🔊 🎙 Listen Every Day Challenge - Summer 2023 🏖 ☀

Japanese Language Listening
81

Listened:

I’ll also +1 porco rosso! excited to get to the yuyu episode where they talk about it. I’ll get there pretty quick as long as I keep listening at work

image
image1117×838 74.8 KB

It might not be the “best” ghibli movie (lots of contention for that title), but I think it might be my favorite. It’s got a kind of mature, quiet confidence that I really appreciate; It’s almost more like an intimate personal takahata film (only yesterday, grave of the fireflies) than an epic miyazaki film in that regard. It also has one of my favorite hisaishi pieces!

Also learned a new excellent word today: ゆるやか - gentle (of a slope, curve)

10 Likes
82

That’s so nice to read! Puts in perspective how far you’ve come eh? :slight_smile: These improvement realisations sometimes hit randomly in the wild just like that, love when it happens. That feeling of “damn I actually understand this” is awesome. Now time to let those mahjong skills shine once more :mahjong: .

Off-topic but speaking of mahjong

It’s been a while since we talked about it, I’m still in the learning phase after all this time :joy: . I have to go back to those Japanese tutorials, they were good listening and reading practice. I keep saying to myself I’ll learn soon and then proceed to ignore it for a few weeks until the same thought appears and then repeat. BUT, in this long time a wild idea popped into my mind… what if there was ever a Wanikani Riichi Mahjong club? Then I thought, how cool would it be to build a thread to learn Japanese mahjong (potentially in both Japanese and English) and to play with other people interested? And then I think about all the commitment that building such a place would require and oof, I’m not so sure if others would be interested on top of that :smile: . But the thought is there! So maybe. Might be something to explore in the future, especially as building such a place would require the host to know what they’re talking about somewhat and well, I’m a complete beginner. But others could contribute as well as a sort of wiki, maybe. Nothing strictly scheduled either, just a leisure place.

9 Likes
83

It’s a good reminder on those days when I seem to have forgotten everything and get frustrated, that I have actually learnt something in all this time! Those moments when you’re just chilling listening to/reading something (in Japanese) like you would in your native language and then it just hits you, wait, I’ve just been understanding Japanese without thinking! :sparkles: epiphany moment :sparkles:

And yeh, need to remember I’m playing this for listening and finally getting that shiny platinum trophy, not just using it as an excuse to mahjong :upside_down_face:
but much mahjong shall be done

Mahjong いっぱつ！

me too, me too :laughing:
I feel I have a good idea now of what to do with the tiles when I get them (like what would be a good hand to make from these, and what to look out for in other’s discards), but I still can’t fully grasp the points system, especially dora, or really have a full grasp of how to aim for big point wins. I still need to learn all the proper JP terms as well, rather than the English-i-fied ones.

The learning together as a group sounds fun though! I’d be down for that, I seem to remember others expressing fondness for Mahjong as well, so I think it’d get a few people wanting to join. I guess it’s a bit awkward though because you’d need groups of four otherwise some would have to sit out each game (five maybe, have one person be judge - I tried playing with my family once (who all have no idea how to play) and it was incredibly difficult keeping track of my own hand and answering questions every turn, it was a complete mess :rofl: though if everyone has a basic idea it’d be okay with four :thinking:) but having a little group of players wanting to learn and just have fun playing together would be really cool.

I know what you mean, but I like to imagine this means physically building a dingy little mahjong parlour on some 4th floor of some old 80s building in the middle of Tokyo for 100% mahjong aesthetic. But yeh, I think if we had a guidebook to work off of and with the focus on fun and learning, rather than winning, it’d work :mahjong:

And while we’re talking about clubs, with you mentioning wanting to see Ghibli films, and with mine, and many people’s here, love of the films… [continued in next spoiler because this is off-topic of the off-topic :stuck_out_tongue:]

Got talking about Ghibli

I had the thought that maybe a Ghibli listening/watching club could be a good idea. Like a book club with a film a week or something. It’d be good listening practice, plus it’s an excuse to talk about how much we all love the films, I feel more that my comments would be more about how amazing the animation/art/music/story is over what I had learned from listening :laughing:

I think it’d be hard to even pick my favourite three let alone most favourite. And the music from Porco! How did I forget to mention that?? It’s one of my favourite Hisaishi pieces too (and on the topic of best film, best score/song would also be very difficult to choose), he plays it with so much emotion!

7 Likes
84

:beach_umbrella: :sunny: Home post :snowflake: :droplet:

7月6日 (木)
Today I listened to:

Nihongo con Teppei (Original archive) episode 7 (~10 min)
NHK news easy (~2 min)

I wasn’t feeling great today so couldn’t focus much on the episode of Teppei or podcasts in general. I also listened to an article of NHK easy, as I wanted to try something new. It was interesting (and I think the level was good for me), but the speed of the audio is unfortunately a bit too slow.

