🔉 🎙 Listen Every Day Challenge (Summer Edition) 🏖

July 23 :blossom: Home Post

I didn’t do a whole lot today, just watched a bit of let’s play to get my obligatory listening in :joy: It feels good doing at least a little bit every day, though sometimes it’s real bare minimum lmao. It’s all progress :sparkles:

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Jul 24, Sun of Week 4 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

Today’s story is 寿限無 (:studio_microphone:).

This one isn’t from Hukumusume, simply from YouTube, and full transcript in in the description (not in CC or Show Transcript). 絵本 type, but I believe it can be listened as an audiobook as well.

Story impression

The kid has a crazy long name, that becomes a reading practice, but I can’t make it as smooth as the original audio.

「うわーん、おばちゃ〜ん。おばちゃんとこの、寿限無 寿限無 五劫のすり切れ海砂利水魚の 水行末、雲来末、風来末 食う寝るところに住むところやぶらこうじのぶらこうじ パイポパイポ パイポのシューリンガンシューリンガンのグーリンダイ グーリンダイのポンポコピーのポンポコナーの長久命の長助が、ボクの頭ぶってこんな大きなたんこぶができちゃった〜」と金ちゃん。

「あらまあ、ごめんなさいね。うちの、寿限無 寿限無 五劫のすり切れ海砂利水魚の 水行末、雲来末、風来末 食う寝るところに住むところやぶらこうじのぶらこうじ パイポパイポ パイポのシューリンガンシューリンガンのグーリンダイ グーリンダイのポンポコピーのポンポコナーの長久命の長助が、金ちゃんの頭ぶって大きなたんこぶができちゃったのかい?!おかみさんは慌てて言いました。

ちょいとお前さん、聞いた? うちの、寿限無 寿限無 五劫のすり切れ海砂利水魚の 水行末、雲来末、風来末 食う寝るところに住むところやぶらこうじのぶらこうじ パイポパイポ パイポのシューリンガンシューリンガンのグーリンダイ グーリンダイのポンポコピーのポンポコナーの長久命の長助がね、金ちゃんの頭ぶって大きなこぶこしらえたんですって」。

「なんだって。うちの、寿限無 寿限無 五劫のすり切れ海砂利水魚の 水行末、雲来末、風来末 食う寝るところに住むところやぶらこうじのぶらこうじ パイポパイポ パイポのシューリンガンシューリンガンのグーリンダイ グーリンダイのポンポコピーのポンポコナーの長久命の長助が、金ちゃんの頭をぶって大きなこぶこしらえたって?」おばあさんも出てきて、「なにかい、うちの孫の、寿限無 寿限無~」と大さわぎになりました。ところが金ちゃんの頭を見た八五郎、「なんだい、こぶなんかどこにもねえじゃねえか」。頭をグリグリ撫で回します。

すると金ちゃんがひとこと。「あんまり名前が長いから、とっくにこぶは引っこんじゃったよ」。

The story is famous enough to have a Wikipedia page (in English) – Jugemu - Wikipedia


Furthermore, おかみさん is simply a wife / housewife .


Afterwards, I started listening to かがみの孤城 audiobook, which I bought from audiobook.jp – it has exactly the same text as the same 2-book series in Bookwalker. Superifically I can understand it; but when compare with the text, I missed a lot. I intended to either listen or read, actually. Listen-Read-Listen cycle, if I must. Sadly, I missed the book club which also has read-aloud… but started around 9 months ago. Today, I can manage only 1 track = 20 minutes = 1/3 or first chapter.

I find most books in book club don’t have an associated audiobook. (Comparing to native audio can be helpful, for example, even with Furigana, numbers won’t be Furi’d anyway.) Mangas are probably out-of-question as well, as a lot of narration lines would be missing. [1] (Furthermore, up-to-now, I still can’t buy e-things from Amazon JP, so both Kindle and Audible.)

Then, I listened to りっきぃの夜話 for about 23 minutes. First 8 minutes (2 tracks) I listened twice, but I feel I still don’t understand enough.

Now, I saw that one of over 1 hour single episode. Light looks cooler than the other live-action version. However, JP sub and JP audio don’t match. Probably because it is US version. There is only English in the Note as well.

Actually, I now see sub not matching dub as a helper; however, the material still has to be chosen carefully (mostly regarding difficulty). This one specifically probably isn’t too difficult, but it started a little over the board (rather than about the actors).

I don’t think I am ready for no sub yet.

I have found a next series to watch after となりの怪物くん; with matching JP sub, of course.


  1. Anime would also miss a lot of narration lines compared to audiobooks or novels. ↩︎

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July 24 :orange_square:

Two kurzgesagt videos (thanks @myria for the idea!). I guessed/inferred more than I actually understood, but they were still interesting. :sweat_smile:

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Ah!! Thank you, polvさん, for this information! I haven’t attempted to read along, yet… as I’m still attempting an “unbiased listen”, although I haven’t gone back to かがみの孤城 in 3 weeks+ (#still sucked into BOTW) When I am reading along while listening, I get thrown when they’re not identical, but I am usually able to get back on track.

