Made a trip to Chinatown for tea and snacks. Listened to thirty minutes or so of The Murders in the Rue Morgue from the Japanese translated Edgar Allen Poe collection. Second time through now. Noticeable improvement.
Endured two thirds of the video javerend shared. There was listening comprehension involved until aspects of the video production forced me to quit.
Today was a very slow day. I listened to this Roppongi Vlog Video while mostly ignoring the subtitles and also listened to Nihongo con Teppei episodes 195 -199 while strolling trough the park ~ I want to try and be mkre consistent with updating in this thread from now on!
April 21st
I watched two Comprehensible Japanese videos about holidays in Japan. One was about Setsubun and the other one was about Halloween.
April 22nd
Today I watched more videos than usual. I was quite motivated because most of them didn’t feel that challenging and I’m in a good mood because the weather is great today.
I watched a lot of stuff on Naoko’s channel today.
The first video was about simple conversations and I felt pretty accomplished because I could understand everything. Of course it’s very basic stuff but I wouldn’t have been able to understand everything this well a year ago.
After that I clicked on the pizza vlog because pizza is delicious. It turned out to be frozen pizza (boo!) but I still learned quite a few new words and could understand everything pretty well.
The third video was about 三色丼 which is a popular dish to cook at home in Japan. I’ve never heard of it before but it seems like an easy recipe and it looks delicious. Same as before, understanding wasn’t a big problem and I learned some new words.
Then I wanted something a little more challenging so I picked Akane’s video about apartments in Tokyo where she explained some useful vocabulary too. Some parts were a bit tricky - especially when they talked about the deposit and other money related stuff. When I rewatched it and read the subs I was able to catch a lot more.
こころ (夏目漱石) : (下) 先生と遺書 Ch.3-4. Also visited soseki website and tried to add timing to the audio with text. I got too technological technical, and my comprehension might decrease. Just let it flow normally, and comprehension would be better. More listening time, though.
歴史 [26-27/90] - 室町時代 [1-2/6] (南北朝時代). As well as related audiobook.jp and YUYU (日本史 Vol.5-6). YUYU played at 1.1x.
Today I watched episode 2 of Rilakkuma’s Theme Park Adventure and then watched this video 【大流行】 斎藤さんゲームやってみた!! - YouTube about a clapping game named “Saito-san Game” that was linked in the Komi Can’t Communicate bookclub as its being played in this weeks chapter. I then ended up watching several other videos of people playing it, it looks like fun!
late update, but I listened to one episode about living with corona virus from Japanese with Shun.
I thought I’d skip this one but I didn’t (for aesthetic purposes - for the consistent “played” icon on Spotify lol).
It was easy to understand. A lot about living one’s life, trying to survive, finding joy again and all that - and it was easy because these are very common themes in anime and oh lord I’ve seen a lot of shonen
The sound design is lovely but all of the gun fire and explosions left my ears hurting. There are frequent action sequences making this movie a poor choice as a language learning resource. It’s all part of the discovery.
There were a few scenes that I scrubbed thoroughly. Mostly for foul language. It is a new curiosity I have searching out dubbed vulgarities. Good unique examples have been elusive but in this movie one gets to hear 間抜け as part of a replacement for something as crass as it gets. Otherwise, its a rule to only use バカ and 野郎, right? Whether its The Legend of Zelda or The Terminator when it comes to foul mouthed antagonists they all sing the same refrain. バカ野郎.
Watched すずめの戸締まり at the cinema yesterday (thanks to @myria for mentioning it, or I’d never have noticed it was on). It was visually beautiful, as expected, and much funnier than expected given the subject matter. The trip across Japan was a nice treat too.
I was also impressed that much of the time I didn’t need to look at the subtitles at all.
Although I must say that the creator’s faible for long thin objects stretching across the sky and sparking off smaller objects felt a bit like a reused theme to me. But absolutely beautiful to look at!
Indeed
And with the dialects Also I liked it that they connected the story to the strong earthquakes that had happened in the past.
Yep, I thought so too, it was only for his prayer and some other complicated story parts that I needed them at all.
Oh and did you catch that the names of the cats are 大臣 - Jisho.org and 左大臣 - Jisho.org i.e. Minister of the Left - Wikipedia ? Would have never realized this if @Myria hadn’t pointed it out to me… This is quite a bit deeper than I initially thought from the story alone.
