Japanese podcasts sorted by difficulty

[ryanheise]

Japanese | Korean

If you've ever thought about using Japanese podcasts for immersion practice, but struggled to find podcasts at your level, the lists below might help you. What I've attempted is to rank individual podcast episodes by estimated difficulty. I've sampled around 400 episodes from 10 podcasts, and used some natural language processing tools from Google (which I have temporarily free access to) to analyse things like word frequencies and dispersion.

Scroll to the bottom for some background on how I did the analysis. Note that the estimates are only approximate.

JapaneseLingQ - Who is she? - link

This was the easiest podcast with all episodes being at the lower end of the spectrum. The easiest episodes were:

Part 7 - listen
Part 4 - listen
Part 3 - listen
Part 8 - listen
Part 2 - listen

Interestingly, Part 1 was on the harder end of the spectrum because of this sentence: 何か御用ですか？ where 御用 has low frequency in general and also low frequency within the whole story. Part 7 is also out of place due to an error in the Google analysis. But for a series like this where the episodes are intended to be listened to in order, it's not as interesting to know the difficulty order, and I would just work through them in the intended order.

JLPT Stories - link

This has a range of stories at different JLPT levels N5 (easiest) to N1 (hardest). Interestingly, JLPT does not choose the vocabulary lists for each level based on word frequencies, and so some N5 stories will cover certain vocabulary that is rare, while certain N1 stories will cover more regular, day-to-day vocabulary. This explains some of the spread in the below list (but also some of the spread is due to the approximate nature of the list). Here is the complete list of episodes I sampled, in order from easiest to hardest:

ディズニーランド – JLPT N5 - listen
Yes/No英会話教室 – JLPT N3 - listen
高校生活 – JLPT N5 - listen
昼ごはん – JLPT N5 - listen
外国人のお客さん- JLPT N4 - listen
合コンにいる男 – JLPT N3 - listen
塾の友達 – JLPT N5 - listen
僕は日本のサラリーマン – JLPT N4 - listen
お気に入りの美容院 – JLPT N3 - listen
あやしい電話 – JLPT N3 - listen
僕の大切な家族 – JLPT N4 - listen
水泳 – JLPT N5 - listen
ネイルサロン、今日は星ふたつ – JLPT N3 - listen
週末は家族サービス – JLPT N4 - listen
「ワンオペ」育児- JLPT N4 - listen
はじめての塾 – JLPT N5 - listen
ネイルサロンでしてくれること – JLPT N3 - listen
満員電車 – JLPT N4 - listen
怖い先輩 – JLPT N3 - listen
ゼミ仲間 – JLPT N1 - listen
海外旅行？国内旅行？- JLPT N4 - listen
大学受験 – JLPT N5 - listen
片思い – JLPT N5 - listen
日本の飲み会 – JLPT N4 - listen
日本のクリスマスは苦手 – JLPT N2 - listen
30代独身で何が悪い？- JLPT N2 - listen
会社の中の居場所 – JLPT N2 - listen
一人旅 – JLPT N2 - listen
誰かのために自分ができること- JLPT N1 - listen
うちの課長 – JLPT N3 - listen
お見合いデート – JLPT N2 - listen
小さな一歩 – JLPT N1 - listen
学校生活 – JLPT N1 - listen
北海道原付旅行- JLPT N1 - listen
結婚相談所- JLPT N2 - listen
異国の地での経験 – JLPT N1 - listen
尊敬する写真家 – JLPT N1 - listen
家を売る女 – JLPT N2 - listen
営業部に異動 – JLPT N2 - listen
あっという間の２週間- JLPT N1 - listen


If you like, you can ignore the overlap between the JLPT levels and just go through all of the N5 stories first, then the N4 stories and so on, but you could try going through the N5 stories guided by the order listed above.

Nihongo con Teppei - link

Unlike the previous two podcasts which are designed for language learners and therefore use artificially simplified language, Nihongo con Teppei is a genuine podcast of a guy just talking about stuff. What's great is that he uses more natural language, while at the same time talking about simple topics and using more common vocabulary. Of the episodes I analysed, here were the top 15 estimated easiest episodes:

#355悪い先生について！！ - listen
#353いろいろな日本語について！！ - listen
#405他の外国人の日本語について！ - listen
#358学びのスイッチについて！ - listen
#404ゆっくり喋る（しゃべる）ということについて！ - listen
#372私、ぼく、私について！ - listen
#357日本語を勉強する理由について！ - listen
#351適当にやることについて！ - listen
#359話の脱線について！ - listen
#378トランスクリプトについて！ - listen
#380クリスティーンさん！！ - listen
#408ルーティンを見つめ直すことについて！ - listen
#367恋愛相談について！ - listen
#406JLPTの後について！ - listen
#412Languageとは何かについて！ - listen

|NEW| Japanese podcast for beginners (Nihongo con Teppei) - link

(Added 02/02/2020)

