虫眼鏡の放送部

    This YouTube channel is home to the 虫眼鏡の虫も殺さないラジオ podcast, which is made for native Japanese speakers and zooms in on a range of subjects, often based on letters from listeners. Typical themes include love and relationship advice, but there are also episodes based around questions like "what is happiness?" — just be warned that some episodes are quite candid and might not be suitable to listen to at work!

    Most of the episodes we listened to featured the presenter giving his thoughts in monologue style, but there are sometimes also featured guests, which results in a more interactive style. The register is relatively formal but conversational, and is great for both vocabulary and listening practice. It isn't always easy to find material to practice this kind of everyday, conversational listening at this level, and the fact that these often over hour-long installments are published at least once a week means you're unlikely to run out of material any time soon.

    The natural speaking speed and advanced level of language probably make this podcast unsuitable for beginner or intermediate listeners. But if you're an advanced listener looking for authentic listening material that will stand you in good stead for taking part in conversations that go well beyond small talk, you should give this channel a go. You can always turn on the automatically-generated subtitles if you get stuck!

    YouTube