🔊 🎙 Listen Every Day Challenge - Winter 2023 ❄ 🧤

I don’t know how he came up with the story, I think it was during the questions section, and he said the toast was so disgusting, and his sister would always go out on the balcony and throw it down? :joy_cat:

I didn’t catch the meanings of the symbols either. I suspect it was their ranking or something? :woman_shrugging:
(Note: Just found What are the meanings of circle, cross, and triangle in Japan? which might support my theory? Two circles = bulls-eye, one circle = correct, triangle = so-so?)

Oh, that’s a good call, I was totally wondering about that as well. (First I thought it might be a different book written by that author, but I couldn’t find any with that cover.) I also noticed that one of the five hosts would often read from a magazine when she talked about the books, and it looked as if the magazine consisted of 5 sections. Maybe they published a magazine about the shortlisted books or something.

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Hiding for off-topic talk about the Akutagawa award

Ah cool, so I guess two circles would be their first choice for the award, one circle their second, and the triangle the runner-up?

So we’ve been having this chat about pure literature across threads, and now with the Akutagawa award I decided to read up on it a little more. Happily I ran across a thesis in English on this very subject: 純文学 and the Akutagawa prize, or more precisely “How Junbungaku affects the Akutagawa prize and Japan’s commercial literary world”. I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but it explains the difference between 純文学 and 大衆文学, or rather the difference in criteria between the two awards, and examines the relation of magazines/publishing houses and these awards.
According to this thesis, the Akutagawa prize is awarded to new authors, on the basis of a singe work (I didn’t know that), while the Naoki prize takes into account the writer’s entire career including future prospects.
These new literary works by new authors are usually initially published in a literary magazine, I’m guessing a little like how manga first appear in magazines along with other works, and then are published on their own?
For example, this is the magazine the second Akutagawa winner was holding. It features three stories/novellas/novels(?) by different authors, one of which is the winning one. This would also answer my question about a video on Akutagawa nominees further up in this thread. The booktuber presenting them was reading from the magazine where each work first appeared, and not the book published independently.

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January 20th

Today I was inspired by @MaraVos and listened to the first Miku Real Japanese podcast.

Fun fact, one of the teachers in the Miku Real Japanese Podcast is one of my teachers! I’ve been having lessons with him via Italki for 2 years. :smiley:

(Home Post)

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:snowman: :snowflake: January 21 :snowflake: :snowman: :speaker:
Home Post

Origami videos :loud_sound:

Listened to two more origami videos, which honestly is as much looking at what they do as listening to what they say. I could probably have made more of an effort to just listen at times, but I haven’t done much origami in my life.

Origami stuff

The videos I watched today and a few days ago where pouches or envelops. I have this idea of making a bit of a real life achievement system or something. So I’ll write some stuff I want to have/do, shuffle them and put them in the envelops and when I achieve one of my bigger things for the year, I’ll get to pick one and do/buy whatever is in there. xD Especially since I’m going to reduce my spending a lot, this will hopefully feel like a fun reward.

Or they’ll end up gathering dust… xD

Anyway, here is the labor from today and a few days ago:


Today was the two envelopes/pouches with golden paper.

The hardest one? Probably the leaf one because it needed to be quite exact, aka a bit finicky. Although the cranes that was folded along with the envelop were hard too. Btw, all of these are one paper, no gluing.

The other problematic thing was probably my origami paper. The metallic ones held folds very good which is both good and bad. xD Definitely not normal paper, but them maybe no origami paper is like normal paper? I don’t know because somehow I’d managed to picked up two slightly weird ones. :joy:

Also I had no idea the heart one would be so small when I started it. For the pattern, it was required to cut off a fourth of the paper… I don’t think I’ll end up using that one for my achievement system if I get it up and running.

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Jan 21, Sat of Week 4 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

So-matome N3 Listening Ch.3 [5/6]. In a shop, also hospital instructions.

君の膵臓をたべたい Ch.8 [3-4/4]. I am listening to reading of the written, with a lot of 括弧 being pronounced.

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:snowflake: Day 21, 21st of January :snowflake:

:headphones: Back to my Home Post

I think my listening ability has plateaued somewhat, so I’m gonna be listening extensively instead of intesively for now. So time to watch PirpPito episode #7 - #20. They’re all very short, and because I’m very familiar with the source material it’s easy to follow, even when I don’t look at the screen.

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January 21 :film_strip:

One episode of MIU404 today. I wish I had had time for more. I did rely on the subtitles less than usual though.

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I watched it with English subs early last year and absolutely enjoyed it. You’re inspiring me to rewatch with Japanese subs though.

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January 21st!

Today I watched the final three episodes of Cells at Work (english subs).
This was a fun series, and watching it has made me struggle far less with the manga since I’ve picked up more of the vocab, and also now know the contents well enough to muddle through the info boxes that were causing me most of the trouble in the early weeks of the bookclub.

(Home Post)

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Oh, glad you like it! I was surprised how approachable and fun it is.

And thanks to your post I’ve tried out the Miku Real Japanese podcast. I don’t understand too much (maybe 50% of the gist, and 25% of the details), but what I understood was fun, and I like the atmosphere. And somehow not understanding too much is actually kind of liberating. I didn’t have any podcast for walking outside anymore - the ones I can keep up with I want to fully understand, so I need a dictionary. But with this one… since I can’t possibly understand everything, it feels alright to not even try to look up words, and to get distracted by a crossing or when shopping for a bit without having to repeat. No idea if that makes sense to anyone but me, haha.

