🔊 🎙 Listen Every Day Challenge - Winter 2023 ❄ 🧤

Been listening to the most recent Teppei’s and some backlog ones on onomatopoeia. Didn’t really like the onomatopoeia series, can’t quite put my finger on why. Also been listening to more listen with shun episodes. At the end of each episode he lists out some vocab in Japanese and English that was used. It makes relistening more iteresting. It’s a little bit like the audio equivalent of where’s wally - find where he used that word or phrase. It’s much less conversational that Teppei, like a series of sentences are being read.
Mmm I’m trying to read all the sections at the back of my genki2 textbook at the moment, so will listen along with the reading. Podcasts are good for when doing other things - (cleaned the car on Sunday with Shun and Teppei) but I think I should spend more time reading and listening along.

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Feb 7, Tue of Week 7 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

Death Note EP.28. やられた.

So-matome N2 Listening Ch.2 [3/7]. Why you think?

ガラスのうさぎ [16/18].

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February 7 :film_strip: :arrow_forward:

One ほんタメ video and one episode of Quartet. Revelations and rapid developments all of a sudden. Too sleepy to continue watching today, but something to look forward to for tomorrow.

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February 7th!

One of my teachers suggested I try listening to some talk radio type stuff to get used to listening to natural dialogue at a normal speed. So today I listened to a video from this youtube channel that was about Dragon Quest.
Weirdly, a few minutes after I watched it the video got set to private. :thinking:

I didn’t understand much to be honest! But I guess thats why I need to practise…

(Home Post)

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Some Teppei and Shun whilst walking the dog. Tried an episode of Noriko where she was talking to a guy from San Fransico, it was quite strange listening to a non-Japanese person speak Japanese for the first time. He spoke quite a bit slower than Noriko which was good. In general I struggled to keep up with it and my brain quit after 5minutes and just “nope’d” everything.
Later in the evening I did some reading and listening along with the back of book stuff in Genki2.

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:snowflake: Day 39, 8th of February :snowflake:

:headphones: Back to my Home Post

After being too sick this last few days to do much of anything Japanese, I managed to stumble upon some random listening in this one youtube video about ()() (I think those are the right Kanji?).

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:headphones: :desktop_computer: :sound: :snowflake: February 7

Listened to Teppei for beginners #46 and #47, and played BU$TAFELLOWS for 2.5h. There was a bit where the screen went black and you could hear voices in the background without text, but then they showed up on the text log so I could check them and I got most of it, so that was a nice surprise listening exercise.

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Feb 8, Wed of Week 7 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

Death Note EP.29. More interference from the other world.

So-matome N2 Listening Ch.2 [4/7]. General intention.

聞くだけで一気にわかる日本史 : 鎌倉, transition, beginning of 室町. 3 of very short tracks. Looking forward to several eras ahead.

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Made a purchase on Amazon and got the offer of one week of prime for 99p, so I thought why not, lets see what Japanese goodies they have… which was not as many Japanese films/series’s as I was expecting, but oh well, there’s some at least.

One thing caught my eye: 仮面ライダー BLACK SUN
50th anniversary of Kamen Rider special series, I don’t really know much about Kamen Rider other than seeing a few scenes here and there, but I noticed it was certificated 18 and with a title that cool I thought: yes, let’s watch this.

So I did, two episodes (out of 10? I think… or 11)

Expectation going in:
Over the top violence/gore in the style of all those obscure, dark and infinitely awesome late 80s anime OVAs, gritty adult themes and neo noir cinematography, with gruff acting and motorbike action, all to the sound track of something akin to Carpenter Brut.

The reality of what I got:
Not really any of those things :rofl:

Not that it was bad, it was pretty enjoyable. One thing I absolutely love is that they have kept the style of having the kaijin as just guys in suits and masks… beating the absolute crap out of each other, it’s so goofy and everyone is acting all serious and the juxtaposition is so great. I like too that the practical effects are mixed with CGI during the monster’s magical girl transformation sequences, it’s really well done. So then, why, are the motorbike scenes so obviously greenscreen and they’re all observing strict highway code and keeping to the speed limit of 30mph. Big vroom of engine… toodles off slowly down the road while looking all moody with a greenscreen aura :laughing:

I did wonder how this was an 18 rating, there’s violence but it wasn’t that much, since it’s Japanese there isn’t really ‘foul language’ per se just angry shouting, no nudity, there was a little tiny bit of drug use, but so far it felt like a 12, then he just goes and punches some guy and proceeds to prize his head from his shoulders, all with his bare hands :rofl:

This juxtaposition of everything is throughout the whole thing, it’s so goofy and amateur, and somewhat aimless in direction one minute, then super serious, dark and intense violence the next. I’m not sure if that was the intention they were going for, but it’s entertaining at least. I’ll be watching the rest, I have 6 days left so it should be doable and hopefully get something else in.

