July 2nd
Taking it a bit easy today as I’m trying to chill out a bit pre-JLPT tomorrow!
So I took a bubble bath and I watched the first 4 episodes of Fruits Basket Season 2 (with subs), which I’ve been meaning to watch for ages.
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Watched a couple episodes of PreCure (dont judge xd), and listened to ~1h20m of 安達としまむら.
(Home Post)
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I tried Old Enough on Netflix with Japanese subs and I understood less than 5% 
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Only way to go is up 
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July 2nd
What did I listen to?: Miura Ayme talking about Obey Me! cafe merch on Youtube 
How much time did I spend listening?: 41 min
So, funny story, I was looking for this one specific video that I had watched a while ago (with English subs) because I remembered the ending being funny - my original plan was to watch that video again without subs and leave it at that. But apparently there were more of these videos than I thought there were, and I ended up watching 4 of them until I finally found the one I was thinking of I mean, it’s more listening practice 
I got ramble-y, sorry but not really
Basically these videos are him promoting the various Obey Me! themed pop-up cafes that have been done in the past. He usually gets something to eat/drink, shows off the merch you can buy, and does some of the random draws (for like keychains and stuff, you buy them in opaque envelopes so the character you get is a surprise). I love that he always tries to gets things of the character he voices, idk, it completes a weird part of my heart when that happens It’s the same feeling as when voice actors cosplay their characters (which he also does, like really well, because he is actually a cosplayer and honestly his every-day look is kind of halfway to Asmo already 
). It cracks me up when he’s in a room with all the other voice actors for the game because the rest of them pretty much just look like…average Japanese men, and then you have this smol blonde dude with lenses
Can we all just appreciate the random little braided section on the side of his head in this video, like it’s so cute to me for some reason 
I hadn’t seen this video before, he was like peak adorable lmao (it seemed like he was talking faster in this one though, I felt like I understood less xD Though there were a lot more captions in this one and I was trying to read those at the same time, so maybe that was part of it)
Anyway - back to talking about listening 
Things I learned from doing this:
- I can’t read fast xD I had the subtitles off, but these videos have some words that pop up on the screen (you know, as they do in a lot of Asian variety shows…what are those actually called, captions?) Anyway, I was trying to read those to help me catch more of what he was saying, but I was not doing very well at it xD Speed reader, I am not. I think I actually understood less when I was trying to read and listen simultaneously than when I was just watching him do whatever he was doing while listening.
- I rely a lot on visual cues to understand spoken words. Like when there’s something visual going on to complement the spoken words, I can hear and process the spoken words so much better. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not
Is the ultimate goal to be able to listen and comprehend without any sort of visual context? I guess so, though I feel like that situation wouldn’t come up terribly often for me? Not going to worry about it too much either way at this point, just thinking out loud xD
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lol, yeah. Still, gaming dialogues are lovely.
I can confirm. Listening with eyes-free tones down some cringes.
Jul 3, Sun of Week 1 of Summer 
2022
Wrap-up
- The highlight, for myself, of this week is probably be listening (of less than 10 minutes), then read aloud with sound recording, of Hukumusume collection. (thanks Zakarius)
- While I did listen to some YouTube, I am not sure if I should put in my progress, since I feel I don’t catch enough messages.
- Anime with subtitles, and anything else with matching caption, is doable for listening practice, but have to be done with caution.
- So, naturally, I would try to find and adapt to something without visual hints, like podcasts (Podbean)
- Not sure how much this is related, but I also try writing; so as to make language learning more active.
Today’s progress
Today, I listened and read aloud to 杉の木、百本
It’s about this guy.
Yeah, he’s the previous mentioned キッチョムさん.
Story's review
Indeed, he tricked everyone to giving more donations, but is him giving 50 pairs of chopsticks appropriate? (Well, at least, they aren’t つまようじ .)
Yesterday, I passed by a shopping mall with a Kinokuniya bookstore. Unplanned, and I don’t exactly have a book in mind. Nonetheless, for chance opportunity, I asked the driver (my family) to drop me off.
I bought three books.
- 聞いた覚える話し方：日本語生中継！初中級編１
- 日本語能力試験Ｎ4レベル以上
- The book is provided with CD, so I had to find a DVD player for PC. Went to 2 shopping malls (not counting the first one, where I didn’t find the books I need), just to buy one.
- Then, the CD was ripped and uploaded to Google Drive almost immediately.
- the Japanese Language by Haruhiko Kindaichi (translated to English by Hirano)
- Of my first concern would be pitch and intonation. Of course, only what matters to the first survival bar…
- Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication by Taeko Kamiya
- I feel this is needed for Sentence Every Day Challenge.
