🔊 🎙 Listen Every Day Challenge - Spring 2023 🌼 🌱

April 16th!

Today I watched Suzume. I was watching it with English subtitles, and I’ve generally not been counting stuff that I’m watching with english subs for this challenge because I’m trying to push myself but I’m counting that since it was over 2 hours long. :grin:

It’s quite fun watching stuff with english subs and seeing the subtle differences in what I’m hearing and what its been translated into english as for the subtitle.

(Home Post)

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Not a great listening week for me last week. I started out listening to some things from the Tobira textbook on Monday, but after that things at work got pretty hectic. I mostly listened to old comforting stuff I’ve watched before. It’s strange to notice that even though I’ve watched something many times, I still miss words. I often try to repeat what was said in my head to see if I actually heard it, or just remember what was happening because I’ve seen it before.

But, I was able to follow all of the instructions in my taiko practice, and I had a decent conversation with some of the members afterwards, where I could also somewhat tell what they were talking about with each other, as well as the questions they were asking me. I normally don’t count random conversations I have with people unless they’re long, but this one counts I think.

Also, I don’t remember where I saw the sesame street YouTube channel recommended, if it was this thread or somewhere else, but I love it. It’s really easy to click on the videos when they pop up in my recommendations and they’re cute and fun. So thank you, forums, for adding that to my life.

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:hot_pepper: April 16

Giving myself a bit of a break today. Watched two Comprehensible Japanese videos. Both Beginner level. Snow White and Rainy Day
It was nice, hearing and understanding everything easily.

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watched inch boy

INCH BOY (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale - YouTube

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Apr 17, Mon of Week 4 of Spring Q2 2023 :cherry_blossom:

歴史 [18-20/90] - 平安時代 [2-4/4] + audiobook.jp counterpart

Places and names

こころ (夏目漱石) : (中) 両親と私 Ch.5-8.

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Home Post :hatching_chick:

I tried watching a video by Speak Japanese Naturally about Yoyogi park. It went okay I guess. Some parts were quite easy to understand while others were a little difficult. I like her calming voice and the relaxing atmosphere. Tbh this was the third video I tried to watch. I quit the first two after a few minutes each because they were too difficult for me and I couldn’t really understand much. Maybe this was because she was talking about topics that I’m kinda unfamiliar with in Japanese. I might try again later.

I also did some podcast listening: Nihongo con Teppei episodes 140-144 and Japanese with Shun episodes 4 and 5. This went really well and I didn’t have any problems.

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17/04/2023 :fairy: Home Post Link

Not sure if this counts, but I watched the first 15 to 20 mins of “Mr. Hiiragi’s Homeroom (ep 2)” without English subs. I understood….little of it? It was definitely too ambitious but I wanted to try anyway.

I randomly started watching this show. It’s okay so far, and also quite predictable. But I’m having fun anyways.

I really want to re-watch “My Love Mix-Up” again, but this time in Japanese. I think it’ll take some time for me to reach that level, but it’s part of the listening goal for this year!

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:cherry_blossom: Day 15 - 16, 4 月 15 - 16 日 :herb:

:headphones: Back to my Home Post

:arrow_right: Random youtube gaming videos.

:cherry_blossom: Day 17, 4 月 17 日 :herb:

:deciduous_tree: Tobira - 読み物 p. 28-31

Re-listened to it without reading along. Definitely a huge step up, but trying to follow along while trying to fit the summary of what you remember in your head to what is said is really good practice.

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April 13-17 :european_castle: :heart_on_fire: :headphones:

I haven’t been updating because I didn’t have much to say, but I’ve been listening to my audiobooks (while reading along) for at least 30 minutes every day, often an hour or more. I’m not sure I’m doing this challenge right though. :sweat_smile: I’ve definitely seen my reading speed increase to keep up with the audio, but I’m not sure my listening comprehension is affected at all. I can only hope. :slightly_smiling_face:

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April 17th!

Today I listened to 3 episodes of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners. No issues with understanding any of them, other than my concentration wavered a bit during the third one, so I listened to it twice to hear the bits I zoned out on!

(Home Post)

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:cherry_blossom: :seedling: 4月17日 :seedling: :cherry_blossom: (Home Post Link)

Listened:

Word(s) of the Day:
迷う(まよう)ー to give into temptation; to lose control of oneself​ (buying a new camera lens lmao)
中身(なかみ)ー substance; content​ (I think 今日の動画の中身 was the context)
むしろ ー rather; better; instead; if anything​
歯噛み(はがみ)ー grinding of the teeth

There was also a comment in the chat 「かじかじ!」 that happened while the beaver was swimming, I initially thought it was saying 舵 (rudder) talking about the beaver’s tail, but I think it might also be this:
image

Would also like to share some good images i found when searching for かじかじ:
image

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It’s crazy how time flies, I have been travelling last week and didn’t get to update my post at all :face_with_peeking_eye: but also I didn’t have much to say if anything. Listening consistently to about 2 episodes of Nihongo con Teppei a day, sometimes more, and try to interact with people in Japanese as often as I can. Definitely see some improvement in my listening abilities, but maybe I just imagine it :face_with_spiral_eyes::woman_shrugging: it’s definitely still very tiring and hard to keep focused!

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:hot_pepper: April 17

Played Zero Escape: 999 on the PC for a couple hours today. Since I already read the novel parts on the Nintendo DS, I played in dialogue only mode on the PC and focused on listening.

