November 29th!
Nihongo no Mori N3 Kotobo #53 today - I’ve fallen a bit behind with my plan to finish the series before the exam on Sunday, but its been a busy month for me so I’m mostly just happy to have managed to listen to something every day even if it wasn’t much.
I can probably squeeze in finishing the series on Friday because I have the day off work to study.
11月24日 (金)
I listened to 2 Noriko episodes, but I forgot to write down which one and got a little lost on the counting.
11月25日 (土)
Akane 195 and 196 (~8 min). I enjoy her podcasts, but wish they were a little longer, like her vlogs.
11月26日 (日)
JLPT N3 聴解 mock test (~38 min total)
11月27日 (月)
ことのは日本語の会話 52 (28 min): About giving birth. There were quite a few complicated words/vocabulary, so I’d definitely like to listen again in the future.
11月28日 (火)
YUYU (22 min). I don’t remember exactly the episode (it’s one of the new ones), but he’s recording together with Kaito, who is talking about novels he is writing.
Noriko 108 (7 min)
11月29日 (水)
Sayuri (Everyday Japanese Podcast) 180 and 193 (~25 min). One was about things she found curious when in Hawaii (cultural difference with Japan), which was quite interesting. The other was about year-end cleaning, which inspired me to dedicate some time for that in the end of next month.
11月30日 (木)
Noriko 109-113 (~30 min). I have been listening in 1.2x speed, which is quite nice. A variety of themes here, a few centered around her work and how Covid changed things in the work-environment/life, since these are fairly older episodes.
…And I’m done. I probably won’t be doing December since I’ll need a break after the JLPT this weekend, and I want to take things easy.
November 30th!
Final day of the challenge already! Hopefully my listening skills have improved enough for me to not embarrass myself at the JLPT exam on Sunday 
Today I watched Nihongo no Mori’s N3 Kotoba #54 and #55
I learned a few new words today, which is not encouraging so close to the test 
But they were fairly specific words about real estate so not super common words that I should definitely have known (…I hope)
Thanks for hosting again @omk3 and thanks to everyone participating - you all motivate me to keep going 
I’ll not be posting throughout December, but I’ll still be lurking in the threads to see the updates from anybody who is!
Good luck on the JLPT exam 
I totally fell behind on my listening goals in November, though I did just download a bunch of old episodes of 4989(しくはく) American Life and got those queued up for my next car trip. I want to look into some audiobooks, too, but I need to do research on the right level for me.
Also, if anyone wants some daily listening practice, with music, going into December, please come check out 冬の唄 Song Advent Calendar 2023 and Countdown to 紅白!
(Maybe I can count the time spent listening to those songs on repeat while putting that together as practice? 
)
And 頑張って to anyone taking the JLPT this weekend!
Nov 29, Wed of Week 10 of Fall Q4 2023 
Daily Brief x1
YUYU, 1 new episode. Then listen and read 羅生門.
Nov 30, Thu
YUYU, 1 new episode. Another latest one.
Dec 1, Fri
Daily Brief x2
Rebuild #373 (1:29-1:45 end, 16 min)
Dec 2, Sat
本好きの下剋上 Vol.2 : ルッツのマイン (20 min)
YUYU, 1 new episode. The latest one.
SummaryGotta admit I didn’t exactly have quality listening everyday, but tried to make it everyday nonetheless. (Bad 11 out of 61 days.)
Maybe I would do less in the off month, if I can (want to).
Made an Excel just now.
The only podcast I listened to with consistency was Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners. I listened to about 105 episodes, which, if you average them at 4 minutes per episode, shakes out to about 7 hours of listening. I also dabbled in some other podcasts and watched youtube which probably adds a couple hours of listening for the month. I’ve decided to move my podcast listening to the slightly harder Nihongo con Teppei Z, so I suppose that’s a win for this challenge? It’s pretty difficult to quantify progress in listening as it’s extensive by nature so I guess I’ll just keep at it. 
I technically started doing this challenge at the start of December, but only just now got around to making my home post, oops!
| Dec | 月 | 火 | 水 | 木 | 金 | 土 | 日 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 48 | |||||||
| Week 49 | |||||||
| Week 50 | |||||||
| Week 51 | |||||||
| Week 52 |
= Japanese
= Japanese and Spanish
As many folks probably already know, I’m doing a challenge this year where I try to get a perfect 365 day streak of reading and/or listening to both Japanese and Spanish for an entire year. I’ve been alternating between two months of reading, then one month of listening. This challenge is the last one! If I complete this month without missing a day, I will have successfully finished the whole year.
I will… probably not remember to post any updates in this thread, haha, especially since I’m so behind on my other commitments, but I dunno, maybe I’ll feel compelled to share something. I’m also terrible at remembering to come in and check the boxes…
The main thing I’m working on at the moment is the Shin Kanzen Master N3 listening book. I just finished the N4 one at the start of the month. I might watch other stuff besides that, though. Normally podcasts would be in the mix, but with the current weather, it’s unlikely I’ll go on any walks, which means my main podcast time won’t be happening, so podcasts probably won’t be happening, either.
I’m trying to focus on comprehensible input for the purposes of this challenge, so I won’t be counting higher level TV shows/movies I might watch in Japanese, or pro wrestling shows/interviews, though I might post about some of that other stuff in the thread just to share some interesting things with other folks, haha.
Currently just Bob Esponja . When December started and I switched gears from reading to listening, I went back to Bob Esponja because I wanted something low energy, and podcasts are sort of out for the time being… So children’s television it is.
I’m still contemplating moving on to a harder show, but it’s hard to convince myself to try something more difficult when I don’t have a lot of energy for it, haha, so I don’t know if I’ll get around to that this time. I’m keeping the option open, though.