Tomorrow I’m meeting some friends in the park and have a ~15-20 min walk to get there, so I hope I can get a bit more listening done then.

12 Likes
85

Sounds fun – I’ve floated the idea of a movie club a few times recently and I’m kinda waiting around for the spark of energy to try to put it into motion, though I had intended it to be more general. And if anything was a little worried about getting inundated with anime only haha.

7 Likes
86

Count me in! A movie club would be super fun. Obviously I love Ghibli and there’s a lot of other great anime movie directors that would be really cool (yuasa comes to mind), but I’m also not opposed to breaking out of the animation bubble and getting exposed to japanese cinema more broadly! (although you do encounter more mumbly old men in live action movies, in my experience, which brings the difficulty up :laughing: I watched ikiru a few months a go and that movie would’ve been completely unintelligible to me without subs)

7 Likes
87

:house_with_garden: Home Post

:loud_sound: ７月６日
YUYUポッドキャスト #79 (14 min)

I started #80 for a couple minutes right after but stopped because I was not going to have the time to finish it, but it’s another interesting one again, this time about もののけ姫 ! Will most likely listen to it tomorrow c: .

Replies

I can’t really reply with anything else other than a big わかる。

To be honest, as that looks pretty daunting, I was more inclined to leave that to the automatic scoring system of whatever client we end up using for the games :joy: . Counting is a beast I’m not sure I or anybody else just learning would like to jump into in the beginning, unless someone wants to physically play with other people I suppose.

That’s reassuring! :slight_smile: Didn’t know others expressed interest before either.

True, what I personally had in mind was posting whenever someone would like to arrange a game or something and then have others join as we go, then if someone has just played we can sit out for others to join and so on. I’m not sure in practice how awkward this method would be though, I definitely need to give it more thought. It’s all a very early idea, after all.

:joy: :joy: . Alright, brb opening parlour in Kabukichō. Safety not guaranteed, すみません.

Actually that reminds me of a funny moment of my (so far only) trip to Japan many years back at this point. I went with a couple other students and my teacher at the time when I was in the language school (first three years of my Japanese studies, this was second year), we had just come out of the Tokyo metropolitan government building cause you could enter inside, many floors up, for a cool view of the city. It was evening and we wanted to look for a place to dine out, so one of my friends went straight to a middle-aged guy chilling smoking a cigarette just outside of an establishment. I’m not sure how exactly but the conversation drifted towards Kabukichō since it’s close, I think he recommended it. And then my friend, finding his best words and with very simple Japanese since we were beginners at the time, straight asked:

歌舞伎町かぶきちょうは危ないところですか？

Then the guy laughed out loud and replied:

それは昔話ですよ。

Shortly after we parted ways but we kinda still didn’t know if he was messing around or what, we did end up not going there :joy: . I suppose he laughed cause I’m sure he thought “bruh, what kind of movies have you been watching?”. It was funny to both parties so I always remember it with a smile.

That sounds fun, I’d probably join too. Though I only have Netflix so movies outside of that I won’t be able to join unless available for free. I’m also okay with movies of any type, not necessarily anime, but also included.

10 Likes
88

Spent a little while watching Japanese streams earlier as I tend to, particularly this VTuber playing Tears of the Kingdom. I’m generally finding that I keep up with a good chunk of streams pretty well, but it’s also content where it’s very easy to let some words go by and it really doesn’t matter at all, so I might be inflating my perception of how I’m doing a little. Still, good progress because listening was always really hard for me.

I love Yuasa, great call. I’m definitely not opposed to doing some anime, and honestly I think you’re right about it tending to be clearer. Just didn’t want to accidentally become the anime exclusive club, but who knows how likely that actually is. Can only find out by doing it, heh. It’s sitting on my mind more so maybe soon I can make a thread to do basic planning…

Ikiru is such a great film as well, hope you liked it! I’m really excited about getting to talk about movies with more people and share them. Honestly I’m not sure how well I’m going to be able to keep up when subtitles aren’t available; it’s been a little while since I tried and I honestly used to struggle. I think my listening ability is better now though, and making myself do it with a club should be a good way to advance, I’d hope.

Yeah that was my main concern, movie availability. It gets messy, even moreso with different regions here. All we can really do though is give people the tools to see where stuff is available and let them factor that into what they choose. To be honest when you’re really into the medium and dig a little deeper, so many movies, from Japan or otherwise, straight up haven’t been made officially legally available pretty much anywhere in a lot of regions, only have old very out of print physical copies or something. It’s frustrating.

Anyway, very happy to hear there’s some interest already. :grin:

8 Likes
89

Congrats on your progress! It’s so nice to come back to something and really see for yourself how much you accomplished!