This is similar in style to the previous podcast, but the speech is slower and the episodes are shorter. These seem really great for immersion/listening practice for beginners, so I plan to analyse more episodes. Of the episodes I analysed, here were the top 30 estimated easiest:

#92国際結婚（こくさいけっこん）について！ - listen
#114友達（ともだち）について！ - listen
#151一番（いちばん）いい勉強方法（べんきょうほうほう）について！ - listen
#160語学学習について！（もう一度！） - listen
#131変わっていくもの、変わらないものについて！ - listen
#118話し方について！！ - listen
#120日本の子供（こども）について！ - listen
#125話すのが苦手（にがて）な人について！ - listen
#132（また）やる気が出ないときについて！ - listen
#135一人の人を聞き続ける（ききつづける）ことについて！ - listen
#130日本人がどうやって日本語を学んでいるかについて！ - listen
#157最近について！ - listen
#137同じことを話すということについて！ - listen
#146基礎（きそ）について！ - listen
#129話すことがない時について！ - listen
#142オススメの勉強方法（べんきょうほうほう）について！ - listen
#139お金（おかね）について！ - listen
#101集中力（しゅうちゅうりょく）について！ - listen
#95文法の間違いについて！ - listen
#140掃除（そうじ）について！ - listen
#119日本の治安（ちあん）について！ - listen
#108何かにハマるということについて！ - listen
#150雑談（ざつだん）について！ - listen
#154忙しい時（いそがしいとき）について！！ - listen
#148第一印象（だいいちいんしょう）について！ - listen
#106やる気が出ないときについて！ - listen
#127テキストメッセージについて！ - listen
#155エネルギーについて！ - listen
#123コンテンツ選び（えらび）について！ - listen
#93時間の使い方について！ - listen

Let’s learn Japanese from small talk! - link

This podcast is unfortunately being discontinued (Oops, that last comment was intended for the ひいきびき which I also analysed, but then removed from my article because I didn't really analyse a large enough sample size. ひいきびき is unfortunately being discontinued, but "Let’s learn Japanese from small talk" is not). Like the previous podcast, it contains natural, conversational language. I did not analyse many episodes because each episode is typically long and the analysis is quite CPU intensive, so I just selected the shortest episodes to analyse. Of those, the following were estimated to be the 3 easiest:

3. 日本の受験文化 〜Why do Japanese students eat KITKAT for the entrance exam?〜 - listen
7. 1000 plays anniversary ~Interview with a translator~ - listen
6. 日本のバレンタインデー〜Japanese girls give chocolates to boys on Valentine’s Day〜 - listen

News in Slow Japanese / The Podcast - link

This podcast reads the news in slow Japanese. As you can see from the graph at the end, episodes are all over the place in terms of difficulty, making this a difficult podcast to recommend for learners. The fact that the news is read slowly does not really make it easier to understand when the words themselves are difficult. That being said, here are the top 10 easiest episodes:

NISJ 330 – A New Era : “Reiwa”-Intermediate and Advanced Japanese Listening - listen
NISJ 348-One OK Rock-Intermediate and Advanced Japanese Listening - listen
NISJ 350 – The Oldest Staff Member at Starbucks-Intermediate and Advanced Japanese Listening - listen
NISJ 320 – Hot Soup from a Vending Machine - listen
NISJ 321 – Fushimi-Inari Taisha Shrine-Intermediate and Advanced Japanese Listening - listen
NISJ 338 – Shaved Ice-Intermediate and Advanced Japanese Listening - listen
NISJ 336 – Rainy Season-Intermediate and Advanced Japanese Listening - listen
NISJ 342 – Zero Waste Movement-Intermediate and Advanced Japanese Listening - listen
NISJ 345-invictus-Intermediate and Advanced Japanese Listening - listen
NISJ 333 – Children’s Day-Intermediate and Advanced Japanese Listening - listen

Rebuild - link

This is a native level podcast that talks about IT related stuff. What makes it a bit easier is the highly specialised words that they do use are typically loan words which you'll probably already know, and the rest of the words being high frequency words. Episodes tend to be long, so once again, I only sampled the shortest episodes. Here were the 10 easiest episodes (out of those that I sampled):