(And on the topic of picking things up, MIU404 is really fun! Much too hard for me though, so not part of this challenge & with English subtitles.)

The last three days:

  • 一昨日: 1x Comprehensible Japanese Intermediate
  • 昨日: Almost 30min Miku Real Japanese Podcast (in the background while walking/shopping) - see above for how little I understand, but I did understand some parts!
  • 今日: 1x Comprehensible Japanese Intermediate
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Jan 22, Sun of Week 4 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

君の膵臓をたべたい Ch.9-10 (end). MC now has a name.

I don’t know if some comprehension just to string the story is a good idea or not, but I didn’t start reading with so good comprehension either.

So-matome N3 Listening Ch.3 [6/6]. End of chapter exercise 80/100, however with rewind.

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:snowman: :snowflake: January 22 :snowflake: :snowman: :speaker:
Home Post

Easy Japanese :rice_cracker:, episode 1
Sayuri Saying Everyday :tanabata_tree:, episode 1

Tried out two podcasts today while out for a walk. I wanted to try the upper beginner ones I’d picked out from Tofugu’s blog post, but I couldn’t quite remember which ones were those since I had subscribed to several at once. Oops…

So I tried Easy Japanese first. That one felt just out of my reach. With a bit more practice, I think I can listen to this one and follow along. Now that I think back to it not even an hour later, I can’t say what the episode was about. I was just barely missing the actual point of each thing talked about. :sweat_smile: I will revisit this one closer to the end of February or so, it felt kinda like +3 or so, which for listening means I had a hard enough time following that I couldn’t really take it in. But it doesn’t feel far out of reach, just beyond my fingertips.

Turns out it was in the intermediate podcast article but among the easier there, so it fits.

Sayuri Saying Everyday however felt just right, like +1. I was skeptical for the first couple of minutes, but then I realized I followed along quite well, and I could recount briefly what the episode was about, although I did miss some things. But not so much I felt truly lost.

So that one feels at just the right level to challenge me. While say, Comprehensible Japanese intermediate feels very easy, I only don’t understand if it is a word I genuinely don’t know.

And turns out, Sayuri Saying Everyday is in fact one of the upper beginner podcasts. So yay.

I’ll also try the other one when I have a chance, which is Let’s Talk in Japanese by Tomo.

My brain feels a bit tired now. :sleeping:

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Calendar

Third week finished. :eyes:

Again, not much changed from last week. Mainly random YouTube videos and a bit of anime.
In contrast to reading I did listen to some stuff on Friday though, yay.

Glad some more people discover Atashinchi. It’s a really nice show. Unfortunately they purged a lot of single episodes from their YT channel a while ago but they do upload frequently.

The 2015 reboot Shin Atashinchi should be findable with subs

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Bit of a backlog but not much to report except that I’ve done at least one Teppei every day and constantly listening to Japanese music with some anime mixed in. However two things of interest aside from that:

  • I went to see a play on Tuesday night which was basically two mini plays. The second mini play was an action movie parody where they have to go globetrotting to find a macguffin. First in Paris, then the middle east and then finally, Tokyo. I got a great laugh when one of the characters said that their contact on the ground was “Tomodachi-san”, and that was amusing enough to me, but then the actor voicing the character actually started speaking full-on Japanese! He didn’t sound fluent, but was very decent. I was so taken aback by the sudden Japanese listening practise.
  • I had a double dose of classes today and yesterday, and ended up talking a lot about different topics. Then my teacher reminded me the JLPT results are out tomorrow and to let her know either way, and kept telling me she thought I was going to pass even though I told her that the listening was very traumatic and I might just be sending her a lot of crying emojis. :sweat_smile:
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January 22 :headphones:

About an hour of かがみの孤城 audiobook while I was otherwise occupied. I tried to listen actively, but I didn’t always succeed. I’m listening to parts I have listened to before, and I keep noticing stuff I had missed, which is good, I suppose. However, I’m definitely nowhere near the stage where I can follow an audiobook without text assistance. I may cave in and follow along with the text at some point, but for now I have plenty to read, and I’m content with just relistening now and then to see whether I have progressed enough to understand more.

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January 22nd

Today I only did a tiny bit of listening - Episode 108 of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners.

(Home Post)

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I started watching a show called シャイロックの子供たち (trailer) which seems totally my kind of show, but also painfully difficult because the setting is a bank :weary: One of the first tense scenes I had to stop and just read the Japanese subs to figure out the details. I generally got that one team was hitting targets and the others weren’t, but the details beyond that were a massive blank beyond what seemed to be an accusation that something wasn’t in the best interest of the customers.
On reading the subs, I figured it out, but geeze…

相場は下がり続けてますよね。
[…]
昨年一年間に投信を買った人はほとんど元本割れしています
[…]
今投信を買えば必ずもうかるという確信があって副支店長はそれを売れとおっしゃっているんですか?

I’m bad with finance terms even in English…

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Thanks! Yeah, I found those - and even some the Non-Shin version, although weirdly only for the first few and for a few in the middle (1-12 and 299-318).


Today I tried another Comprehensible Japanese Intermediate, but after the first minute I realized I didn’t feel up to it, so I switched to a Beginner one instead. It was super easy and pretty cute:

The moral of the story is that it’s okay to accept stolen money if it comes from cute animals.

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Seen as post of my updates for the last challenge were “listening to N5 listening tests” thought I’d repost over here as well.

I passed N5 and got a reasonable score for listening! Very happy considering my listening level was close to zero when I started the challenge.

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Congratulations! :tada: :partying_face:

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