As an extra, while shopping and on the way home, I listened to たびラジ on Podbean. (Total of a little more than 1 hour, I think, because I have too much time.) The speaker mentioned Korean, and spoke some Korean; but I practically have zero knowledge in Korean language…
There are also things like Teppei and Noriko on Podbean, but what I would listen to regularly (when handsfree, eyesfree) is to be decided.
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I listened to another 2 chapters of 殺人ライセンス and I just…love it. Let’s be clear that it’s a junk food book / airport novel / pulp trash / whatever you want to call it, but it’s very easy to listen to and if I didn’t have such a busy weekend ahead of me I’d binge the whole thing pretty quickly. I’d put it at about the level of スマホを落としただけなのに, or perhaps even a smidge lower because as yet the vocabulary has been narrower.
I’ve been needing some pulpy trash to binge listen to to bring up my listening hours for the year and so am delighted that Audible has several titles by this author.
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Day XII: 大きさが違う 
Listened to today’s Edo tale, about Mt. Fuji!
Movie Time
Sorry, forgot to update my post last night!
I ended up watching Porco Rosso, I thought I’d try watching something that I’m familiar with and see how I fair with no subtitles. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, but I think a lot of that is down to that I could fill in the blanks with vague recollections of what everyone says. If characters spoke for too long though I did get a bit lost.
It kind of feels that all the words I can pick up on are always the same ones, and it’s like, when do I start learning any new ones?
I can’t say that the sake gave me magic comprehension powers 
But I think it did help a bit with just rolling with it rather than second guessing everything, but I worry that this may sounds like I am advocating using alcohol as a Japanese learning aid 
Please, do not use alcohol as a Japanese learning aid.
Sorry to hear about your problem, didn’t even know that covid could cause such things! I hope that it’s just a temporary side effect - after hearing about your other problems from the past thread I really hope the best for you - you deserve a big break from it all!
Might play some more Yakuza 6 later too, will see how it goes.
Additionals
Yakuza 6
Episode of Pokemon
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July 3 
Another episode of Stranger Things today. This one had a lot of arguing, and I just couldn’t keep up. So while I listened perfectly actively, comprehension was rather low, even knowing what was being said. Oh well.
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july 3 
home post
Yesterday and today I’ve been listening to Nihongo con Teppei (starting from episode 27 of the beginner podcast since I listened to the ones before a while ago). I can understand quite a bit of it, the problem is that my mind keeps wandering and I stop paying attention to what he’s saying 
and this podcast doesn’t exactly have the most interesting topics, even if the host is really charismatic. But I’m viewing it like a graded reader: not exactly what I want to listen to atm, but it’s a stepping stone so I can understand the things I actually want to listen to
I’ll probably switch back and forth between Nihongo con Teppei and Comprehensible Japanese. That way I have something to listen to without visuals and something with visuals (no subs though)
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Home post 
July 3rd
・SKM N2: Did the exercises on page 27–39.
Doing these were surprisingly fun. One phrase I realized I’m not very familiar with: どうぞ、お構いなく. A polite way to basically say “no, thank you”. Got several questions wrong because of it 
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July 3rd!
Today was the JLPT, so that involved some listening!
As well as that though, I listened to Episodes 8-10 of Nihongo con Teppei (Beginners).
I also did a bit of semi-passive listening to Lesson 11 of JapanesePod101’s The 800 Core Words and Phrases series while I was writing my daily diary 
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| LEDC | 月 | 火 | 水 | 木 | 金 | 土 | 日 |
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| Week 1 | |||||||
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1 | 0 | 0 | % | |
July 3
Nihongo con Teppei Z: episodes 8 and 9 → 27 min.
古見さんは、コミュ障です。: episodes 21 and 22 → 40 min.
Week 1 completed
Work done:
Videos
Final Fantasy 14 Live Letter → 2 h.
Podcasts
Nihongo con Teppei Z, 2 episodes → 27 min.
Anime
古見さんは、コミュ障です。, 4 episodes → 1h 20 min.
Total listening time: 3h 47 min.
First week down. It being short has been great for a nice little push to start the challenge. I think I’m really going to like this new weekly planning. On to the new week! 
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Well, the second brought to us something about sloths (the animal). I… didn’t pay a lot of attention and missed a lot, to be honest, but I got that they move so little that they have moss growing on them. And when they need a snack, they eat that moss.
Also, they go down from their tree to poop, which is both energy inefficient and dangerous, but there’s a good reason for it that I missed. Considering the thing mentioned moths having their larva grow in said poop just after, I guess it’s related to said reason? I think they mentioned ナマケモノガ (as in sloth moth), but I can’t find relevant results with a cursory google search, so maybe not?
