Skip to main content
1 of 4

Recognising kanji compounds by ear

Do you have any advice on how to master recognizing kanji compounds when listening to real Japanese?

To give you an example, when I was listening to Japanese news I came across
the compound 9車種. It would have be very easy to understand if I had being reading, but when I hear something like ”きゅうしゃしゅ” to me it seems impossible to understand by ear. I mean, I can hear the sounds themselves but they just don't evoke any meaningful picture in my head.

Listening as much as I can doesn't seem to help because among words and phrases I know I just hear a jumble of compounds I can't recognise on the spot.

I passed N1 last year (which actually makes me feel worse about my problem) and got almost a perfect score from the reading comprehension but listening is very frustrating for me. I even have been studying in Japan for one year, and I can understand what people are saying to me or around me when it comes to conversational Japanese. I succeeded in communicating in a variety of situations. However, I definitely have problems with, for example, news, podcasts on social problems or very informal language.

I would finally want to start understanding the real thing.