🔊 🎙 Listen Every Day Challenge - Fall 2022 🍁

November 10 :film_strip::chart_with_upwards_trend:

I watched the video @pocketcat linked, but was only half-paying attention and didn’t understand all that much. It looks like it might be an interesting channel though, so I bookmarked for later.

Then I considered Cabinet of Curiosities, but I didn’t want to watch something long (episodes are 45 minutes), so in the end opted for rewatching Paranoia Agent (episode 1 today) online. I had loved this when I first watched it many years ago, and it felt just as good today. There were English subtitles baked in that I’d like to be able to remove or substitute with Japanese ones, but I can’t even find a dvd to buy around here and it’s not on Netflix, even though Paprika and Tokyo Godfathers (all by Satoshi Kon) are. I wonder why.

On Migaku, I did rather terribly today, had 10 mistakes in one session. Right when I’m feeling confident I’m getting better, I get a reality slap. Anyway, I pressed on, and did reach level 42.

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Managed to do about half an hour, 40 minutes of my jlpt n5 book listening drills. Did a spinning class for charity at lunchtime, spent the rest of the day (and this morning) regretting it. On the plus side I practiced saying 疲れています a lot

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Nov 10, Thu of Week 7 of Fall 2022 :maple_leaf:

I watched 2 more episodes of Translator Spotlight from the Japan Foundation, so 5 in total. The latter 1 is in spoken in English, so I don’t want to watch that now.

Then, I watched an episode of The Crown on Netflix. Well, about Queen Elizabeth, but with JP dub and sub. Subtitle mismatch is expected, anyway – listened harder, but I also looked at transcript (via Language Reactor). I don’t read at all if there are too many mismatches. Probably easier than total listening, but there are so many unknowns…

Hidden English sub-on-hover in transcript side-panel helps. I don’t like the built-in hover dictionary, but English transcript helps in a different way. It also helps that only see it when I hover, when I really need to. Perhaps a little of JP audio to English clauses.

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:fallen_leaf: Day 41, 10th of November :maple_leaf:

:headphones: Back to my Home Post

More あかがみんクラフトclassic, this time in episode 7 they finally managed to build the farm and started on the ranch. It’s fun to listen to friend groups talk to each other, and you also get to hear language that isn’t taught in textbooks, like calling someone たこ when they’re being a dummy.

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Similarly to the reading challenge thread, wanted to get into the habit of listening/watching more which I do very little lol
I’m always having trouble finding something to listen that’s engaging enough that I’m not zoning out in a minute :smiley:

Currently watching small Vtuber type of live streams sometimes, anime with subs (and usually one without too) but not much else. I started watching a lets play on YT - usually not really my type of thing, but the first episode was interesting enough that I’ll try to continue.

Loose goals again: at the very least listen to something daily. Said live stream if happening, otherwise couple anime episodes or a lets play episode…
Finishing the currently released パンダ家族の日常 vids on YT seems like a nice goal

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November 10th!

I decided to do something a bit different today, and watched Indie World 2022.11.10 - YouTube

I’ll be honest, I didn’t understand much but I was able to follow along with some bits, and it was fun to watch even without understanding a lot of what was being said.
Definitely going to look up some of these games to find out more about them in english now though :grin:

(Home Post)

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I’ve become fascinated with this channel:

Basically a ton of scandals / crimes / etc being narrated in a very excited voice using a comic style format. Difficulty of the video varies a bit depending on what the case is. There seem to be other videos outside that topic but all the ones I’ve watched are about crime. Most so far have been pretty dark so not linking directly.

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November 11 :film_strip::chart_with_upwards_trend:

Two episodes of Paranoia Agent today. Still love it. English subtitles on, whether I want them or not. I try not to look at them before I hear the phrase spoken, at least, but it doesn’t always work.

And level 45 in Migaku. That’s three levels up from my last update - I did some more yesterday, and quite a lot today too. Accuracy hasn’t increased, but I think my perception is being finetuned the more I hear. I’m trying to get the most out of it until my subscription runs out. Still not sure whether it’s really worth renewing.

It’s funny, I’m fine with getting my grammar and vocabulary almost exclusively from reading, but I prefer to practice pitch accent (something I won’t be needing any time soon as I have no intention of speaking, and no native speakers around I might want to speak to) separately, instead of getting it through listening. I guess it may be because I’m not as comfortable in listening (ie not really comfortable at all) as I am in reading.

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what did I do yesterday? Forgot my earbuds for the morning dog walk, so Teppi didn’t come.
Did a bit of N5 Listening practice towards the end of the day, half an hour or so. Must have had a lucky streak of easier ones as I understood a lot first time round. Not long to go now, really should get those train tickets booked but there’s so many strikes in the UK at the moment, maybe I should drive to London instead.

