🔉 🎙 Listen Every Day Challenge (Summer Edition) 🏖

Here’s a really random question, but does anyone know if there is an audio version of The Little Prince (星の王子さま) by Antoine de Saint-Exupery? Or where to look for one?

I have the print copy and I thought it would be good to try reading along to the audio. But I’m not sure how many books in translation make it to the audiobook stage. :sweat_smile:

Any advice is appreciated :slight_smile:

There are several on audiobook.jp (based on different book versions?)

There’s a youtube reading too (in two parts):

Length is very different though. Different versions of the text maybe?

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Home post

I skipped one day since last update, but most days I’ve listened to Sakura Tips, あらB.fm, and the live broadcasts on this weather channel which I think someone in this thread recommended.

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Yesterday I listened to episodes 436 – 477. Also listened to

thanks again to @Zakarius さん for the link.

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I finished また,同じ夢を見ていた! My first audiobook :durtle_noice:

And I actually liked it quite a bit! This kind of contemplative slice of life-ish stuff isn’t necessarily my favorite genre so I feel like I might have enjoyed it less if I had spent tons of time with it via intensive reading, but as an audiobook it worked really well. Especially because every character has their own narrator and everything, I always think that adds to the listening experience.

Even though there were still more than enough sentences that I didn’t understand my comprehension was overall good enough to get into this chill flow state of just following along and not worrying about what I don’t get and that was really nice?? I should listen to audiobooks more often :durtle_love:

Huh, this used to be 3 levels higher than 同じ夢 but right now they’re both level 25 :see_no_evil:
I’ve only just started 時をかける少女 (I’m like 15 minutes in) but so far I would say 同じ夢 is a bit easier - we’ll see. Also wow, is this really not even 3 hours long? That is short :laughing:

That has happened to me more times than I’d like to admit :laughing:

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:sound: Listening Room: Date 20220623 :loud_sound:

Day II: 出来心 :moneybag:

Listened to today’s Edo tale! This was a little easier because it was shorter, but I still didn’t understand much. I feel I can hear the words and distinguish which word is which, but it takes a little longer to understand and then the story gets a sentence ahead of me.


@trunklayer, thanks! I always read the story after to check how much I did understand (which is relatively little :sweat_smile: )

If you ever want some folk stories to read or listen to then Hukumusume has loads, there’s about five stories for everyday of the year (and then there’s loads of offshoots everywhere to other things), not all of them have an audio recording but a lot do. It’s a really useful site for learning!

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Jun 23, Thu of Week 13 of pre-Summer :cherry_blossom: 2022

I think I am following Zakarius for daily Japanese 童話 according to the website. However, not every day has audio, so I am going for only ones that have audio. And, I also noticed that there are more than one places for diaries (daily reading)

  • Also repeat (with recording), that is, my monologue.
  • I will also try to remember them, and adapt without scripts.
  • I indeed might not know some words ahead, but Yomichan is fast enough to look up for pronouncing.

For this week (20-26 June), there are

Now, I wonder if I should read something shorter for repeating? Or, should I adapt to that a few minutes’ length?


Some other notes…

  • Sometimes in anime, like 進撃の巨人 – some important words are hard to pick out. Death Note and やがて君になる seem easier. However, I am attracted to some themes, and have conflicting feelings about others. Also, sharp voice and 萌 in moderation.
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Day: -7 :rofl:

So, just for fun, I thought I’d try and watch Stranger Things in Japanese. The experience was…surreal. And funny. The voices took some getting used to, as did all the katakana versions of names and such. I thought I’d give it a few minutes, but in the end I watched the first two episodes, and I understood quite a lot. I mean, I already knew what they were saying, but still, I could follow remarkably well as long as they kept their phrases short enough (policemen and scientists were the hardest, イレブン of course the easiest by far). TIL that in Japanese you finish a radio message with どうぞ in place of “over”.

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Omg! Thank you! I’m going to make this part of my challenge activities!

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Summary post

Just a small update, but I noticed kind of a breakthrough with Spanish recently. I was listening to the Duolingo podcast, and I realized I was understanding it without having to translate in my head, which is a pretty cool feeling! I’m sure I’ve been doing that for longer than I thought, but it was nice to consciously be aware of it as it was happening.

