I tried the Miku Real Japanese Podcast today. I like her voice, but it’s hard for me!! When I started podcast listening as an absolute beginner, I had no problem not understanding the majority of an episode, but now that I understand a little Japanese, I get so annoyed when I don’t know what’s going on. I listened to one episode about being a digital nomad (I guess you work online so you’re free to travel?) And another conversation episode about, umm, flowers or something? Gardens, flowers, cherry blossoms, who knows. It was something like that.
Nevertheless, I understood quite a lot of her digital nomad podcast - but there was enough unfamiliar vocabulary to trip me up from complete comprehension.
I noticed that she repeats a lot of words. That’s OK-ish when they’re words that I understand, but not so OK when they’re ones that I don’t. She must have repeated 生活 about a hundred times, and yes I can easily recognize that word, but I would have been happier with less of that. But she also repeats and repeats words that I don’t know, which trips me up.
If I had the willpower, I would play the podcast over and over, stopping it and looking up those unfamiliar words - and I’m sure that it would sink in over time. But I don’t - at least, not right at the moment. Maybe someday.
世界の最新ニュースDaily brief (~7 min)
YUYU 14 and 15 (~23 min total): one was about 妖怪, and the other on オノマトペ
Tobira: ~6 min of audio
10月24日 (火)
世界の最新ニュースDaily brief (~7 min)
ことのは日本語の会話 46 (~25 min): this was a more advanced episode as requested by users, where they tried to talk as natural as possible (in a higher speed). I really enjoyed it. I could follow the conversation, but what really stood out to me were the use of filler words and their conversation style (あのね、さ、ね, etc. さ in particular was used several times in a sentence sometimes!)
10月25日 (水)
こつこつ日本語 86 and 87 (~25 min): one was about 大麻 (ironic, as I was already bothered by this smell in the morning) and the other was on 男性の日傘, which was super interesting.
10月26日 (木)
Everyday Japanese with Sayuri 186 (~16 min): an interesting episode on 青春きっぷ
Learn Japanese with Noriko 89 (~8 min)
I managed to keep my daily listening quite diverse, which makes me happy. My commute involves a 15 min walk, which means I can get almost 30 min of daily listening practice if I want to, which is great (plus i just enjoy the walk anyway). Ah, I also started watching the live action of Kiyo in Kyoto some time this week, and watched 3 episodes up to now, but I don’t remember on which days I watched each one of them.
I’m the same way, I haven’t yet had the willpower to intensively listen to a podcast and look up words. I listen in the car anyways so I’m not able to normally.
Been awhile, but today I watched a video from Akane about one of the most important things to learn:
How to order udon! I could really go for some right now.
As usual I seem to understand the sentences spoken just from picking out the main topic words, I still don’t fully hear all those in between words and connectors, need to slowly fill in the gaps.
I had a class with my tutor today, we talked about F2P mobile games, and made plans to have 2 lessons a week next month to do extra exam prep before my N3 test in December, which now feels terrifyingly close.
We did some exam-style listening and grammar questions and while I didn’t get them all right, I think I did reasonably well.
Two more Nihongo no Mori N3 Kotoba videos today. One had an exam style question in it, which I got right
Still fairly certain I’ll be failing the real test in December though its grammar and listening that will let me down I think.
I had a lesson with my tutor today.
We reviewed もう and まだ because I sometimes get them muddled, and also ~てある and ~ておく because while I basically understand what they mean when I read them, I seem to be completely unable to use them correctly myself.
I felt a lot more confident about all of them by the end of the lesson
Thanks for sharing! I’ve listened to her podcast, but hadn’t tried any of her videos before, and WOW it makes a big difference to have the subtitles haha I felt like I could understand just about everything (pure listening is more of a struggle…).
Found some time today to sit down and do some listening + new vocab. I watched this video, and got quite a few new words from it, many related to directions and movement which I feel will be very helpful! (e.g. まっすぐ、曲がる、着く）Once I’d looked up the new words, I felt confident at understanding the meaning of all the sentences and overall it was a pretty comfortable video for my level.
I feel your pain! So often I listen to something, clueless, and then when I see the Japanese subtitles it’s like a great fog has been lifted lol. I’m sure this will get easier though with more practice
Any sort of listening activity has been overshadowed by the new Zelda game. I’ve been playing it in Japanese with Japanese voicelines, so that’s been a trip.
I’m not gonna lie, it’s way too difficult for me to actually understand anything at my level. However, it’s super fun! Even when I have to take a lot of time to puzzle out sentences, the fact that I’m enjoying myself is propelling me forward.
That said, ラウル (sp?) is sometimes hard to understand acoustically, even when I crank up the volume.
About Japanese used when travelling.
I found the staff really hard to follow, even with the JP subs. He just made one long string of noise.
@soggyboy , @fallynleaf I’ve watched quite a few of her vids for these challenges so far, I find them real useful with the built-in JP subs, it’s also a great way to see parts of Japan, glad you both like them too!
It’s a big help for sure! I try to just pure listen but once I get lost (which happens often) it’s really hard to get back into it when there aren’t any subs. The subs are a great to keep going back to anchor yourself, even if it’s just a quick glance to see what the main subject is.
I had a lesson with a new trainee teacher today. It was really fun, we did a free talk session where we talked about my job, games, anime and manga and history.
its grammar and listening that will let me down I think.
Back to my 
restaurant