Aftershow 99: Avoid Emacs For Your Health (kazuho) - listen
Aftershow 136: Googling with Bing (takoratta) - listen
40: Securing Xiao Long Bao - listen
Aftershow 93: Pay More To Send More Emails (typester) - listen
Aftershow 148: Less Beer For Gaming (typester) - listen
Aftershow 183: Android Ohagi (takoratta) - listen
Aftershow 60: Bashdoor (naan, N) - listen
Aftershow 109: Being Faithful Is Not Easy (naan) - listen
138: Honeymoon Phase (Dice) - listen
Aftershow 88: Learn Japanese Through Gundam (Brian Gesiak) - listen

SBS Japanese - link

As another news podcast, this one is bound to cover a variety of topics and cover a broad range of vocabulary, but fortunately, there are some needles in the haystack where the vocabulary is easier. Here are the top 20 easiest:

Japanese band Shonen Knife are coming to Australia and New Zealand - バンドのスタイルは「好きなもの」、少年ナイフ・ナオコ - listen
Write your story - Japanese book store launches literary awards in Sydney - シドニーの文学賞で作品募集　書店が主催 - listen
Young social worker from Fukushima opens pay-it-forward cafe in Sydney - 福島からシドニーへ、「恩送り」カフェでつなぐ絆 - listen
アイデアを行動に移し自分の道を切りひらく　矢部元貴 - listen
Ren Yano, Japanese calligrapher - 書道家、れんさん - listen
"Come and get scared" - Japanese horror manga exhibition in Sydney - シドニーでホラー漫画展　「まずは怖がって」鈴木紀成 - listen
JP and Hannah (Coffee Break 95) - JPとハナ（コーヒーブレイク95） - listen
Bowen of Patricia (Coffee Break 93) - パトリシアのボーウェン（コーヒーブレイク 93） - listen
日英バイリンガル小学校　学区制導入で入学厳しい児童も - listen
Dyson Stringer Cloher (MF 290) - ダイソン・ストリンガー・クロハー (MF 290) - listen
オーストラリアで子育て　リトミックのねらいとは？　保育士・遠藤美智子 - listen
Project Cricket - クリケットの普及 - listen
BW (Coffee Break 92) - BW（コーヒーブレイク 92） - listen
Talk Event at 580 Bench (Coffee Break 96) - コーヒーのイベントで山火事被災者の支援（コーヒーブレイク96） - listen
Elizabeth (MF 289) - エリザベス (MF 289) - listen
ピアタのカッピングラボ（コーヒーブレイク　91） - listen
日本文化をメルボルンの路上で発信！相撲パフォーマー　ごっちゃんこ - listen
カラフル足袋で町興し、世界の人を行田へ　小松和弘 - listen
Matsuri Japan Festival - guest performers from Japan - シドニーの祭り、日本からステージに - listen
U19 Japanese Cricket national team to make their debut at World Cup - クリケットU19日本代表、初のW杯へ　豪遠征終え　 - listen

秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan!! - link

Topical conversations with high audio quality. The top 20 easiest episodes:

秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.58 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.23 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.61 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.81 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.73 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.55 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.51 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.77 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.66 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.35 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.76 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.52 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.79 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.74 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.50 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.54 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.88 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.49 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.92 - listen
秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan！！　Vol.59 - listen

朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ - ALFAポッドキャスト - link

My favourite stories podcast, for intermediate learners. The audio quality is very high, although some stories are much more difficult than others. Here are all of the ALFA episodes I sampled from easiest to hardest:

朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第176回放送 仲田雄慎著「byebye」朗読:御縁あやの - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第174回放送 miyaa著「斜め向こう側から」朗読:髙石あさ美 - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第186回放送 仲田雄慎著「non stop」朗読:髙石あさ美 - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第169回放送 高橋桐矢著「鳥になりたい」(SF Prologue Wave) 朗読:御縁あやの - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第171回放送 miyaa著「白くま飯」朗読:水谷美抄子 - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第177回放送 井上剛(SF Prologue Wave)著「消滅」朗読:しろ。 - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第187回放送 miyaa著「雪豹」朗読:水谷美抄子 - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第172回放送 仲田雄慎著「change」朗読:しろ。 - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第180回放送 パフィス著「雨宿りの黒蝶」朗読:しろ。 - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第181回放送 タナカ著「五分の話」朗読:御縁あやの - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第184回放送 miyaa著「青少年と健全な使い方」朗読:しろ。 - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第167回放送 miyaa著「青少年と健全な使い方」 朗読:水谷美抄子 - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第175回放送 パフィス著「ハンカチ」朗読:水谷美抄子 - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第179回放送 南著「花嫁」朗読:水谷美抄子 - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第178回放送 仲田雄慎著「スリル」朗読:髙石あさ美 - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第173回放送 ｚａｓｓａｉ著「だからきっと」朗読:御縁あやの - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第185回放送 仲田雄慎著「Quest」朗読:御縁あやの - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第168回放送 仲田雄慎著「make」 朗読:しろ。 - listen
朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ 第170回放送 白い人著「恋慕」 朗読:髙石あさ美 - listen

Want me to run my script on another podcast?

