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.
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.
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
I would say I’ll try to listen a bit more regularly but I said that last time and… it didn’t happen
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
…Next week we will be practising conjugating into the -ば form…
This evening I listened to an episode of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners. It was about comedy.
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.
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.
Listened to the first two exercises of this video, completely failed to understand anything. Yeah, I’m gonna return to some really easy stuff. But interesting to see what’s expected for N5.
I had a busy week, so I didn’t really study (other than the usual Reviews), because when I had the time, I was too tired to look for something and then actually pay attention. Therefore I only got the normal exposure (Japanese with English subs).
Today I started out with the NHK news. It can be quite bothersome, if they have many interviews. If they are with foreigners, it is hard to understand the voiceover and if they are Japanese people in public, they usually wear masks, making it hard to understand as well.
Afterwards I watched two “intermediate” videos of Comprehensible Japanese.
The first one is about Japanese sweets. Other than the ingredients, I knew nearly all of the vocab making this quite easy. She used some cooking terms, which I learned in a Japanese course before. Other than that the level required is not as hard as one would expect from an “intermediate” level.
The second one is about the people on the Japanese Yen Notes. This one was especially easy, because she was depicting nearly everything with pictures or gestures.
In both videos the grammar isn’t very complicated and she speaks slowly and clearly. So if you’re more or less confident in your vocab (I’m guessing between N5 and N4), these might be good study material.
I think the videos from her channel might even be a bit too easy for me, which is nice to see.
I will be on the lookout for more resources. If I’m too tired for something more difficult in the future, I can probably use this channel. I hope that will keep me at it more…
I’ve come down with a cold so not feeling up to a lot. I watched some YouTube and relistened to a bit of an audiobook, but mostly just looking forward to sleeping. Probably no reading for today, hope I don’t fall behind in the book clubs.
Two episodes of Paranoia Agent. I intended to only watch one, but episode 5 had an exceptionally silly tone for this anime, and I needed a dose of darkness after it. Episode 6 felt indeed especially dark. I’m finding I remembered the initial episodes rather vividly, even though it’s been many years since I last saw them, but these two I watched today I didn’t remember at all. Language-wise, I think I caught nearly everything, which is very surprising. I’m sure part of it is because there was no avoiding the English subtitles, so my brained filled in what my hearing missed.
And one more level of Migaku (47). I nearly had a perfect run again, then made a silly mistake. I’m still shaky on some patterns, of course. But there’s no denying I’ve been making significant progress from when I started trying to figure out what this fabled pitch accent is all about.
@pocketcat: Hope you feel better soon! And don’t worry about the book clubs, I’m sure you can catch up in no time when you’re feeling better again.
@Twelvewishes I’ve done a ton of N5 listening drills recently, and those two are most definitely at the harder end of the scale! I just watched the first couple but I’ve got the original source material, I recommend you go back to it and try to get to the end of the video, I think you’ll be surprised. To set expectations, I was probably getting about 30% of questions right before I started drilling, after a couple months practice, it’s up to nearly 70% (about 50% certain and 20% educated guesses). There are still always a few ‘what the ’ questions where I’ve not got a clue on first listening.
Yesterday, Teppi came to the supermarket. Up to around the 40 episode mark, finding it noticeably harder so listening to 4, 5 episodes then revisiting them a bit. Also did a few more N5 drills in the afternoon. Really finding this book/audio book good, can recommend for anyone looking for N5 listening practice.
Listened to three episodes of Learn Japanese with Noriko Extra! on Patreon. I like listening to her stories, and hope I am not being creepy. I am jealous, though.
Watched an episode of Pokemon on Netflix + VPN (Ep.2). I started from S1 of anime 2021 version; but I see Pokemon across generations. Personally, I only knew of Generation 1-2, and perhaps a little after that; I wouldn’t see that in the S1 of original adaptation.
Yeah, I’m gonna return to some really easy stuff. But interesting to see what’s expected for N5.
’ questions where I’ve not got a clue on first listening.