聞き取り（ききとり、kiきtori）
- listening comprehension

The Japanese word 聞き取り (ききとり) primarily means "listening comprehension" or "understanding what is heard." It refers to the ability to understand spoken Japanese. This includes recognizing individual words, phrases, and the overall meaning of a conversation or audio recording. It also involves the ability to process the information, draw inferences, and answer questions based on what was heard. 聞き取り is a noun and a noun-verb. The verb form is 聞き取る (ききとる), which means "to understand what is heard" or "to catch what someone is saying." 聞き取り can also refer to the act of listening and understanding.

⚫︎日本語の聞き取りの練習をします。 Translation: I will practice Japanese listening comprehension. ⚫︎聞き取りテストで良い点を取りたいです。 Translation: I want to get a good score on the listening comprehension test. ⚫︎先生の話を聞き取りにくかったです。 Translation: It was hard to understand what the teacher said.

You use 聞き取り in situations where you are talking about the ability to understand spoken Japanese or the act of listening and understanding. For example: ⚫︎ When talking about language learning and skills ⚫︎ When describing the difficulty of understanding a speaker ⚫︎ When discussing listening tests or exercises ⚫︎ When assessing your own or someone else's comprehension. You may use the verb form 聞き取る if you are specifically talking about the action of understanding something you heard. For example, 何と言っているか聞き取れませんでした。 (I couldn't understand what he/she/they said.)

聞き取り is typically written in hiragana as ききとり. The kanji form, 聞き取り, is commonly used. The verb form, 聞き取る, is written as 聞き取る using kanji for 聞き and hiragana for 取る. There are no variations in the okurigana (suffix hiragana) for 聞き取り.

There aren't many direct synonyms, but related concepts include: ⚫︎ リスニング (risuningu) - listening (borrowed word) ⚫︎ 理解力 (りかいりょく) - comprehension ability ⚫︎ 理解 (りかい) - understanding

⚫︎ 聞き漏らし (ききもら-し) - missing (what was said); failing to hear ⚫︎ 聞き損ない (ききそこな-い) - mishearing; misunderstanding ⚫︎ 難聴 (なんちょう) - hard of hearing, hearing loss (medical term)

聞き取りの練習のために、よくポッドキャストを聞いています。 ・Translation: I often listen to podcasts to practice listening comprehension. ・Explanation: This sentence describes how someone improves their listening skills by practicing with podcasts.

彼の話は速すぎて、ほとんど聞き取りできませんでした。 ・Translation: His speech was too fast, and I could hardly understand it. ・Explanation: This sentence highlights the difficulty in understanding because of the speaker's speed.

The word 聞き取り is a compound word. It comes from the verb 聞く (きく), meaning "to hear" or "to listen," and 取り (とり), which in this context, functions as a suffix indicating the act of taking in or extracting information. The meaning of 取り here is similar to "gathering" or "taking in." Together, they create the idea of "taking in what is heard" or "comprehending what is heard."