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Nov 11, Fri of Week 7 of Fall 2022 :maple_leaf:

Watched several things on Youtube

Indeed, I didn’t understand that much, but I try to comprehend and listen to the end. Maybe try better tomorrow…

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Thanks for sharing this! I gave it a listen today, because the picture look cool, the Japanese subtitles make it a lot easier to understand though I still got rather lost and wondered exactly where the video was going but at least this counts as listening for the day


Unlike reading, it feels like I learn more from listening if I don’t do it everyday, listening everyday in the last challenge felt like I started just blanking it out rather than listening. Though the pace which I have been participating in this thread is less than good :sweat_smile:

I would say I’ll try to listen a bit more regularly but I said that last time and… it didn’t happen :thinking:

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:fallen_leaf: Day 42, 11th of November :maple_leaf:

:headphones: Back to my Home Post

Tried to listen to NHK Easy News. Oh boy, I’m still not ready for that. I even tried to read along, but without haivng a translations as reference this is quite difficult. I suppose I could listen to it repeatedly, but I’d rather immersive with something fun.

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I’ve watched this channel’s videos before, but have gotten back into them recently. Not my favorite video, but throwing it out there:

I’m glad you liked it! I listened to a few other videos on the channel and it definitely bounces around a bit with how difficult they are. I enjoy it overall, and I don’t mind hard JP subs for hard content :joy:

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Watched 3 episodes of Shin Atanashinchi with subs today. I might do a rewatch without subtitles when I finished. It’s quite easy every day language so it shouldn’t be too hard to understand at least something without them.
I’m just a bit bummed out that they decided to remove all the old episodes from their YT channel. Can’t find them anywhere else now.

I’ve also watched a Twitch stream for some time, but I zoned out a lot. I just can’t get myself to focus on a stream where I don’t understand a lot and watching someone play random games isn’t very engaging to begin with. I really need to find some good reliable type of listening content that keeps me engaged. :thinking:

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Cherry Maho the movie (what a title, ugh) came out this week so of course I watched that. I was really pleasantly surprised that I understood about 90% of it! This was with subtitles on the first go, which helps my comprehension a ton (even in English, tbh). Maybe one day I won’t need to use them as a crutch anymore, dare to dream.

Tbh the movie was slow though, lots of very long camera shots of people looking into the distance. Maybe that helped my comprehension, I didn’t need to keep up with any action.

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November 11th!

Today I had a class with my tutor. We talked about lots of things, including stuff I’ve been doing at work recently, some friends of mine moving into a house on my street, the differences between authentic Japanese food and what people here in the UK call Japanese food, and reasons why its difficult to be a vegan in Japan. It was a great lesson. We also did some grammar practise, including XばXほどY, which I understood well, except I managed to mess up conjugating the -ば form EVERY TIME. :sob:
…Next week we will be practising conjugating into the -ば form… :smile:

This evening I listened to an episode of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners. It was about comedy.

(Home Post)

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November 12 :film_strip::chart_with_upwards_trend:

Paranoia Agent episode 4, and Migaku up one level to 46. I may do some more later if I have the time.

Yesterday I also listened to some Teppei while I was doing other things, as people here keep mentioning him. I found him surprisingly understandable. He’s a good choice for background listening for when I’m doing some mindless chore that doesn’t need my full concentration. Audiobooks would be an even better choice of course, but not yet. I don’t mind missing what Teppei says, but if it were an audiobook I’d be rewinding all the time to make sure I caught every little detail.

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Nov 12, Sat of Week 7 of Fall 2022 :maple_leaf:

Watched an episode of Pokemon on Netflix + VPN. Without VPN I don’t have JP audio nor sub – it’s just spoken in English, and so many other non-JP languages (despite my region). I hope to see animals and cute name puns. As for my childhood memory of Pokemon, anime and manga uses JP names (transcribed to Thai); and games came in two batches – JP versions which most people can’t read and need to stick to walkthrough; and EN versions with Pokemon names different from frequently heard anime (because EN).

I listened on Podbean to Learn Japanese with Noriko on a book review, 星の子. I can understand the outline, although there are also much I don’t understand. There is a transcript in Patreon, though. (And the book sounds nice.)

I listened on Spotify to an episode of Japanese podcast for beginners (Nihongo con Teppei). I can understand easily, like 90-95%, but it does take some energy. It’s about パラパラ バラバラ ハラハラ. I think I know some meanings of all three, but I am not so sure; it is nice to hear explaining. There are also other onomatopoeias in episode list.

As for my opinion of Podbean vs Spotify; although Spotify can’t change region, Japanese teachers I knew are all in Spotify, anyway. Some licensed Japanese songs are probably only in Spotify (and not on Youtube).

I tried to find songs to play on piano / guitar, and I find this one to be both strummable and can guess melody music score.

I’ve also found Yoshiki X-Japan’s channel just now.

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Teppi came to walk the dog with me twice yesterday as I also went out at lunchtime as the weather was good. I also did a few N5 drills.

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:fallen_leaf: Day 43, 12th of November :maple_leaf:

:headphones: Back to my Home Post

Listened to the first two exercises of this video, completely failed to understand anything. :smiling_face_with_tear: Yeah, I’m gonna return to some really easy stuff. But interesting to see what’s expected for N5.

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