And the vlog looks indeed very calming, might watch it completely later too. It’s such a nice way to get used to natural japanese while just relaxing a bit!

9 Likes
90

I’m continuing to do Yuyu podcast intensively and it makes me appreciate his stories more since I can understand 90% this way vs the 50% or so free listening to him. Also “they” say to do things you normally do in your language so I’ve been doing my Korean dramas with English subtitles as usual but with Japanese audio instead of Korean. I plan to rewatch Crash Landing on You for the 4th time without subs so wish me luck.

11 Likes
91

:beach_umbrella: Day 7, ７ 月 ７ 日 :sunny:

:headphones: : Back to my Home Post

:hibiscus: Comprehensible Japanese

  • Foods we often eat in summer
    A new video! It made me think about whether I had foods I only eat - or especially eat - during summer (other than icecream). And you know, I don’t think there is one? But then again, our summers aren’t as hot as Japan’s.
  • :cherry_blossom:Spot the difference Cherry blossom viewing
    Here we gooo! I was looking forward to this one. No idea why spot the difference videos are so fun for me, but maybe I should look for more outside of this channel.
10 Likes
92

Another day of two episodes Nihongo con Teppei Z (#7 and #8), as well as a few chapterd in an Audiobook about mindfulness (I think about 40~ minutes?). I understood the basic things he talked about, maybe 50 or 60 percent? Depending on the topic. Mostly I just picked it out because I like mindfulness as a topic and it’s included in my free month right now, so I figured why not. The title is also almost as long as an isekai light novel. 心のざわざわ・イライラを消すがんばりすぎない休み方 すき間時間で始めるマインドフルネス.

I skipped my other novel because I mostly walked outside and didn’t want to just listen without reading along.

9 Likes
93

July 7, Fri of Week 2 of Summer Q3 2023 :beach_umbrella:

Cop Craft 1 Ch.3, but not finished the chapter yet. Also, read into the chapter a little.

YUYU, 1 new episode.

10 Likes
94

I have struggled to find good things to listen to which are not too boring or too difficult. I think I’ve found a podcast I like so far (Megumis daily japanese adventures) which for me is a good level. I’ve tried Erin, but I don’t like the format so it’s not motivating me to continue :smiling_face_with_tear:

Question to all participants: what do you do with your listening? Do you “just” listen and are done? Or do a follow up with vocab you didn’t know, review the script if available, re listen in native language if available, etc? I’m wondering about what would be an effective and useful way to go about my listening practise! :blush:

Thanks!

12 Likes
95

I managed to get some Yakuza 0 in last night, I did think my listening was going well, but then I was introduced to the three mumbly lieutenants of the Dojima clan:

Shibusawa, the semi-mumbly, but quite understandable at times one
Kuze (or くぜぇぇぇぇぇぇ！), the half-somewhat-intelligible and then half-I-have-no-idea one
Awano, is just 100% mush-mumble, I have absolutely no idea what he’s saying

And today I watched a little video from the Pokemon channel introducing a new stop-motion show, I like how they are using plushies for the Pokemon, looks like it could be pretty cute. I think I understood the gist of most of it, the narration was pretty clear.

Thank you! And that channel has quite a few walk around Japan with soft commentary vids, I find it’s a really good channel for listening practice. Recommend it if you get the chance!

Mahjong

This is a better idea :laughing:
Though I do want to try and understand it, one, if I understand the scoring better hopefully I can try and aim for betting scoring hands, and two, at some point, who knows when and where and who with, but I would love to play a real game.

This sounds a good way to go about it, I’m sure people will be in all different timezones and have different time commitments, so groups will probably form around that. Let me know when you think of getting it started though, it’d be great fun to play! :mahjong:

:rofl:

This is great :laughing:
Perhaps he was just some サラリーマン having fun, or perhaps he had a deep dark past as a seedy loan shark in Kabukichō.

Ghibli/Movies

Cool! I hadn’t realised but Miyazaki’s latest film is premiering in Japan on the 14th, this month. So a Ghibli-appreciation-listening-a-thon sounds like a good way to celebrate the Ghibli legacy, since, yeah he’s said it many times that he’s going to retire, but I imagine this time it will be pretty final since he’s 82 now, I can’t imagine he wants years more stress making another movie.

Ghibli films are quite readily available on official sources too, if I remember, Netflix has most, if not all, the Ghibli catalogue (at least in the UK and EU, I think Max has them for the US market, not sure about elsewhere). I’ll see about setting a thread up for it! I think a movie a week should be a pretty good pace, I only really have the weekends to have time to get a movie in.

Could always do it like the book clubs, have a different thread for each type, so for example a Ghibli one, Yuasa one, Kurosawa one, etc. so it’s more clear what type of films are going to be watched.