Yesterday, I tried a random episode of the podcast that @NicoleIsEnough recommended to me. However, I only had time to listen to the first 20 min, during which the host and guest were just having small talks. I can’t even remember what they were talking about
And with that, that’s 3 out of 3 days where I didn’t feel invested in what I was listening to I’m still finding it hard to just sit and listen to something… I usually end up starting something else and paying more attention to that instead.
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July 3rd
What did I listen to?: Obey Me! VAs visit an Obey Me! café thing part 1 (video on Youtube) I’m just making up titles for these lmao, I suppose I could put the actual video titles but where’s the fun in that
How much time did I spend listening?: 19 min
Today was supposed to be a reading day, but I actually did both things 
I had the urge to watch more Miura Ayme content today so I decided to let myself give in to that impulse This video was kind of similar to the ones yesterday, in that it was basically promoting a café event thing of some sort, but this time he was joined by some of the other voice actors from the series on his café drink sampling adventures. It was cute and I understood mostly, like…the drink flavors Idk, I got a vague idea of what was going on but that’s pretty much it. I’ve been trying to avoid pausing and looking things up, just letting it go and catching what I can in real time. I did better at reading the captions though - they helped me a little more than yesterday, I think. (They might have been a little slower, which could be why) There are more parts to this series, so I’ll probably watch more of this. The title of the video leads me to believe that there might be karaoke later. My brain enjoys the weirdest things sometimes, I literally don’t even play this game anymore, why am I watching all the content Miura Ayme is giving me boatloads of serotonin right now for reasons I don’t fully understand but I’m just going with it I apologize for the fact that this content is probably not of interest to anyone else lmao
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I’ve listened every day since my last post, mostly passive listening. The only thing I’ve listened to which I haven’t already mentioned is the JP SGDQ restream @Daisoujou mentioned (here is a link for convenience).
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Jul 4, Mon of Week 2 of Summer 2022
Planning and results
- Listening (or watching)
-
Listening
and read-aloud 
of 福娘童話集
-
Alternatively, speak (converse) from textbook prompt (聞いた覚える話し方).
- As far as I have tried, the audio aren’t really slow, but they are in the level that I can understand everything. (Also, short enough for me to think.)
- But then, I’ll have to reply to them?
-
Alternatively, speak (converse) from textbook prompt (聞いた覚える話し方).
-
1 hour worth of podcast
- This is actually possible on some day, on certain activities, like exercise or commuting.
-
Anime
- やがて君になる EP.7+ (subtitled)
-
Death Note EP.10 (no sub)
- Probably will hold back at 1 episode every two weeks now (even though I like the animation), to avoid going ahead and hold momentum for, the book club.
- Extra listening
- 進撃の巨人 EP.2 (no sub)
-
SPY x FAMILY EP.3 (subtitled)
- Probably will wait for the book club first.
-
Listening
- Unplanned extra materials
- Anime
- 盾の勇者の成り上がり
- Anime
≧30 minutes
Today’s progress
Today, I listened to 佐々木小次郎のツバメ返し (and read aloud, where I find vocabularies and Kanji a little more difficult today.)
The story is from 福井県, and said to be a few years before the actual fight.
Yesterday, I listened to 本田健の人生相談 on Podbean for about 30 minutes (while walking, then threadmill runnning).
So, it’s about the theme too.
Vocabularies that caught my eyes.
- 弟子入り – で.し.いり – apprenticeship
- 根負け – こん.まけ – beaten down by persistence
- 小間使い – こ.ま.つかい – maid (servent of the master, I think)
- 腰に差す – こし.に.さす – to hold (a sword) at the waist
- 武者修業 – む.しゃ.しゅ.ぎょう – samurai drill (exercise)
- I confused 技 and 枝
- There must be more misleading Kanji ones. I should have let Yomichan add to Anki.
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July 3 
Home Post
More ハイキュー！！ today! 
I watched another three episodes and they were powerful; the first time Kageyama’s new spinny toss works… oooh boy, chills every time . It’s actually a really different experience watching it without English subtitles. ハイキュー！！'s already such a character-central show, but with English subtitles I end up focusing almost entirely on the content of what they’re saying rather than how they’re saying it. With the subtitles and audio being the same though, I’m experiencing the actual voice acting so much more and ハイキュー！！ voice acting is wild The way some of these characters say things lmao, especially like Bokuto?? It’s so much fun, I look forward to meeting like Tendou
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That’s a fun idea. Something about animals might actually interest me, even if I end up missing most of what is said…Was that a podcast or youtube video you could share a link to?
(I need to work on my Japanese googling/browsing skills…)
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It was a tv show playing in the background (I was sitting with my back to the screen so that I could focus on listening… but I ended up focusing on reading my book 
)
It was surprisingly easy to find the program online (I didn’t check if it can be watched on demand, though)
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