I’m actually noticing how slow they speak in the Duolingo podcast, haha, after watching so much of La Casa de las Flores, where everyone of course speaks at normal talking speed. I’m almost done with the first season of that show.

As far as Japanese goes, the big thing I noticed recently is that during my first pass through the 童話 stories, when I play the audio and try to follow along with the text without looking anything up, I tend to get tripped up when they slightly change the wording for the audio, or when it skips part of the text. But after I read through the story a second time, this time aiming for full comprehension, when I listen to it again afterward, I’m able to actually hear the parts they change or leave out (such as using a different word for “said,” or cutting “he said” out of the audio, etc.), and I’m a lot better at keeping up with the transcription.

That made me feel a little more confident about my listening ability, because I actually am able to comprehend more than I think!

Also, I was wondering where I’d heard あるところに (a staple in pretty much every single 童話) before, because I had a very clear memory of hearing that phrase somewhere, and then I realized that I was remembering it from the beginning of the Vocaloid song Alice Human Sacrifice, which was on my ipod for many years :sweat_smile:.

One week left to go!

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Yoiks! Now I really want to try “Stranger Things” in Japanese. Usually, I would have to not look at an American movie that I’m trying to watch in Japanese, because I would be reading the English on their lips (that’s not even a skill set that I have!!) and it interferes with my Japanese listening enjoyment.

OK, WOW, I love “Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” (hence my profile picture of Impa from when she was a young warrior in “Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword”; recently re-released on modern platforms, I highly recommend that game). A two hour plus long YouTube video by Game Gengo Breath of the Wild Vocabulary goes through every sentence, word by word plus grammar discussion for most of the isolated plateau storyline cut scenes. That makes it an excellent resource for beginners, imho. My flashcard deck to go along with this video is here: BOTW flashcards for your intensive listening preparation. I’m not finished with the deck, yet, but as I update it, the link will remain the same.

I’m adding the Japanese Quest Breath of the Wild video link here. It’s slow (4 hours+ long!) but also useful… faster than playing Zelda in Japanese and looking things up (I know, I tried…I could barely see the kanji and then had to handwrite then all into MTL lookup… couldn’t export)

Also this Zelda Fandom Wiki Translation Page was VERY helpful!!

EDIT the next day:
I enjoyed extensive listening on the Zelda BOTW Japanese dub/English dub YouTube of All “Memories” Cut Scenes

I actually bought the free month of YouTube so that I can keep it playing over and over in the background without the video…

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Same, I read the phrase and that was my immediate association, I guess I’ll be listening to old vocaloid song now^^;

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I’ve been watching Samurai Champloo without subtitles, I can’t say I can really follow the dialogue but I’ve watched the show several times before so I get the gist of things and I’m enjoying myself :upside_down_face:

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:sound: Listening Room: Date 20220624 :loud_sound:

Day III: じょうるり半七 :raccoon:

Listened to today’s folktale! Listening gets a bit frustrating, it feels like I almost understand… but don’t. Now I know why two year olds are always so angry, they just want to know what everyone’s talking about :laughing:

I can be happy that I can pick out one word without fail:



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Jun 25, Sat of Week 13 of pre-Summer :cherry_blossom: 2022’s summary

I started recording Japanese’s read aloud; however, not only that I failed to read correctly sometimes, I also failed to read with passion – for example, the style in 入らず山の鬼婆’s native recording in Zakarius’s post earlier.

I will also consider singing, or singing with an instrument. 大槻(おおつき)マキ - Memories [1] caught my eyes ears recently.

I wil try to record everyday; therefore, a new calendar.

I started playing games with Japanese dub, like Yakuza (龍が如く) (and ATRI isn’t yet out of question); and there is a subtitle. Now, it might be impossible for me to turn off subtitle as well, as I understand too little. [2]

Watching anime without subtitle (Death Note, やがて君になる, 進撃の巨人), although I don’t understand enough, and might fail to hear even with rewinding a short audio segment repeated; I probably would continue to do it, but try to collect vocabularies in advance first. [3]

Podbeans, or of course YouTube, is still considered – it depends on occasions, or whether I only have a smartphone at the time as well. I still watch Japanese YouTube from time-to-time, if I catch a fellow WaniKani-er posting an interesting YouTube.