Since I have access to these Google tools for a limited time, I would be happy to run my analysis on additional podcasts if anyone wants to suggest their favourite podcasts.

Edit: I am also thinking about doing this for German. My brother is learning German, and I also want to learn German some day too. So I would welcome podcast suggestions to analyse.

Background

Here is an overview of the 10 podcasts I analysed, where each dot represents an individual episode:



As you can see, some podcasts are clearly easier than others, but some podcasts are also all over the spectrum, and so the lists above will help you to know which specific episodes to start with.

On the approximate nature of these estimates: These estimates can be off for a number of reasons, including errors in Google's algorithms, errors in word boundary detection, and the fact that my approach only considers word frequency/dispersion and not grammar. Also, errors in the process will be less noticeable in longer podcast episodes and potentially more severe in shorter episodes where the error can account for a larger percent of the episode.

Also note that even if a podcast episode contains some rare words, my ranking system will rank it as easier in some situations, including, for example, if that rare word is detected to be thematic and gets repeated a lot internally within the episode. It is an assumption I made based on my own preferences that less frequent words will be easier to take in if the episode talks about them a lot. If I didn't build this assumption into the model, the rankings could look different.

Change log

• 24/01/2020 - Original version
• 02/02/2020 - Added 20 episodes of Japanese podcast for beginners (Nihongo con Teppei)
• 03/02/2020 - Added 5 more episodes of Nihongo con Teppei, 10 more episodes of Japanese podcast for beginners (Nihongo con Teppei), 10 more episodes of SBS Japanese - SBSの日本語放送, 10 more episodes of 秋元才加とJOYのWeekly Japan!!, 11 more episodes of 朗読男女～5分で聞けるオリジナル物語～ - ALFAポッドキャスト
• 17/02/2020 - Algorithm updated
• 28/07/2020 - Added 6 more episodes of JLPT Stories

[ryanheise]

Would love see some data on Korean podcasts. Don't know what the requirements are for the Google tools but here are some podcasts:
SpongeMind
TTMIK IYAGI
비밀번호2345
NCT Night Night
외국인을 위한 한국어 읽기
KBS 무대

Cool! Thanks for this list.

Given my setup, I will more easily be able to analyse the ones that are published as podcasts (with an RSS feed). SpongeMind for example has a podcast feed published on iTunes (here), although I'm not sure if TTMIK IYAGI is a podcast (but TTMIK does publish some podcasts - I could also be wrong about IYAGI - is there a podcast for that?).

Each language is going to present different challenges, but fortunately, I actually learnt Korean before Japanese so that should help me to develop an accurate analysis tool. There are a number of other tools I need to use in combination with Google's tools, so I'll need to do some research. European languages like German are generally easier to analyse, but I can do some research and see what kind of analysis I could do with Korean.

[ryanheise]

Ahh so it will help if the podcasts are on iTunes?

Yes that is helpful, if you have the iTunes link or (if it's not on iTunes) the RSS feed link (e.g. if they publish the podcast on their own website, they'll provide a link to the feed), then I'll be able to plug that into my system.

Clicking on the SpongeMind iTunes link showed me the TTMIK Iyagi podcast.

Perfect! I'm not sure if you mean my SpongeMind link took you there (it didn't for me), but that IYAGI podcast link is exactly what I need.

Also Real-Life Korean Conversations For Beginners. The annoying part is that TTMIK puts English in the beginning of these podcast which I hope doesn't mess up the analyzing.

The same is true for the JLPT Stories podcast, and yes it's a little annoying. One thing I could do is just chop the first and last minute off each episode and take the middle as representative. JLPT Stories was more annoying because each episode was only 2 minutes, so that wouldn't have worked

If there's English scattered throughout the episode, then I wouldn't be able to analyse it.

Another obstacle that I wouldn't be able to get around would be if the audio quality is low, or if there is too much background noise, or if people are talking "over" each other too much, but I can test on a single episode first, and if it handles it OK, I can try it on all episodes.

NCT NIght Night
반짝반짝 한국어-Twinkling Korean
KBS 무대
(종영) 이홍기의 키스 더 라디오

Cool. The more podcasts I use, the more accurate the analysis will be.

Are the podcasts on 'podbbang' okay?

