I think that’s so interesting because I’ve never noticed the same thing with English subtitles to the same extent (yes, sometimes I watch shows with English subtitles on lol). Like there are things that get left out of the English ones, but sometimes the entire word changes in the Japanese ones. But I guess maybe what I’m actually watching in English is closed captioning, which it sounds like would take yet a different approach vs. subtitling (i.e., being more of a literal transcription than subtitles would be). So maybe the same thing does happen in English subtitles and I’ve just never noticed? I’ll have to check what I’m using the next time I do that. Sorry, this is really interesting to me, after all these comments I feel like I must be the only one who didn’t know Thank you for enlightening me, I love learning random stuff like this
I honestly can’t decide if I should or shouldn’t turn them off. When it’s really different, it does get distracting, but my listening is so bad, I don’t think I’ll understand anything without them The subtitles are still too fast for me to fully read them, but sometimes just a hint is enough lol
One thing I noticed consistently (with this show at least) is that the subs seem to drop a lot of the kind of extra tone/politeness indicators, like the のね’s and that sort of thing that get thrown into the spoken dubs. It seems like they might tend toward the more plain forms of verbs and stuff like that too (not always, but I’m pretty sure I heard some spoken ーますs etc that were not ーます in the subs). I’m assuming for ease of reading and for the character length limit you mentioned, since the subs are already quite long to read in the time frame given (for me at least) Or like the dub will say 分からない and the sub will say 知らない. Idk, I find it interesting to play spot the difference, it’s like a game xD Another reason I don’t know if I want to turn them off.
Heck, you’ve got me interested in it now! (Sounds like something I should’ve been looking into already, frankly.) If you’re having fun with it, I say continue with the subtitles on.
Not in the mood for podcasts today, so I just listened to the audio of the Tadoku readers I read today. It was called “どっち？” and I chose it because a) it had a cat, and b) I struggle with adverbs and this was about one, so…
Very cute, and because you can see the cat’s expressions and are familiar with stereotypes about cats, one can infer the correct meaning of the story even without vocabulary.
I think I’m gonna stick to these readers for now, keeping this up every day is exhausting and these are very easy even for my level. Staying consistent is more important right now than upping the difficulty.
Today I listened to Lesson 5 of JapanesePod101’s Upper Beginner, Season 1 while I was eating my lunch.
It was focused on kenjyougo, and used an earthquake announcement as an example.
This evening, I listened to an episode of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners too.
Got in a video before bed. This time, I decided to check in on my girl Naoko. She’s moving back to Japan from Spain, and this video showcased different items she’s packing up to take with her. I learned the word for the day after the day after tomorrow (three days from now): しあさって (gotta ;love the kanji for this one: 明明後日).
Honestly, the section where she’s just sitting around looking through the random stuff she’s collected while she’s lived there…how freaking relatable. Every time I decided to go through my things looking to clean or unload stuff from my possession. She’s really relaxing to listen to, and I can follow what she’s saying easily. While maybe not a challenge, it was a good pick right before going to sleep.
Love the Nihongo SWITCH channel! Definitely check out her website, though. Only a handful of her podcasts are on her YouTube channel, plus she hasn’t uploaded anything there for some time despite continuing to do so on the website. I personally preferred listening to them on YouTube, but alas.
Stumbled upon a video in my recommendations about a weird apartment in Osaka. The guy in the video speaks English, but halfway through he invites someone to judge the apartment and she speaks Japanese. The subtitles are unfortunately baked-in, but it was quite interesting to hear more conversational spoken Japanese.
The video was fun, so I watched the other two where she showed up, here, and here. Topic was still weird small apartments in Japan.
It helped me with contextualizing some adverbs, too! けど is now something I’ll have less trouble with.
Nihongo Con Teppei for beginners episodes 579 – 586.
Today’s NHK Easy News.
P. S. I wonder what’s better – to reply to my own last post each time (while giving the link to the main post) or to reply to my main post each time…
I use the latter in the Read Everyday Challenge, but decided to try the former here. We’ll see which one will be more convenient.
