2026/07/30
Inspired by some of you who are logging several hours of listening each day, I’ve been experimenting with more “passive listening” while I’m walking the dog, doing chores, or driving. (Mostly I’ve been bingeing Slow Japanese.) I definitely don’t understand as much compared to when I’m actively listening—I’m mostly only picking up words and phrases, not whole sentences. Still, it seems like a good supplement to active listening and a good way to make more time for listening practice on busy days. I’m looking forward to someday when I’m good enough at Japanese to do background listening just for the pleasure of it, like I do with English language podcasts.
Side note, does anyone else get sleepy after heavy language practice?
you should consider resting part of the learning process, if you’re exhausted you might have over done it (but don’t completly forget about studying either )
Got home super late last night and barely had enough time to get reviews and a TINY bit of listening in before bed, so I didn’t update this thread. Got 10 minutes yesterday, but I was watching my friend’s pets this evening, so I ended up watching 1h40m of しかちゃん on youtube. Still not understanding most of what she’s saying, but it’s a very peaceful channel for me to watch. She just rides to a camping spot on her motorcycle and camps out and cooks. It’s very calm and peaceful, and exactly what I’ve needed after the last week.
Absolutely yes. Beginning this June, I decided to register for the N5, so I ramped up on my lessons and practice, joined the ABBC and this listening challenge, all while doing ~120 reviews on here and another ~180ish on Bunpro… I’ve been waaaay more tired since then. Side effect, I fall asleep fast, and sleep way more soundly than I have in years! Nights like tonight where I had Japanese content playing on the TV for hours, and was doing some light reviews on my phone while I watched/listened, my brain is definitely worn out!
Watched a few more episodes of からかい上手の高木さん, enjoying it but definitely difficult to keep up with what the characters are saying, even if I recognize that I know the vocabulary
Other than that I’ve been listening to Nihongo con Teppei every day on my commute, which I really enjoy cause I can follow along without trying to think to much about what is being said.
・Kanae 2nd Live (2h 49m)
・Secret Rust time (2h 11m)
The live was wonderful I took a bunch of screenshots. A few hours after the live, Kanae logged on to Rust without streaming, so I was listening to Shaka-san’s stream (he had the best audio of the team).
I’m posting this the day after. So yesterday, I was waiting for Kanae to start the 振り返り stream of the live he had on Friday. It started around 13:10 my time. Before that I tuned into Shaka’s stream from 11:10. So I started my day with listening to 2h of Rust.
After the furikaeri stream which lasted 2h, Kanae almost immediately logged onto to Rust on youtube which he streamed for 5.5h. After that he streamed played SF6 and League with friends on twitch for 6.5h far into the morning hours, it was around 10:30am when he turned off stream. At that point he had been streaming from 20:10 in the evening to 10:30 the next day That’s over 14h in total And the worst part is that I followed all of it + the 2h of Rust with Shaka-san.
楽しみ！
)
That’s over 14h in total 
And the worst part is that I followed all of it + the 2h of Rust with Shaka-san.