As far as my actual understanding goes, I probably understand quite well for kid’s YouTube, but quite poorly for everything else.


  1. One Piece S01 ED ↩︎

    • I also bought Marco VN (on Steam), and the vocabularies are within my range. Nonetheless, I returned for refund, as I find the story odd…
    • I successfully setup Textractor (for VN, and also saw the website for Yomichan). Didn’t really use it yet, but rather than using it full-blown, maybe just using it to comprehend backlogs better.
    ↩︎
  2. I decided to drop Samurai Champloo, nonetheless. ↩︎

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:sound: Listening Room: Date 20220625 :loud_sound:

Day IV: 昼寝 :zzz:

Listened to today’s Edo story!

Since it’s short I listened to it twice to see if I could pick anything extra out, but I don’t think my listening comprehension was any better the second time round :thinking:

I listened to it a third time while reading and I could understand pretty much everything the narrator said. Come on ears, you can work without eyes doing all the work for you, 頑張って!


That guy has some crazy narrator skills though, he can do a different voice for every character in every story and never misses a beat (some of the ones I’ve read in the past challenges have been hilarious to listen to).

It’s impressive in itself that you managed to read aloud the whole thing! That’s no easy feat. Passion and vocalisation will come out on their own when you get more used to saying the words, and really, even when reading aloud in your native tongue, it is hard to bring out passion etc. on the fly when reading something aloud.

I think the singing might be really helpful, as it’s supposed to be easier to sing other languages than talk them since you’re focusing more on the sounds of everything rather than the word, should help you get an ear for how the words sound.

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It’s very hard to let go of the need to understand everything (or at least most). I’ve listened to the first half of chapter 2 of かがみの孤城 multiple times in the hope that I could catch more than before, but of course, my brain instantly recognizes that it’s the same old once again, and resolutely tunes out. There is just no way I can make myself engage with something I’ve already listened to more than twice, not until a lot of time has passed at least. So I guess I’ll just have to move on to the next tracks. I need to constantly keep reminding myself to have a child-like attitude towards listening, but it certainly doesn’t come naturally.

I tried to watch some anime on Netflix but nothing seems to hold my interest. So once again I settled on Stranger Things. There is a clear benefit in watching already familiar material (as long as I don’t get too bored). I know the gist of what they’re saying, so it’s easier (and quicker) to map sounds to expected concepts. I’m still missing quite a lot, but it’s not frustrating since I still follow along, and I’m so elated when I get something clearly enough to be surprised by the difference in expression in the two languages, or even to get to laugh at a joke.

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:sound: Listening Room: Date 20220626 :loud_sound:

Day V: 川の字 :three:

Listened to today’s Edo tale! This one is very short (seven sentences) but still had a hard time with it.

I also watched an episode of Pokemon in Japanese last night, and I understood more than I thought, which was a nice surprise.

:zap: ≪ 十万ボルト!! ≫ :zap:

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Jun 27, Mon of Week 1 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022’s listing

I might turn on subtitles, if it is available. However, I will take most care (as appropriate) to ensure that I can listen properly.

Unplanned new materials

  • Podbean app for Android (podcast)
    • たびラジ

:beach_umbrella:
第1週目 27前
:headphones: :studio_microphone:
28
:headphones: :studio_microphone:
29
:headphones: :studio_microphone:
30
:headphones: :studio_microphone:
01
:headphones: :studio_microphone:
02
:headphones: :studio_microphone:
03後
:headphones: :studio_microphone:

:ear: ≧10 minutes; :headphones: ≧30 minutes


Today’s listening and read-aloud from 福娘童話集.

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I’m also following along with SpyxFamily in the book club and watching the anime after. I’ve found the anime is much harder to understand (no surprise I guess). But since I haven’t watched much anime, the vocal tones they use have been really surprising to me. So dramatic, but in such a specific way…

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:sound: Listening Room: Date 20220627 :loud_sound:

Day VI: 病人が下手 :thermometer:

Unfortunately today’s folktale about mochi didn’t have any audio so I just listened to today’s Edo tale.

Noticing any improvement is a lot harder to measure in listening practice than reading.

So far all sentences to me just sound like: subjectは --[incoherent kana jumbles]-- ます/です!

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