(audiobook) 九十九の空傘 | → ~50% (anime) Bungō Stray Dogs | Ep. 4 → End of Season 1
So, up to the beginning of this challenge I had mostly been listening to/watching ‘realistic’ things (regular drama shows and the like) because that seems to be the easiest. But I’ve been growing a bit tired of that, so I’ve been trying to find things to listen to or watch that I can more or less understand & that are at the same time closer to my usual favorite genres - sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, suspense, anything with a plot outside of regular drama/slice of life stuff, basically. Unfortunately that’s not at all an easy task
So, I tried Bungo Stray Dogs and the first few episodes were pretty comprehensible actually, but then of course it got harder - Welp. Anyway, I liked it enough to continue anyway, I miss things but with a lot of focus it’s just about okay.
It’s a crime/super powers/comedy mix kind of thing, kind of silly but in a fun way
Bonus points for not being about high schoolers for once.
I also tried one of these
I’m always happy to try podcasts with short episodes - I don’t often have the patience for the longer ones Cool concept, might listen to more of them in the future, thanks for mentioning it
October 6th
What did I listen to?: A Series of Unfortunate Events Ep 2
How much time did I spend listening?: 48 min (? however long the episode was)
Oof, yesterday was a bad day. I didn’t think I’d be missing a day so early in the challenge but I just…could not. Fortunately, today was much better (even though I like…didn’t sleep last night lmao, but sometimes I think that lack of sleep ends up mellowing me out in a way that’s not all bad. Eventually I get too tired to keep stressing ) Anyway, I managed to squeeze in another episode of A Series of Unfortunate Events today. I found myself looking at the subtitles less this time, possibly because I felt like I could actually…catch a lot more of the spoken words in this episode? Like I could hear the sounds better. Of course, there were some sections that were basically incomprehensible because of (mostly law-related) vocab I didn’t know, but I know the series well enough that it really didn’t even bother me
Finished Men in Black last night.
Watched all of Men in Black 2 tonight.
Thought I had seen it already but apparently not. Comprehension level not nearly as high as during the first movie.
Try! JLPT N3 (Started at Lesson 7)
I listen to the text in the beginning without reading, then with reading, and again just reading to go through words which I didn’t understand.
Then there’s a JLPT mock test and there’s some listening exercises too.
I have started yurucamp S2 on Netflix (now at Ep.3), and continued HUNTER x HUNTER (1999) as ever.
However, a problem with Netflix, as well as audiobook.jp and many other YouTube’s – loudness is too low. Not loud enough with laptop speakers, and sometimes with smartphone and headphones and surrounding noise… Also, Netflix doesn’t allow screen capture, but this is a relatively small problem (probably with pro on focus as well).
Now at HUNTER x HUNTER Ep.53, which is a little further than my manga reading. First hurdle I can see is vocabularies, as generated subtitles aren’t accurate anyway, even with not-in-dictionary pseudo-vocabularies; but then I can easily see that knowing more vocabularies helps. As long as I learn more some other ways, it should eventually be fine, I guess.
I listened to a little of voice actors’ drama audio a few days ago, and I find it just touchable. Last week I also found Nihongo SWITCH on Podbean, which isn’t so bad. (My understanding was ok, but not yet good enough, and I realized there are transcripts.)
Sorry, this is really interesting to me, after all these comments I feel like I must be the only one who didn’t know 
Thank you for enlightening me, I love learning random stuff like this 
The subtitles are still too fast for me to fully read them, but sometimes just a hint is enough lol
(anime) Bungō Stray Dogs | Ep. 4 → End of Season 1
Anyway, I liked it enough to continue anyway, I miss things but with a lot of focus it’s just about okay.
) Anyway, I managed to squeeze in another episode of A Series of Unfortunate Events today. I found myself looking at the subtitles less this time, possibly because I felt like I could actually…catch a lot more of the spoken words in this episode? Like I could hear the sounds better. Of course, there were some sections that were basically incomprehensible because of (mostly law-related) vocab I didn’t know, but I know the series well enough that it really didn’t even bother me