I’m not really up to date on the deep Kamen Rider lore, so I was left a little confused, but I think I understood the jist of it - it’s about the injustice between humans and kaijin, with those that want to live in peace, and those that want the other to perish, and magical kaijin goo that gives semi-immortality that’s milked from a giant locust god that seems to be the driving force behind it all.

Some of the Japanese I could understand fine, then others just left me baffled, other times I’d suddenly realise what someone said, a minute or so later when everything has moved on. Thankfully the main gruff talking guy is actually pretty understandable.

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I listened to almost 2 hours of Miku Real Japanese yesterday but I do feel that for the next week, my study hours overall will drop as I have been feeling mighty burned out. Will continue to listen on my way to and from work but will just watch some Kdrama after work instead of intensively listening to J dramas. Need a rest.

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February 8th!

I’ve had a super busy day, so just a tiny listen today - one episode of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners.

(Home Post)

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February 8-9 :film_strip:

Today and yesterday I watched all the remaining Quartet episodes and finished it. Neither the synopsis nor the first episode had prepared me for this, but I actually loved it. There was some mystery, but its charm was in the main characters themselves, their interactions and the bond they gradually developed. Highly recommended, both as entertainment and as listening practice - they spoke clearly most of the time, and specialized vocabulary was kept to a minimum. Another one to rewatch without subtitles for sure.

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A combination of panic stations at work & son’s cricket has critt’d my study time. Just managed the latest episode of Teppei yesterday. Might not get time for dog walk today.

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:snowman: :snowflake: February 8-9 :snowflake: :snowman: :speaker:
Home Post

Talk Real Japanese from Tomo :teacher:
Numbers training… :1234:

Nothing yesterday, yesterday disappeared in a blur honestly. Today my cat was trying to drive me crazy, so on with the harness and outside we go. Listened to the third episode of Tomo’s podcast. This one titled 夢, I thought maybe he’d talk about like life goals kinda thing, but no, actual dreams. He also noted this was more N2. (The second episode was N3. And I think episode four is N4, so it fluctuates a bit.)

I could follow this episode well, except when I got distracted and completely missed perhaps 30s, but I managed to find my way again pretty quickly, which tells me this really is a good difficulty for me.

And once again it was actually interesting, talking about dreams as I might do in a language I knew well (I would not be able to do it in Japanese). So I got his take on the topic (once again without it feeling dumbed down or like he couldn’t say everything he wanted). At this stage I might end up dropping Sayuri Says because I find Tomo’s podcast so much more interesting to listen to, and it is the same level of difficulty basically.

Edit: I also decided to finally try the number comprehension thing someone posted a few weeks ago (sorry I don’t remember who :sweat_smile:). 1-100 I’m pretty fast at actually, I can usually just type it out. For 1-1000, I sometimes have to replay it in my head to get it all, but I do manage to remember and hold the whole number in my head until I can put it together into actual digits. Then I tried 1-10’000 and that kicked my butt. Now I had to start replaying the audio, because I’m not so good with remembering the numbers past X thousand X… So I don’t even know if the next is x00 or x0. (I would notice if it was x00x because the number would be so short!)

Well, I guess I’ll start adding this maybe once a week, to practice holding the numbers that have 4 digits. Also probably practice 3 digit numbers to just get quicker at actually comprehending them.

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Feb 9, Thu of Week 7 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

So-matome N2 Listening Ch.2 [5/7]. From contents.

Death Note EP.30-31. Struggling to survive. The end is near, but not Near.

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I have started Dele. Its really just passive listening since its waaaay above my level but its an interesting show.

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Watched three more episodes of 仮面ライダー BLACK SUN

This really is wild. It’s so amateur at times like it’s a college project, but then super epic and smooth the next. At one point the main guy enters transformation time and shouts へんしん!! and it’s so ridiculous and over the top but somehow still ends up epic, though I was half-expecting the Sailor Moon music to kick in.

I cannot get over the motorbike scenes. Quick! Main character friend is in extreme danger we must get to them straight away! Proceed to casually saunter down the highway in full greenscreen glory letting the warm summer breeze caress their hair.

I have no idea if this is great or just complete bonkers, but it’s fun so onto more whackyness tomorrow!

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February 9th!

Today I listened to Lesson 22 of the JapanesePod101 Upper Beginner Series.
It was another one that was focused on understanding a train announcement - todays announcement talked about the trains destination, and station stops and which carriages of the train had unreserved seating, and which were non-smoking carriages.

(Home Post)

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Work was hectic yesterday and I didn’t even stop for lunch let alone a podcast dog walk. I managed to watch the second episode of ‘activate your Japanese’ from NHK that my tutor recommended. It’s got English subs so I’m dubious about the quality of the listening practice - I try my best to listen but… I quite enjoy it though so will try sticking with it.

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Feb 10, Fri of Week 7 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

So-matome N2 Listening Ch.2 [6/7]. Taking notes and multiple questions.

ガラスのうさぎ [17-18/18] (end). The last track is あとがき. I am waiting for the physical book before writing the impression. My money was taken yesterday.

Death Note EP.32. 削除! 削除!

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