I had a lesson with my tutor today. We talked about the language exchange I went to last week, and she told me some funny stories about playing shiritori with some of her students. She also recommended I watch Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear.
We did some exam style listening questions, and I got 3/4 right, but I needed to listen to 2 of them a second time before answering which obviously I wouldn’t be able to do in a test I’m definitely improving though!
I started off just planning to watch the first video. I feel like it can be summed up with one word: 雪 xD
I was like, eh, ok, this is fine, nothing too exciting. But then.
But then suddenly I see シマエナガ HOTEL ROOM
For those who don’t know, or don’t remember from the Read Every Day challenge, this is シマエナガ
The smallest, softest, roundest birb ever
They were only there for a second, but a more in-depth video was teased, so I obviously had to go watch that video immediately. And I am dying, I am so upset that this was not going on while I was in Hokkaido, this is the CUTEST And we get to meet the man who makes the little シマエナガ decorations too, what a neat job I love this hotel room so much, I want to go live there. I wonder if you got to keep the big squishy シマエナガ plushie. I’m guessing probably not but I would hella buy it
I watched this video by 日本語の森 and only realized that I’d already seen it after 3 mins of watching lol
So I watched this video about 日本人が会話でよく使う言葉 instead. It was really interesting that I could uderstand most words and recognise some relatively new ones. I did rely a lot on the Japanese subtitles though, so I might want to stop doing that slowly as I watch/listen more. also really nice that they showed a context, conversation, and explanation of the word all in Japanese!
Another lesson today.
We talked above moving, as my tutor moved into a new apartment last week.
We also talked about other topics like our plans for the weekend and I learned some new Japanese idioms.
I also told him that I’ve been getting mixed up between ~にしては and ~にしても so we went over that together.
May 27th
What did I listen to?: Akane goes to a cake store
How much time did I spend listening?: ~12 min
This video was good except for the massive random product placement/ad in the middle Not really a fan of the “commercial” vibe. Those cakes and donuts look delicious though and I want to eat them all especially the kuma cake
I did 30 minutes with a new tutor yesterday as I want to focus on conversation. It was just daily life things so my understanding was about 95% but speaking was like 20%. “They” say if you consistently practice you will get better (which has been the case with reading and listening) so hopefully “they” are on to something with speaking as well.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen udon, ramen etc. in refrigerated bags before And it looks like you can just, like…eat it straight up from the bag?? …It’s probably a good thing that doesn’t exist here, I would eat it so much
Today I listened to two episodes of JapanesePod101’s Lower Intermediate Series.
It was the end of the story arc about a some old friend sending postcards to each other.
Comprehensible Japanese - スマホを使っていろんな動作をしよう!
Another long video, this time acting out words for interacting with the smartphone. Maybe I should have done something shorter while I’m still sick? Eh, whatever.
I was walking alone today so I listened to 3 episodes from Japanese with Shun. The first two episodes went great in terms of comprehension, but I completely zoned out in the 3rd one and my focus went
May 29th
What did I listen to?: Akane in Tokyo
How much time did I spend listening?: ~13 min
More random hotel/restaurant staff conversations - going on the theory/hope that maybe if I watch a billion of them my brain will eventually be able to do them lol. But my hopes have been slightly crushed by the hotel conversation because why so fast ;_; I couldn’t even hear the words, much less understand what they all meant. Ngl I’m a little worried that I simply don’t have the ability to process words fast enough to competently understand Japanese Like I think I read somewhere that Japanese is just generally a “faster” language syllabically than English and I’m wondering whether the speed is just…going to exceed my auditory processing capacity, like I don’t know if I can operate at that speed
Today I listened to one episode of JapanesePod101’s Lower Intermediate series.
I also listened to an episode of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners, which was about intonation.
I listened to one episode from Kona’s Big Adventure (from Satori Reader) today, instead of reading it. Ironically, listening to the episode was much easier because I was seeing the kanji and guessing the context even when I didn’t know the word hdjdj. This was a fun change though!