Had a really affirming interaction at a bar I went to a lot with a friend of mine. I went alone for the first time, and it wasn’t busy, so the owner spent a lot of time talking to me. I learned about his past as a successful restauranteur and his ideas about the history of Japan and the city I live in. It was fun! And it was one of those times where I was like, I’m struggling every day, but look at me living life.
Anyway, I’m counting it as listening for the sake of this challenge. At some point I’ll actually update my main post
I never realized that, no! Even in the credits the names were in katakana if I remember correctly. I wonder what this means
Wasn’t the name given by random people meeting the cat? Or was it the cat’s real name?
I thought it was the cat who said that that’s its name but not 100% sure
Maybe @Myria remembers this?
I took it to mean that they were serving the country. You know, first everybody thinks that Daijin is the bad guy but he really showed them the way to all the open doors that they needed to close. Plus, in the end he sacrificed himself by volunteering to seal the worm again. Also, Sadaijin is obviously much more powerful so he being the Minister of the Left (i.e. the second-most powerful person in the state) also makes sense.
But why Sadaijin was in the aunt, is a question we maybe should not think about too deeply
Good insight. And it’s true that ministers are often seen as the bad guys, when ideally they should be doing their best for the country. And sometimes actually doing your best does look bad from the outside, especially when you’re inconveniencing people by doing so.
Seriously, this is my one question. Why did he (or she? no idea) make the aunt express her worst thoughts in that way? (I loved how she later admitted that while she did sometimes think this way, it was only a small part of what she felt. Very honest and realistic). And why did Daijin first hiss at the aunt/Sadaijin? I’m not sure what was going on there.
Same as yesterday - 1 episode from Japanese with Shun. It was about childhood and present dreams.
Had me thinking how I don’t want to dream about labor and capitalism, and that I’d rather just fantasize about things and people I love and what sort of hobbies I want to be more involved in. But yeah idk I guess everything revolves around how and how much money one can make, so I’ve been thinking that maybe I’d just like to get a work (similar to Shun’s) where I don’t have strict timings and stuff.
It was mostly easy to understand? But I did come across a lot of new words, so I’m excited about learning them!
Last night I watched another OVA on YouTube, this one was from the mid-80s too, but this time it was in SPACE.
The plot was… I have no idea what the plot was. It was all over the place all of the time. Like as if they had a 12 episode show planned, but then it got cancelled and so they just shoved all the cels together and hoped for the best (and I am sure some cels from some other anime got put in there).
I think I only understood about 30%, it was pretty hard to find any context for a basis to understand from. A lot of the characters enjoyed shouting loudly too, and shouting tends to get real muffled with low sound recording quality (which this had).
On the plus side there was pretty rocking music throughout. Spaceship chases are increased by 200% coolness with shredding guitar solos.
Today I watched another episode of Rilakkuma’s Theme Park Adventure.
I was able to understand quite a lot just from listening, though I had to check the subs for some of the longer sentences.
I really enjoy handcraft videos. Even if sometimes I have to find a pillow to scream into because of the horrible safety measures. Here he holds the wooden block with his foot while he carves it, with the blade going towards his foot. Anyway it was really easy to understand for the most part, but the longer sentences were naturally more difficult.
Apparently I caught the audiobook bug
I started to read my 神去なあなあ日常 book, and it felt a little too…silent. I knew there was a nice-sounding audiobook available, so despite having already read about half the book, I went and bought the audiobook too…
It’s really good. The male narrator is a refreshing change, and all the other characters sound very authentic too. I especially appreciate being able to hear the dialect. I already liked the book, but with the audio it’s an even better experience. I think this will also be a good book to idly relisten to when out on walks etc, as it’s less about plot and more about atmosphere.
This week was a little challenging. I listened to something five out of seven days, and hit my content and time goals three days. I had a lot of end-of-semester work this week (I’m a teacher), but my last class is tomorrow, so I’m hoping to reestablish my Japanese study routine this week.
A few observations: 1) Even just a few minutes a day helps, and 2) Listening has started to become enjoyable. I still guess a great deal with the native-level material, but it’s extremely satisfying when I guess semi-correctly.