Yeh, this is the only problem really. Sometimes they’re only available in one specific region or for a really short time. And yeah, finding someway to watch can be difficult for the not so mainstream stuff, like the only release was back in the 80s on VHS and are £500 a piece on ebay…
Saying that though, I’m sometimes surprised at what obscure gems they do suddenly rerelease.

Sounds fun though, I’d definitely be down for a general movie club! I love film in general, so it’d be great to have a spot to discuss them.

11 Likes
96

I don’t think these forums move so fast anyone is likely to miss it, but grant me one single opportunity to advertise to fellow listeners please! :pray:

Film club is here! Come watch some movies :clapper:

11 Likes
97

:beach_umbrella: :sunny: Home post :snowflake: :droplet:

7月7日 (金)
Today I listened to:

YUYU 2 episodes (#9 and 11) (~40 min)

Managed to listen to 2 episodes during my commute! They were about 仕事 and 自己肯定感. The work one was a bit easier to understand and I could follow it well, but the self-esteem one was harder due to the topic (I could also not understand straight away what 自己肯定感 meant). They were still quiet interesting, though I find Yuyu’s podcasts a bit long, making it a challenge sometimes due to my short attention span :sweat_smile:

10 Likes
98

June 6!

I somehow forgot to post yesterday! I had a super busy day and was tired, but I managed to squeeze in an episode of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners before bed. Ironically it was about being busy. :grin:

June 7!

Today I had a lesson with my tutor, we did conversation practise on a bunch of topics including a manga I’ve been reading recently, and my trip to visit my new Nephew last weekend. We also did some exam style listening questions. I’m still finding the N3 level questions tough, but I’m gradually getting better at understanding them.
I also listened to an episode of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners this evening.

(Home Post)

12 Likes
99

:house_with_garden: Home Post

:loud_sound: ７月７日
YUYUポッドキャスト #80 (16 min)

As expected, listened to the もののけ姫 episode. He really knows how to sell what he talks about, he gets so excited for the things he likes :smile: . Nothing to say already that hasn’t been said about this one either way, I watched it a long time ago and at this point I don’t remember much, but it’s definitely another one I want to watch soon. It’s just exciting that after all this time I can just try do it in Japanese instead of relying on translations, and if it’s difficult that means I can make it into study anyways so, 一石二鳥. I already tried with Howl’s Moving Castle some months ago and had so much fun, turned out to be easier than I had anticipated.

It will take some time but will surely do :slight_smile: .

I can only speak for myself and I’m not sure if my advice would help in your own studies, but personally I treat listening differently than I do reading. For reading I tend to do it very intensively, constant lookups of things I don’t understand, checking grammar, and so on. But for listening I just let it run, try to catch as much as possible and move on. In terms of difficulty I feel like I can handle hard reading material because there are many tools that I use that make reading super accessible and fairly frictionless, but for listening I tend to go for things that are around my listening comprehension level or slightly above it, because looking things up when listening is much more effort to me and also because I tend to do listening when I’m doing other things like taking a shower (shoutout to BluetoothSpeaker-kun), cleaning, and so on. That being said, if it’s something I’m watching and I have access to some of those tools I use for reading (e.g. movie subtitles with Yomichan) then I sort of treat it a little bit more intensively like reading, but otherwise I just listen and move on for the most part. I often listen with subs if the format is video, but I also try to regularly do pure unaided listening because I think it’s also important, and that’s why you’ll see me mostly posting about podcasts.

In essence I treat reading as my main learning method, the way I actively try to acquire new vocabulary and grammar, and then use it as an anchor for listening. I feel like that way it’s much easier for me to recognise words I already know the meaning and writing of, so listening becomes mainly a practice for my brain to process what is being said at the pace it’s being said, to practice not being lost in the middle of sentences, and that’s why I feel adequate difficulty is crucial for me. I never really go back (unless I do want to double check what someone is saying because I’m very interested in what they’re talking about), neither do I replay episodes (unless I really like them) nor look at scripts. I listen or watch something, and then move on to the next thing :slight_smile: . Especially if I listen to different episodes of the same resources, as they will pretty much use language the same way over and over.

That being said, going back and re-listening to things doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me either, I’m sure it has it benefits too if you understood more than last time or if you’re able to process the language better that second time. It’s just personally not something I do, based on the different roles that reading and listening perform in my own personal study at this moment.

14 Likes
100

Day 7! More Splatoon videos. Watched a guy talking about the weapon I’ve played most recently, why it’s good in the current state of the game and etc. I followed… enough, I certainly get the main points. Then he plays a few games with it and it amuses me how much he works himself up into a frenzy talking faster and faster as the gameplay is happening.

The best part about the film club is that it will make me occasionally post something other than videogame (and mostly only Splatoon) videos here :stuck_out_tongue:

10 Likes