I watched the 9 episodes of My New Boss Is Goofy (新しい上司はど天然) yesterday. Such a good one.
Hello everyone!
I haven’t been participating in these challenges for a while now, so I believe it’s time for someone else to take over. The next challenge would normally start at the start of the year, Jan 1st. Anyone who wants to keep this challenge going is welcome to do so.
It’s not a big responsibility, you’ll only need to create a new thread every three months or so. I’ll still be around if you have questions or need help with anything.
Thanks for taking part and I hope you’ve seen some good progress in your listening skills!
So great to find some good pointers in this category, as I just realised that listening skills are probably my weakest point. So I just listened to the first 2 episodes of the Nihongo Con Teppei podcast for beginners and was pleasantly surprised that with just a few takoboto lookups I understood most of it!
日本語を2ヶ月間たけべんきょうします。
Now listening to Japanese with Shun. This is awesome, the first episode was fine, but the second one is already challenging for my absolute beginner level, but understandable when I repeat some phrases again and again and look up the parts that I don’t understand.
I’ve also discovered a tool for looking up the parts that I can’t parse in my head. I hear Shun say a phrase where I don’t even know where each word ends:
Hikagewasanposhitarishimas
I immediately switch to the Google Translate app and try to repeat like a parrot what I heard. Even if it’s not precise, Google Translate is permissive enough, so it often guesses correctly and fixes the parts that I didn’t catch exactly.
Been predictably terrible at updating this thread, but the challenge is going well so far! Had a couple bare minimum days over the holidays, but I still haven’t broken my streak!
Before the year ends, though, I did want to recommend a series you can use for listening practice! It’s called Fake Documentary Q, and it’s available entirely for free on youtube (with optional English or Japanese subtitles available)!
Warning: it’s a horror series. But it’s very good! As far as Japanese listening practice goes, the episodes vary pretty heavily in terms of how easy the listening experience is, but it has a tendency to subtitle the harder to hear bits in Japanese (with baked-in subs). Also, it doesn’t use jumpscares, which is nice.
One of the things that I think is really neat about Q is that it includes a lot of creepy details in the background that it doesn’t shove in your face, so you have to pay close attention and look for them in order to catch them. For example, pay attention to everyone’s shadows in the videos. Also, pay attention to the sweater that Noriko (the woman who is a shut-in in the episode titled No Fiction) is wearing.
I’m a weird person who enjoys horror fiction in a sort of abstract way (I don’t like gross-out horror or horror with a lot of jumpscares, though), but who never really gets scared by it. I think the episode which unsettled me the most was House of Mirrors, though Basement might be second (very little listening practice in that one, haha).
The latest episode (as of the time of writing) is probably my favorite one so far, just because I think the whole concept for the series really comes together here. You can watch some of the others out of order, but I think this one really has to be watched last. According to my friend, they streamed part of this episode live, and the youtube comments you see onscreen at one point are real comments from the stream, which naturally freaked a whole bunch of people out, haha. I won’t spoil anything specific, but the series does a lot of playing around with reality and fiction, and sort of the weirdness that exists in the gulf between real and fake.
It’s a series that rewards rewatching the episodes and close-reading the details, so it might be a good candidate for watching with English subtitles, then watching again with Japanese subtitles, then again with none? I haven’t watched any of the episodes more than once because I haven’t had time, but there’s a thriving community of fans out there theorizing about stuff, so there’s a lot to dig into if you get into it!
Has anyone volunteered to make the next thread? If no one is planning on it, then I’ll make it.
Not that I know of! You’re very welcome to take over, thank you!
Okie dokie 
I’m cozy in bed right now so I’ll post the next thread in the morning.
It’s a week late, but here’s my challenge wrap-up post!
| Dec | 月 | 火 | 水 | 木 | 金 | 土 | 日 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 48 | |||||||
| Week 49 | |||||||
| Week 50 | |||||||
| Week 51 | |||||||
| Week 52 |
= Japanese
= Japanese and Spanish
Hey, look at that! A perfect score! This means I successfully completed my full 365 day immersion challenge!
I made it almost halfway through the Shin Kanzen Master N3 listening comprehension practice book, and watched probably like 30 Bob Esponja episodes in Spanish. Didn’t get much other comprehensible input listening practice done besides those two things, though of course I’ve done loads of extensive listening practice in the form of pro wrestling shows!
December was an unexpectedly busy month for me (though I shouldn’t have been surprised), so most of my time ended up being split between trying not to neglect spending time with family, and trying to catch up with my other projects and commitments as much as possible before the end of the year.
I think I finished 9 Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling translations in December? That feels like it can’t possibly be right, but… I translated the November 5 show, November 19, November 26, December 1, December 6, the December 14 show that was in America, December 17, December 24, and finally, the December 31 press conference.
It was a busy and somewhat bittersweet end of year for TJPW, as they celebrated their 10th anniversary as a company and also said goodbye to Yuka Sakazaki, one of their original members, who graduated on December 6 
.
Here’s a photo from the end of Yuka’s last second to last TJPW match, where she faced Shoko Nakajima and Miyu Yamashita, who are the other founding members of TJPW. Yuka pinned Shoko (her long-ago tag partner) to win the match, and it was one of the most moving pins I’ve ever seen in pro wrestling, because Shoko reached up and put her arms around Yuka and embraced her as the referee counted the pin 
.
Fittingly, with this, I’m also graduating from actively participating in the listen/read every day challenge threads . I’m still reading them, but I’m not planning on signing up for any more, because I don’t feel that I need them for motivation anymore!
I’m definitely grateful for the threads for getting me as far as they have, and for helping me make a daily habit of practicing Japanese and Spanish!
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