In order not to lose my level of japanese "listening", even in times when I have no time for studying, I try to hear as much japanese as possible. Of course I cannot meet japanese friends every day, so I try to search for more available resources ;).
In anime the characters tend to speak too casual or using dirty language, so I try avoiding them. In the other hand the news, movies or some series (doramas) use real japanese with different degrees of formality. They are also a good source to understand the culture and behavior of people in japan.
In a previous post, I showed the NHK Easy news that contain real news explained in a easy way for learning japanese.
This time I want to introduce you "Oyaji no senaka". It is a 10-episode series that explain different stories (each episode is independent) about the relation of a father and their children.
It is a very important topic since in Japan the father is often seen as the one working and taking money home, but not participating as a real family member. Fortunately this is changing a lot nowadays.
I found this serie very interesting for both practising japanese and understanding japanese society.
I hope you like it and find it useful :)
Another resource to study japanese offered by NHK.
NHK Easy news contains real news that are easy to understand by japanese students so it is a great chance to learn correct and real japanese.
You can find the home page here.
If you try it please, let us know what you think about it :)
I have found another NHK website that offers free Japanese lessons:
It is called Yasashii Nihongo (Easy Japanese) and you can find the home page here.
You can download contents in mp3 and pdf to follow the lessons here.
At this point of time there are 12 lessons available, but the complete series will have 48.
If you try it please, let us know what you think about it :)