🔊 🎙 Listen Every Day Challenge - Spring 2023 🌼 🌱

:cherry_blossom: :seedling: 4月8日 :seedling: :cherry_blossom: (Home Post Link)

Listened:

  • 牧場物語 (大神ミオ ライブ)~15 min ー just picked up where i left off last night and listened until it was time to leave for sakura-con

Word(s) of the Day:
しぶき ー spray, splash
あくせく ー busily; sedulously; laboriously; feverishly; fussily; worrying (about little things)​

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April 8 :european_castle: :headphones:

Back to かがみの孤城, and today it felt more pleasant for some reason. I finished the July chapter and started August.
I also attempted to rewatch part of the first Tatami Galaxy episode after reading this week’s portion for the ABC. How I even thought it might be suitable for listening practice a while ago is beyond me :rofl: Having read the relevant part of the book, and with English subtitles on, it still was too fast for me to follow properly!

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April 8th!

Today I watched the episode 7 of Rilakkuma and Kaoru.
I found this one pretty easy to understand :slight_smile:

(Home Post)

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Week 1 Recap

(home post)

I had a pretty good week. I listened to something every day, and hit my goal of 20-30 minutes 6 out of 7 days. I’m aiming for 50% level-appropriate material and 50% native material. The level-appropriate material (Nihongo con Teppei and Japanese with Shun podcasts) have been a real confidence boost because I actually can understand a great deal. The native material (Radio Kishiwada and NHK Radio News) are super challenging. Sometimes I can catch the gist if I hear some katakana words or proper names to give me some context, but often I can only pick out words and phrases. Still, I think the native-level listening is worth the effort, and I have gotten slightly better at catching numbers (I can now hear “ni sen ni juu sannen” whereas before I just heard “ni sen blah blah blah”).

On to Week 2!

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:hot_pepper: April 8

Tampopo

An effort to branch out from Kurosawa and an appetite for ramen related programming crossed to create a Criterion Collection filter that revealed this movie gem. Described as a “Noodle Western,” it riffs on Italian Cinema throughout. There are unusual, seemingly unrelated, story elements strung together through clever match cuts, media format changes, and wipes. Each pocketing connections to other story elements in negative space and through misdirection. There is ample dark comedy. A very good match for me. Enjoyed it so much that I’ve watched it five times in two months.
Tonight was different. Viewing with someone else and feeling the movie fall flat for them. Consequently, the listening comprehension suffered. Used it as an opportunity to further read into the hidden connections. Having someone with no Japanese knowledge watching with me shifted my perception enough to see how far these subs fall from depicting the comedic tone. They came away from their viewing experience angry for even being subjected to it .
Pretty awesome to have someone around that you can trust to have those kind of reactions and still talk to you :heart_eyes:

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Home Post :hatching_chick:

Time for another N4 practice test! This one felt a little more difficult and I scored 3 points less than last time: 42/60

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Apr 9, Sun of Week 2 of Spring Q2 2023 :cherry_blossom:

歴史 [6/90] - 縄文時代. Then, I feel the need to learn Japan’s regions, so there is 都道府県を覚えよう (1-7), but I only made it to 3 today. Too overloaded. There is also this song – 日本地図の歌(ゆめあるオリジナルソング) - YouTube, but I think it is better for reviewing.

I feel that YouTube makes it inconvenient to go on to the next episode in the playlist, or resume the playlist after a while. Though, this is a little easier on mobile (Android with small screen). Maybe YouTube loses possible income from people being loyal to a playlist (rather than jumping around and seeing a little of many things).

こころ Ch.7-12. YouTube has comments, making it more interesting and wanting to know further.

推し、燃ゆ [1-2/10]. I probably only understand well first half of the first track. Still don’t like the vocal much and that might matter. (Can’t talk much about the story yet.)

Today, I have found a sound amplifier app for Android, making listening on travelling, with traffic noise, easier. (Not sure if it is good for my ears, though.)

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9/04/2023 :fairy: Home Post Link

I watched a video about “taxi conversation” [link]. It was very hard to understand this time. The first 2 minutes and last 2 minutes had so much information (about payments and how taxis work in Japan and all that), so it was a little overwhelming.

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April 9 :european_castle: :heart_on_fire: :headphones:

So today I listened to not one, but two audiobooks! (while reading along of course)
While かがみの孤城 is easy to follow and the voice acting is full of expression (to the point of annoying me), 推し、燃ゆ is challenging and the reading is mostly expressionless.
Guess which one I’m enjoying more :joy:

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:cherry_blossom: :seedling: 4月9日 :seedling: :cherry_blossom: (Home Post Link)

Listened:

  • 四度目の挑戦~国体予選を振り返る #conpetition - YouTube - Climbing video today! The first half is all of his attempts on the problems during the competition, and then the 2nd half is him talking about the problems and a little bit about the results. My comprehension was helped by both the fact that most climbing specific words are english loan words, and also that climbers almost universally have a fun habit of miming moves as they are describing/visualizing them :laughing:
  • ペルム紀の大量絶滅はどうやって地球をリセットさせたのか? - YouTube - aaahhhh so many words so fast, between knowing about the permian extinction event already and some random vocab from よつばと!of all things, could mostly follow what was happening
  • マイクラ (大神ミオ ライブ)~30 min ー lil tired and wanted to do something relaxing before bed and ended up watching a bit of mio’s minecraft stream. Spent most of the time struggling with stairs and slabs as decorative blocks trying to build a roof, but not quite figuring it out

Word(s) of the Day:

  • 酸性化(さんせいか)ー acidification (酸性 acidity)
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April 9th!