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18/04/2023 :fairy: Home Post Link

Watched two episodes of Gudetama: An Eggcellent Adventure! I don’t know why I did, but I was very bored and wanted some new stimulation. Also, the animation looked really cute.

I did understand most of it, and I had the Japanese subtitles - so I could figure out the meaning (vaguely) based on the kanji even if I didn’t know the correct vocab.

I don’t really think I’m going to continue though. It’s probably a good listening resource for N5 - N4 but I found some of the voice overs very a-annoying, I’m sorry to say that T_T

But anyways, today was a good listening day!

random

also I think I might be the only one in this challenge with a huge timezone difference? Because most of ya’ll update when it’s the next day mid-morning for me hsjsjs

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Apr 18, Tue of Week 4 of Spring Q2 2023 :cherry_blossom:

Nihongo Switch on やる on Spotify, played at 1.2x speed. No subscription any more, but didn’t hear advertisements yet. No transcript, I should learn to take notes, as a practical skill, and also taught in JLPT listening guide.

YUYU podcast on 室町 (from latest word thread), then 奈良・平安. I learnt about Player.FM. Probably no audio ads, only (annoyingly) visual.

こころ (夏目漱石) : (中) 両親と私 Ch.9-11.

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Not last night, but the night before (I forgot to post yesterday, I think I was still trying to formulate what I had just witnessed) I watched one of those old OVAs from the depths of YouTube. I’m really not sure why I like watching these, they’re all older than I am so it’s not nostalgia, oh well it’s fun so who knows.

This one was from '85, and was pretty typical of that era, it didn’t really stand out to me that much in animation, acting and all that, it was just pretty standard. Apart from one thing - it was a bit weird, it looked like it was going to be a historical action kind of jam, but ended up being a romance with surprise incest that you could totally see coming and just groan because why, why, why does this seem to be a common theme and pretty much a guaranteed square on your anime bingo card. But then surprise again because it wasn’t actual incest-incest, ha! … it was something a whole lot weirder.

Spoilers: Basically because of time magic space powers a girl is sent back in time via a magical bell (you know it’s a magical bell because when it chimes it chimes louder than anything you’ve ever heard and the camera zooms in on it so you know that this bell is pretty damn important) were she starts to fall for this guy who’s about her age. But this guy has a little sister (who wants to marry him, because of course she does, it had to have some real incestual suggestion in there) and the main girl has a younger neighbourhood boy who she looks after and is basically her little brother - turns out the little girl from the past is actually the main girl from the future and the little boy from the future is actually the main guy from the past, they got separated in the magical timewarp thingy and ended in different timezones (how this timewarp started in the first place I do not know).
By the halfway point this becomes pretty apparent, but by the time the main characters find out they both seem pretty chill and cool about it and end up getting married anyway. It never explained if they were actually related in the end, so it could have actually ended up being 4th dimensional incest.

I think I understood about 50%? I’m not sure, maybe 60%, it was hard to tell what with being distracted by so many questions I had about the plot.

I also think that the entire budget went into animating her hair because there were several scenes were it is is magnificently smooth hair animation. By comparison everyone else’s hair was as static as anything. Even in extreme high winds.

This anime also filled the relatively common old OVA bingo square of:
Huge 10ft bad guy who just appears out of nowhere who is impervious to damage and can lift buses and eats steel girders, but then ends up dying rather quickly from a fleshwound (bonus points if he has a punk hairstyle)

Noticed on my Watch Later list on YT there’s a live action period drama thing coming up, it looks like it’ll either be completely batpoop ridiculous or actually pretty good, with no room for anything in between, so I’m looking forward to that one.

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:cherry_blossom: Day 18, 4 月 18 日 :herb:

:headphones: Back to my Home Post

:deciduous_tree: Tobira - p. 34 - 35, 会話文

Thankfully these were quite short conversations, so they won’t be such a pain to re-listen to like the main text of this chapter.

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Home Post :hatching_chick:

I didn’t have a lot of time today so I only listened to some Comprehensible Japanese videos in the evening. I didn’t feel like it but I didn’t want to lose my streak. :sweat_smile:
I watched the Animal Guessing Game and the video about Kabuki. The animal video was very easy but I found out that I’m pretty bad at remembering animal names apparently. :see_no_evil: I should practice those more often. The Kabuki video was harder to understand but I still got the gist of it and it was very interesting! Because of this I looked up a video of a real Kabuki performance but I stopped watching it very quickly because it was a lot of talking and I couldn’t understand a single word. The make-up and the costumes were phenomenal though!

random reply

Sounds like you’re living in Asia or Oceania? I’ve noticed the time differences too! I’m from Europe and there are some people who always update in the middle of the night or the very early morning for me. But who knows? Maybe everyone is simply practicing their japanese listening skills at 3am. :smile: I don’t judge.

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April 18th!

Today I listened to Episode 129 of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners, and also watched Episode 12 of Rilakkuma and Kaoru.

(Home Post)

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:cherry_blossom: :seedling: 4月18日 :seedling: :cherry_blossom: (Home Post Link)

such a busy day, only had time to listen to music and then a little bit of podcast late at night before bed. Drove a ton today and had a ヨルシカ album on pretty much the whole time though, wasn’t following super closely but i was picking out words and phrases even on songs i haven’t looked closely at the lyrics for

Listened

Word(s) of the Day:

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