Today I'm pleased to introduce a guest blogger Alex Elkholy who has wrote today's article, you can find more of his great articles at alexelkholy.com-----------In my time learning Japanese, there has been one big hurdle that nobody seems to know how to effectively overcome. Because of this, there has been quite a bit of controversy to the proposed solutions. What I refer to is learning to listen to Japanese.This is so hard to get good at because it takes lot of skill. Not only do you have to know the vocabulary, you have to know to listen for them. Often times strings of words will turn into a giant blur. While I'm still not past this stage, I'm getting slightly better and better. Today I finally realized my way to progress and getting better, and this experience is what I'm going to share. Not a bulletproof method, not a guarantee, but just my observations.I believe there are three factors for successful learning to listen to Japanese. These are: interest, comfort/convenience, and familiarity. All are necessary to level the playing field, otherwise you will be fighting an uphill battle.The first factor is interest. All things flow from this. If you are watching or listening to something just because it's in Japanese, and it's not something that would otherwise catch your interest, then you have a little bit of a problem. I've said it a million times, and I'll say it a million times more, you have to have interest in what you're doing. In my case, I've become obsessed with DragonBall. I found the entire Japanese DragonBall and have it ready to play at a moment's notice. I will put off other things to watch another episode, because I'm engrossed in this stupid kid's show.The second factor is comfort/convenience. You must be comfortable when you watch, and it must be really convenient to turn it on. It doesn't help if you get headaches from leaning into your computer screen watching in the dark, or if you have to go through and setup everything just to begin watching. These both used to be big problems for me. I finally solved it by setting up a second monitor a few feet away from my working area to where I could just look up or lean back to start watching. It made a big difference. Also, if you have to tab between what you're watching and your dictionary, then consider something external so you don't have to interrupt the video.The third factor is familiarity. It is tremendously helpful if you have some sort of familiarity with the content before hand. I used to watch DragonBall/Z all the time as a kid, so I know the story decently. Not enough to have the dialog memorized, but to know that there are seven Dragon Balls that can only be used once a year... Anyway, make sure if you're a beginner to use something you're familiar with. This makes a huge difference.Now that we're all setup, another ...