If you’re looking for Japanese audio to practice with, JapanesePod101 is probably going to be your best bet. Although the site is difficult to use (and signing up is kind of a hassle as well), once you get in and figure things out, you’ll have access to more Japanese audio content + lessons than you ever thought existed.
Pros
- A ton of audio along with supplemental material
- Great program to pair with your regular Japanese learning
- Lots of updates and new content (not that you’ll ever get through all the content already there, though)
- Decent to Good voice actors – they do specialize in audio, after all.
- Can sign up for a free limited account too, but I’m sure you’ll get a ton of the emails I hate so much (see below in cons).
- Free iTunes podcasts.
Cons
- Probably not best used alone – use it with another resource to get the best results
- When you sign up, expect to be bombarded with emails… so many that there are a decent number of people out there who think JapanesePod101 is a scam (type “JapanesePod101″ into Google and auto suggest will give you “JapanesePod101 scam” as the second search query).
- Not a particularly easy site to navigate – it took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to do once I signed up.
- Sign up process isn’t very intuitive. It’s even possibly a bit tricky, I’d say. It’s not clear you’re signing up months/years in advance – When I created a test account I almost accidentally paid for a year (because they made it seem like I was paying for a month). Not a fan of that.
- When I signed up, I couldn’t choose my own username (I put in my email address and it made one up for me, using the base of my email plus some random numbers). To this day I have no idea what my username is and have to look it up every time I sign in.
Final Word?
While JapanesePod101 is a good resource, and really great to use with other Japanese study methods, I just can’t stand all the spammy-feeling emails and the whole username issue (I know, not a big deal, but still something that bothers me). I like their service and their content (and so do many other people) but I just hope that in the future the overall experience can be made better as well. That being said, it’s still a very recommended resource, and you shouldn’t let those cons offset you too much!
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