Today I watched the next episode of Rilakkuma and Kaoru, and then the 4th episode of Season 2 of The Way of The House Husband.
Rilakkuma and Kaoru was mostly understandable. The Way of The House Husband… less so. :sweat_smile:

(Home Post)

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Please advise:

Does extended eavesdropping on people speaking Japanese next to you count as listening?
  • Yes
  • No
  • This is creepy and I hate the idea

0 voters

I took a trip and stopped at a small restaurant with a casual atmosphere where people tried to speak to me in English, but also I actively listened to their Japanese conversations. I’m debating whether I should check off that day or not on my calendar in this thread :joy::eyes:

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:hot_pepper: April 9

Alice in Wonderland (1951) JP dub. Getting pretty good at this one now. Starting to hear the song lyrics clearly and remember them well enough to follow along.

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Apr 10, Mon of Week 3 of Spring Q2 2023 :cherry_blossom:

こころ Ch.13-16.

都道府県を覚えよう [4-7/7]. I might as well try world geography and world history later, so that I can easily enjoy Age of Empires (if I still like the gameplay).

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Home Post :hatching_chick:

Today I watched the same video about taxis that @prath wrote about yesterday. Thank you! :blush:

I tried not to read the japanese subtitles and slowed the video down a little at times because she was talking too fast for me. I was pleasantly surprised that I kinda got the gist of what she talked about most of the time even though I obviously didn’t understand every word. The taxi driver was very difficult to understand though because his voice sounded quite muffled due to the ambient noise. But he talked slowly at least.

After that I watched it a second time while reading the subtitles which made some parts of the video a little more clear. But I really need to work on my reading speed. I struggled to keep up. :sweat_smile:

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I try to practice listening every day, but sometimes I can’t due to work. I work 16-hour days and sometimes just don’t have enough time. When I can though, at a minimum, I do the Anki 10k vocab deck.

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10/04/2023 :fairy: Home Post Link

I was very distracted today but I wanted to watch something short. I ended up watching the most random 8 min video on how to buy Suica at Haneda Airport lol.

Surprisingly, it was very easy to understand! I had to rewind only once or twice. Turned out to be pretty interesting, and I hope I can use the information in the video at some point in my life - if I ever save enough to go to Japan :smiling_face_with_tear:

I had fun today! This thread helps So very much. I almost gave up but read a few updates and I was instantly inspired. Thanks y’all :bowing_man:

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I’ve been binge-watching 逃げ恥 the last few days yes I watched all of it in 4 days don’t judge me because @omk3 mentioned it and that prompted me to remember that I wanted to watch it. The 2-hour New Year’s Special didn’t have any Japanese subs available (:frowning:) so I had to do without them. I probably tend to overly rely on the subs even if I try not to look at them, so this was good practice. Will watch more dramas without subs.
I also enjoyed the office setting. And I like 百合ちゃん’s actress a lot.

感想 (spoilers!)

It was much more feminist than expected, I have to say. The whole unpaid labor thing, of course, which is the whole premise, but also regarding other topics. In the last episode, there were lots of thoughts regarding pregnancy, 育休, 産休, the dad not “helping out” or “supporting” his wife in raising their child because it’s not “helping out” if you’re the literal dad, all these things.
百合ちゃん (unmarried career-focused woman in her 40’s) gets comments like “I can see why she doesn’t have a husband” behind her back, so workplace harassment / bullying also gets touched upon.
The lead couple also just casually wants to give their child a gender-neutral name because they might want to change their gender later in life, also there were 3 homosexual characters which is awesome. I enjoyed that a lot.

Man I was shipping 百合ちゃん and 風見 and they did get together in the last episode! But then they ended up separating because of, as usual, communication issues (she feeling like a slob because she just wanted to chill at home sometimes, they separate, he gets together with someone else, they separate because this time he feels like the lazy one who wants to spend more time at home. Just get back together please :frowning:). But communication issues is literally the whole premise, really (like every Japanese rom-com ever). People just can’t talk to each other. It’s cute in some ways but just infuriating in others. But they do get better at it! In the end they even have a weekly 303カンパニー会議 where they discuss how they both feel about the household workload, etc.
I liked the fact that みくり basically took the lead in their relationship even if it’s probably quite rare for Japanese women. I do think みくり and 平匡 actually fit together quite well, since they’re both quite odd, by societal standards. With the whole contract thing and putting everything into numbers :smiley: very rational and quite funny to see everything put like that.
And of course, the whole style of the show, all her daydreaming of being on certain TV shows, and just mocking all these different kinds of programs, was very enjoying to watch.

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:cherry_blossom: :seedling: 4月10日 :seedling: :cherry_blossom: (Home Post Link)

I tried watching a nagasaki biopark video today but the audio quality was really bad, was windy and picking up on the mic and hurt my head too much to deal with. Then I tried a geoguessr video, but somehow it was a video uploaded yesterday of a match i’d already seen? Not sure what was going on there.

Listened:

Word(s) of the Day:
鈴(すず)ー bell (often globular)​

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April 10th!

A milestone for me today!
Usually when I’m watching something with Japanese subs, I’m using Language Reactor to have dual subs but with the english subs blurred so I can’t accidentally read them. If I don’t understand by listening, or by reading the Japanese subs then I quickly mouse over the english so that I can continue watching without getting completely lost and confused.

But today I decided to challenge myself - So I watched Ponyo in Japanese, with Japanese subs. No english at all.

Did I understand everything? …No.
Did I understand well enough to follow the majority of the story? Yes. I think I did.

I had to rewind and re-listen pretty often, and I had to rely on reading the subs a fair bit, and I’m sure I missed a few of the finer points. But overall - a success. :slight_smile:

(Home Post)

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