I was ecstatic to find the business Japanese lessons in the intermediate-level podcast. At last I was getting help with the part of Japanese where I feel completely lost. The only disappointment was that there were only four lessons.
Let me try to explain exactly what was so helpful, and why much more is needed. The main reason is not the different vocabulary or grammatical forms, although those are very important. The main reason is the diction in which business Japanese is often spoken: in rapid-fire fashion with very little emotional expression. Because of this, I cannot parse the words and I get lost very quickly, even if I know the words being spoken. The only way to get over this is by extensive practice listening to this kind of talk. So, what's needed is many more audio dialogues in this style of speech.
Thank you very much.
Brandon