Unfortunately podbbang doesn't share the source of the podcast (the KBS 무대 podcast you mentioned is actually hosted elsewhere), but if you can find the underlying RSS feed or (easier) if it has an iTunes page, I can use that.

[Samer]

Thanks for your analysis, ryanheis.

Would it be possible to analyze the discontinued ひいきびき podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/% ... d532841119)?
It’s got a big archive and the episodes are on all kinds of topics.

[ryanheise]

Thanks for your analysis, ryanheis.

Would it be possible to analyze the discontinued ひいきびき podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/% ... d532841119)?
It’s got a big archive and the episodes are on all kinds of topics.

You just made me realise I made a mistake in my article above which I've now corrected. Actually, ひいきびき was one of the podcasts I analysed, but I only analysed the 3 shortest episodes since almost all of them are very long making them costly to analyse.

But, given that ひいきびき is pulling the plug on their server (I think around May or June of this year, from memory - listen to their 番外編「たいせつなお知らせ」 episode broadcast on the 7th of December 2019 for details), it would actually be a good idea to analyse them before they're gone and I might even be motivated to create an archive of this podcast and host it somewhere. I'd like to contact the podcast authors first to check that they're OK with that, but in their announcement, they did seem to encourage people to download the old episodes before they're gone so hopefully they would be OK if I created an archive.

[Christi]

Read about this nifty tool in your log and was about to ask how your script works so I could try it for Korean podcasts, but I see someone already put in a request <3
Thanks so much for sharing this, am really curious to see the results!

[ryanheise]

Cool. The more podcasts I use, the more accurate the analysis will be.

In case the others have issues.

엄마가 읽어주는 성경이야기
생방송 여기는 워싱턴입니다 - Voice of America
RFA Korean daily show, 자유아시아방송 한국어
북텔러리스트(Booktellerist) booker

Thanks for sharing these.

I've been through all of the podcasts you recommended and have made a sublist of the ones that I think I can analyse:

IYAGI - Natural Korean Conversations For Learners
Real-Life Korean Conversations For Beginners
NCT의 night night!
KBS 무대

And maybe these:

(종영) 이홍기의 키스 더 라디오
생방송 여기는 워싱턴입니다 - Voice of America
RFA Korean daily show, 자유아시아방송 한국어

However, each episode of the last 3 is very long so it won't be as practical (shorter episodes under around 20 to 30 minutes are easier).

Some of the other podcasts you recommended looked very promising and helpful for learners, but for various reasons I wouldn't be able to use them for now. Booktellerist looks interesting, although PODBBANG has a legal notice that suggest I might need to get consent from them, so I'll put that on the list to come back to in the future.

엄마가 읽어주는 성경이야기 looks great but I was getting a 404 on the feed url.

반짝반짝 한국어-Twinkling Korean also looks great but I was also getting a 404 on the feed url.

I can at least start with the initial set of 4-7 podcasts. This could take several days to analyse, but I'll share when it's done.

[7UR7L3]

This is very interesting and similar to something I've thought about doing for some time! Any chance you'd elaborate on how specifically you (mathematically/algorithmically/procedurally..) analyze these materials? I'm sure it varies quite a bit language to language but I might try something like this myself for Vietnamese materials.

[ryanheise]

Just a status update: this one has turned into a lot of work I probably should have just done German since I have a need for that, AND European languages like German, French, Spanish etc. are a lot easier to analyse. BUT, I like a good challenge, too, so I'm not giving up!

I spent the first few days dealing with podcasts that contain part English and part Korean speech, like the TTMIK podcasts, the next few days dealing with language features of Korean, and spent some time testing which podcasts were viable for analysis by Google. But finally last night I got all of that in place and started the analysis to run over night. I have some preliminary results now but I'd still like to keep processing more episodes because that will increase the accuracy. I'll post the results in a new topic just for Korean when they're ready.

@7UR7L3, Primarily I count word frequencies and make the assumption that podcasts with high frequency words will be easier to understand. I do not analyse grammar difficulty so this is only an approximation. I've written some scripts to link various existing tools together (some of which are costly, but I have temporary free access). Different languages do have differences in what is considered a "word", though, but it may help to have an understanding of how the particular language works to then develop an intuition for an appropriate way to measure difficulty for that language.

[ryanheise]

Maybe this helps since it has the grammar points still attached to the words:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Korean/comment ... ama_based/

Yes, this is basically the normal way that Koreans use spaces in writing to separate their "words".

However, it's actually more useful when estimating the difficulty of a text to treat grammar and the vocabulary that you plug into grammatical structures as separate things, otherwise the massive permutations of Korean verb conjugations blow out your estimates.