1月26日:Sou Sou no Frieren, episode 20
1月27日:A Sign of Affection episode 4
1月28日:Black Clover episodes 53-54
1月29日:Black Clover episode 55
I’ve been trying this too. 頑張って!
Update: 1月29日
Material (Polite speech) | Time | This Week | Notes | |
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【日本語の森まとめシリーズ N3】6時間 | +20:40 | 20:40/70:00 | (at 25:50) |
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【JLPT N3】漢字・語彙・文法 All in One | +14:34 | 35:14/70:00 |
Around 24 minutes of the compilation, the cameraperson starts giggling at Shun先生’s explanations which makes them both giggle and then for the next few minutes every explanation gets a little uncontrollable laughter [me basking in the endorphins, but in japanese]
Material (Casual speech) | Time | This Week | Notes | |
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鋼の錬金術師 Episode 11 | +24:27 | 24:27/35:00 |
Rush Valley episode :3
See you next time!
Day 29
More Comprehensible Japanese, almost done with the beginner playlist.
New words:
きっかけ - chance; excuse; motive
兵団 - army corps
蹴る - to kick
下敷き - being trapped under
I watched 10 minutes of Japanese commercials without subtitles.
I have decided to join this challenge a month late as inspired by @javerend ! But unlike your ambitious and inspiring goals, mine is going to be a tad bit more relaxed. (All the best to you on your mission to 100hrs!!)
Similar to what I’m doing for the reading challenge, this is going to be a multilingual one. The goal is to listen to another foreign language every day. Since I’m travelling to Japan in March (the first time since I moved out a year ago!), I’ll be primarily listening to Japanese and some Spanish once or twice a week. Of course if I have time, I’ll do both!
Planned resources
- Satorireader episodes - currently reading Sakura and Suzuki’s long distance relationship and I plan to listen first before I read
- Voice-over videos - currently reading Ruri Dragon and there’s a cute voice-over video that I also want to watch and listen to before reading the week’s pages
- Pimsleur Japanese / Spanish - I’m not sure if this is technically counted as listening or speaking but either way, I gotta listen before I can try to speak
- Duolingo Spanish Podcast - kindly shared with me by @fallynleaf (thank you very much!). These are bilingual short stories in Spanish.
- Maybe some other podcasts in Japanese?
Still debating whether or not I should count watching anime or listening to music but I feel like I’m not intensively (or is it extensively?) listening when I do both.
Wrap up
Although I started a month late, I’m pretty happy with the 1 month of consistent practice I was able to do. I really think it helps a lot with my comprehension skills. As I mentioned in my post for the last day, I plan to continue doing listening practice for Japanese and Spanish (and maybe Korean) everyday with a minimum of 5 minutes of listening per day per language. I noted that I especially got a lot of listening done when I had days of long commutes. I don’t often have them since I work remotely so I’ll have to think of other ways.
Here’s a summary of february and what I listened to:
- Listened 29/29 days in Japanese
- Listened 9/29 days in Spanish
- Listened 2/29 days in Korean
- Discovered a bunch of listening sources both for Japanese and Spanish!
Today’s vid is from Speak Japanese Naturally, it’s a listen and repeat lesson about general online conversation:
This one counts as speaking practice too, which I pretty much have nothing in. I stumble over pronunciation in English as it is, but it felt like it went okay. Clusters of similar consonant sounds are the hardest bit. Listening-wise I could understand though, I didn’t even realise there was English translations on the screen until about halfway through.
Home post // Jan 30
Lycoris Recoil ep 1
Sasuga Chisato’s voice actress, tenshon taka-
(The first 35 seconds are from roughly the first half of episode one, don’t watch more than that if you want to avoid spoilers from later episodes)
2024-01-30
Date | Name | Type | Amount | Time |
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2024-01-30 | ![]() |
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2h |
So I mentioned in one of my posts that I’m considering the idea of trying Persona 3 Reload in Japanese when it comes out. As a sort of test run I had a go of Persona 3 Portable. Now, my prior Persona experience is:
- Persona 5 Royal until the Spaceship palace
- The first couple of hours of Persona 4 Golden
Notably, no form of Persona 3.
Anyway, I went a bit easy today (and also because it wasn’t in the menu so I was too lazy to figure out how to configure it otherwise), so I had JP audio and EN text. It also means for a first with the VN-y games, I can’t count it as reading practice. I found some of the characters (notably the chairman of the board, Igor and the student council president) were quite difficult to understand going off the JP audio alone, so for those characters I had to look to the EN text. Maybe with JP text it would be manageable? Anyway, it seems it’s coming to Game Pass, so I may as well give it a try when it comes out.
I watched the first episode of The Way of the House Husband without subtitles.
I watched that a few months ago! All the super casual contractions and slang were confusing
Update: 1月30日
Material (Polite speech) | Time | This Week | Notes | |
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日本語の森の学生さんに会いました!in 台湾🍍 | +09:03 | 44:17/70:00 |
The の森 team had a meetup event with students in Taiwan last week
Material (Casual speech) | Time | This Week | Notes | |
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鋼の錬金術師 Episode 12 | +24:27 | 48:54 |
This episode is such a tearjerker It’s the one where the Elric brothers meet up with their sensei and there’s a great flashback about how she trained them, and then the episode ends with them revealing the Trauma to her
it’s just emotionally raw enough that I have to take a break after watching ahaha
See you next time!
I’m just picking up on some of the vocabulary and the odd phrase.
Jan 30, Tue of Week 5 of Q1 2024
本好きの下剋上 Vol.3, 2 chapters. Prologue upcoming. Many extra chapters after that, though.
Jan 31, Wed
本好きの下剋上 Vol.3, 1 chapter (Prologue). Really anticipating the next part, but maybe after the book, intermission first.
YUYU, the latest one.
Today’s vid is a vlog about Yokohama:
I could mostly follow along, I think, there were a few bits were I wasn’t fully sure.
Home post // Jan 31
Lycoris Recoil ep 2
I tried a new setup (Chromecast laptop → TV). I wasn’t wearing hearing aid, so I ended up picking up less of what was being said compared to usual (headset).
2024-01-31
Date | Name | Type | Amount | Time |
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2024-01-31 | ![]() |
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25m |
Honestly a bit of a “tick the box for the challenge” day today, watched one episode of きんいろモザイク, but wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t focus so well, so I may rewatch this episode next time.
I watched half of an English show with Japanese dubs and English subtitles on Netflix.
Update: 1月31日
Material (Polite speech) | Time | This Week | Notes | |
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JLPT N3 Listening Practice Test w/ Answers | +07:47 | 52:04/70:00 |
Material (Casual Speech) | Time | This Week | Notes | |
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Easy Japanese listening vlog in YOKOHAMA | +07:40 | 56:34 | |
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鋼の錬金術師 Episode 13 | +24:27 | 1:11:01 |
Now that January is over and I’ve done a month of this weird method of tracking, I think going forward I would like to switch away from differentiating between polite and casual speech to separating time between active and passive listening. I find myself intently following and shadowing casual speech sometimes, but then passively listening to, say, the news despite its polite speech. I also want to increase my listening time, especially for passive listening. When listening comprehension is my main weakness, I can’t have too much immersion
This has been a great month of listening! Onto the next!!