For some reason, this morning, I woke up at 6, a bit earlier than usual. I listened to a CNN news podcast before getting out of bed. I usually listen to news podcasts at night right after getting into bed. I close my eyes in the hope of falling asleep right in the middle of the podcast. My golden rule is to listen to a podcast in English - something that’s plain and not too exciting, mainly an American news program - so that I can get to sleep quickly, which happens almost without fail.
On the other hand, if I listen to something in Japanese, it seems to awaken my brain, instead of helping me sleep. I guess it’s because my comprehension level of Japanese is much better than that of English, making my brain respond too well and directly to the content of the podcast without feeling fatigued. English seems to present the right amount of challenge for me to fall asleep in the quickest way possible.
By the way, last night, as an experiment, I quickened the playback speed of the news podcast by 25 percent, thinking it might challenge and tire my brain even faster. It turned out to be counterproductive. Although I could understand the content just as well as if I had played it back at normal speed, the added intensity seemed to have excited my brain, and it took me much longer than usual to get to sleep.
Apart from English, I listen to podcasts in French and Chinese every now and then, just to brush up on my listening skills in these languages. My favorites are the news podcasts by NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster. Their content is superb, written with well-chosen words, and read by a native speaker with a clear and accurate pronunciation.
Although French and Chinese have been put on the back burner as I prioritize my English studies, I still love these languages, and would like to resume studying them whenever I decide to take a short break from English in the future.
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