keep a steady stream of Japanese language in the background so I might become accustomed to hearing Japanese.

My first thought was downloading some audiobooks, but I'm having a very hard time finding any without being able to read Japanese.

Could anyone point me to a good source for audiobooks or streaming audio? I don't care too much about the content right now, I just need something that I can start and not worry about for 8 hours. I tried streaming NHK news, but it would stop every 15 minutes.

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  • As far as I can tell, there is no credible research that says passive listening to incomprehensible input is a helpful thing for adults to do. I'm not trying to stop you, but I don't think you'll learn Japanese that way.
    – user1478
    Oct 23, 2012 at 6:31
  • I don't expect that I'll learn to understand or speak Japanese language through listening alone; what I would expect is that I begin to be able to pick out specific phonemes rather than hearing just a jumble of sound. Being able to listen to and mimic sounds that I don't understand the meaning of will ultimately help as I learn the language.
    – jessecurry
    Oct 23, 2012 at 18:24
  • That would be true, if you were a small child. As an adult, active listening or explicit instruction are probably necessary. See e.g. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2846316
    – user1478
    Oct 23, 2012 at 18:49

2 Answers 2

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http://prende-audio.com/ is a site for free オーディオドラマ (basically like radio plays). You will need to sign up for an account to download (darker blue button on the top-right, the registration is pretty simple).

To download a series:

  1. Pick a genre from the left hand bar
  2. Click the title of the work you're interested in.
  3. There should be a list of chapters, with tick boxes to the left of each and play/pause buttons to the right. You can stream the files from the website, or tick off the chapters you want to download (or click the link that says すべて underneath the list of channels to select all), then hit チェックしたトラックをダウンロード to download a zip of all the files you want.
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Assume you have seen the audio book in the resources section (with the book by Giles Murray)?

There is also one other book by Michael Emmerich (not the one in the books secton) & not in the audio book list but with readings available on line.

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