I have had so many awkward and terrible interactions at restaurants in Japan. I just… try not to think about it
I decided to try listening to an audiobook that I dabbled in before, 教団X, which has a movie trailer like ad for the book here. Last time I tried it I struggled a lot to stay focused and completely lost it during a chapter where a man was…basically rambling incoherently. I think I got most of it this time, although I did still lose focus a couple times so ‘blurry’ parts are higher than for other books. I think I might continue it because the difficulty isn’t too high, but I’m less sure I’ll finish it if my attention keeps drifting.
5月17日 -21日 (Home Post Link)
I honestly kinda lost track of what I was listening to again. I did make sure to do at least a bit every day, but was really trying to focus on making sure I got all my reading and other studying done. I watched a few short videos, some cooking stuff, and then some mio stream bits and pieces, listened to some japanese language music, as well as watched a few anime episodes with subs, but not going to try to untangle them day by day.
Now that I’m settled back into work, it actually ends up being a super good thing for my listening practice! I started back as a delivery driver, so I have a lot of time in the car to listen to stuff.
(Today) Listened:
- YUYUの日本語Podcast ep 1-5 – these are not short episodes lmao, about 20 minutes each. I was hoping to spend all of my driving time today listening, but eventually kinda reached my limit and put on music. Still japanese language music, but much less demanding
If anyone has good intermediate japanese podcast recommendations (on spotify, preferably), I absolutely would love to hear them! I grabbed a few from a tofugu post: 4989, learn japanese with small talk, and this yuyu podcast (I already knew him from youtube, so I picked those for today), but I could definitely use more. I am driving though, so obviously I cannot stop to look up unknown words or even jot down ones to look up later, so trying to stick to stuff that’s at least comprehensible enough to follow the general shape of conversation
Day 52, 5 月 22 日
Comprehensible Japanese
Not much to say today. Concentration isn’t the best but these videos are so cute I am charmed into watching them attentively reagrdless.
May 22nd!
Another lesson today! Today was with a new teacher so that was fun. We did self introductions and then chatted about several topics including work, hobbies and favourite foods.
May 22nd
What did I listen to?: 日本語の森 goes to Tokyo Tower (thanks for linking @polv )
How much time did I spend listening?: ~8 min
This was so…understandable???
I could actually hear all the words, didn’t even need the subtitles that much Amazing
Also the sakura projection was magical, that’s so pretty
I started watching a random movie from my backlog, ファーストラブ (despite the title, it’s a thriller, not a romance), and it’s very good but also rather difficult for me. I struggle with more formal speech and sentences like this:
私のほうも彼女から聞いた話で裁判に有利になりそうなことがあれば本人の承諾を得た上であなたに話すから
which I do fine with in books I cannot keep up in speech. My brain was like “something my side, something trial, something consent, I’ll tell you”
(it means like, “On my end, if she tells me anything that would be advantageous in the trial, I’ll let you know after obtaining her consent”)
But the atmosphere. The complicated relationships. The mysterious motive for murder. It’s apparently based on a book that won the Naoki prize which I kind of guessed just from the way it’s unfolding. I feel like movies based on books just have a certain vibe to them.
Anyways, here’s the trailer:
22/05/2023 Home Post Link
thanks to @windupbird, I ended up watching a video they tagged a few days back. this was the longest time I’ve spent on listening ever since I started this challenge lol
May 23, Tue of Week 9 of Spring Q2 2023
歴史 [75/90] - 新しい文化と生活
Places and names
- トーキー映画 = talking pictureの略
- 関東大震災 = 1923 Great Kantō earthquake - Wikipedia
- 白樺派 = Shirakabaha - Wikipedia, White Birch Society
- 志賀直哉 = Naoya Shiga - Wikipedia
- 芥川龍之介 = Ryūnosuke Akutagawa - Wikipedia
I will probably relisten to Parade 3 - 1-5 [1/4]. Having short chapters is a plus, so that I can (read and) summarize each chapter easier.
I’ve found a nice Japanese people’s travelling. Insta-subscribe.
Day 53, 5 月 23 日
Comprehensible Japanese
Continuing the trend of seeing grammar points I learned recently everywhere I look. This time it was about giving and receiving verbs - fittingly found in a video about christmas presents.
May 23rd!
Today I listened to 3 episodes of JapanesePod101’s Lower Intermediate series.
There has been a story arc over the last few episodes, which is about an older couple sending each other postcards.
The language is kind of flowery, with lots of Keigo, but I’m pleased by how much I can follow along with the storyline.
21 - 極主夫道 ep 7
22 - 極主夫道 ep 8
May 23
Put an hour and a half into Zero Escape: 999 today. Looping back from the beginning I focused on listening. Checking text periodically if I missed something.
5月22日 -23日 (Home Post Link)
5/22 - some more YUYUの日本語Podcast while at work + some music and an episode of gundam (w subs)
5/23 - rewatched that pickling lemons in sugar/honey video from a few weeks ago because I got some new mason jars and wanted to make sure I was doing it right
top is 砂糖, bottom is ハチミツ, we’ll find out in a week how this goes!
Day 54, 5 月 24 日
Comprehensible Japanese - 桜の一年
Sakura trees! A fun and relatively easy video, though I found a fun grammar point that I wanna look up.
It’s nice to have common nouns and verbs repeated in various contexts. Watching videos seems to help much more with that than reading many example sentences. I suppose because the work of visualizing the meaning of the example sentence is taken on by the video instead of the learner, freeing up some cognitive load.
May 24, Wed of Week 9 of Spring Q2 2023
Parade 3 - 1-5 [1/4]. Repeated while reading the text. Time-bookmarked in Audiobook.jp accordingly. Actually, I am visibly troubled this time.
24/05/2023 Home Post Link
nothing interesting again, just another episode from Japanese with Shun
5月24日 (Home Post Link)
Today I finally got around to starting something that I was sort of hoping to be doing this whole challenge, and that is the 新完全マスターN3 Listening practice book. I knew getting into these would be hard, since I haven’t really done any test-practice type listening before, so kinda just kept kicking the can down the road. Probably only going to do one of these per day for now, since I need to re-listen and then listen with transcript and look up words and re-listen and all that
Listened:
- 新完全マスター 例題1 - the speaking is clear and slow enough, but I just legitimately didn’t know enough of the words to understand at first. Can’t say I’ve heard any vtubers talk a lot about revising manuscripts for presentations before
- some mio minecraft: ~15 minutes
May 24th!
Today I watched Episode 3 of MASHLE (With English Subs), and also listened to an episode of Nihongo con Teppei for beginners.