At native speed, I can’t usually read a JP sub that fast! lol Usually I can only confirm a word or two that I thought I heard, by picking it out of a subtitle. But when it’s totally different, or interestingly different, I get distracted thinking about it. :blush:

Now I’m listening to Pecoさん playing Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild in Japanese with Japanese commentary.

Looking at polvさん’s link about rakugo, I’m thinking that a Chinese children’s book that I read as a kid (about the oldest brother having such a long name that he almost drowned as the second child tried to get help) was such a story. Great challenge for read-aloud, polv! :joy:

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:sound: Listening Room: Date 20220724 :loud_sound:

Day XXXIII: : :iphone:

Today’s NHK vid is all about the dangers of interacting online; evil smartphones.
(That kinda got a lot darker than I thought an educational kid’s video would)

Pretty helpful, a lot of the dialogue was shown as text on the phones (or as magic text bubbles above people’s heads), and people were also speaking out loud what they’re typing on their phones, so they spoke slow and emphasised and I could actually understand them. But then they go speak normal again and I’m just ???

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July 24th.

Today I listened to episode 29 of Nihongo con Teppei for Begginers.
Then I watched the first episode of Madoka Magicka, with support from Language Reactor.

Generally, when I use Language Reactor I use Japanese subs and have the english subs blurred out so that I can quickly mouse over them if I didn’t understand something or want to check I understood something without really breaking the flow of what I’m watching too much, but don’t accidentally default to just reading the english subs instead of trying to listen.

(Home Post)

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Just an hour listening today to Bite Sized Japanese.

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Home post

LEDC
Week 4
:confetti_ball: 1 0 0 % :confetti_ball:

July 24
Japanese with Teppei and Noriko: episodes 8 to 14.


Again went with this podcast today. Looks like I did a lot but these are super short, in total it was like half an hour or so. It’s actually quite nice, I find their dynamic quite amusing. It’s also quite lax in terms of difficulty so it’s nice for busy or tiring days.

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July 24 :blossom: Home Post

In an unusual turn of events, most of what I did today was listening! (mostly because I didn’t start reading until pretty late and then I was tired but whatever lmao) I watched another of those バカゲー RPG videos, maybe my favorite so far :joy: It’s pretty succinct and very silly, so if you’re looking for something fun to watch I’d certainly recommend it:

And then I checked out a new anime because I have no self control ever :laughing: I’ve been hearing about how fun Tiger & Bunny is lately and truly had no idea what to expect from it so I gave it a go and yeah, it’s a lot of fun so far! I’m intrigued by the whole setup of heroes being marketed as like celebrity reality stars, pretty interesting :eyes: It was a pretty comfortable watch too (with Japanese subtitles) so I’ll probably watch it again!

Oh that’s fun! I only have a vague awareness of 寿限無 from seeing it referenced in stuff a lot, like that fullmetal alchemist scene, and it’s in ace attorney at some point, so it’d be cool to listen to the actual story sometime :eyes:

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Jul 25, Mon of Week 5 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

Today’s story is 亡者道 (:studio_microphone:).

Same old ばあさん from the other day.

Story impression

A no no yes no story.

生首 is the key vocabulary here.

Places

  • 乗鞍岳・千町 – such a beautiful place
  • So far I can’t find 平金.
  • I am not sure about 桜が岡. There are multiple search results for this one.

YouTube suggested this another one just now, and I heard almost everything without subs. (I missed POS part, which is already written on the screen, and the very end before 登録 part, after 役に立つ.)

Note that, there are two Japanese subs here. First one is auto-generated and goes to the end; and the second one is official Japanese/English but stops before please share.

A while ago, I used ~と申します. I felt that, if simply ~です, would people know that’s a name?


About かがみの孤城 audiobook, I can’t go so fast, as I can’t listen well; and by reading, there are a few words that I need to pick up while reading first, so reading isn’t so fast, too. Then, even if vocabularies and sentence structures are known, the vocab (and meaning) is sometimes hard to pick out by hearing. There are even times that reading along and it sounded different from the text. – So it’s going to be slow for now, so that I can listen more properly.

I took a look at documentaries or MOOC, on the ekg’s posted 汐見台団地, which has a JP subtitle, but affixed to the video. (I wouldn’t want to watch unsubbed for now.) So, now I have a new channel to subscribe to. (神奈川県 officials, I think.)

After that, there are couples of keywords to search for in that topic; but then Japan Foundation’s playlists are already an easy target. (Which there are already subs.)

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Finished 仮面病院! I enjoyed it quite a bit and it was quite nice to be able to listen to a solid novel in Japanese, without any text for reference. I have listened to others before but they were quite a bit easier or I struggled much more to follow along. Just a few months ago keeping up with this narration would have been a struggle so I’m enjoying my victory. I still have a ways to go before all the books I want are accessible to me in audio form, but the hours I’m putting in are paying off, so I’m happy.

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July 25 :green_square:

I had zero interest in watching anything or listening to anything today. I spent some time browsing YouTube and Netflix to no avail, then I found the solution I was looking for: Origami videos!

It took a while to find videos with actual oral instructions instead of just music or text, but when I did they were surprisingly easy to follow (I mean, sure, they show you what to do, but the oral instructions themselves were easy to follow. Most of the time) . I won’t show you my pitiful origami results, but here are the videos:

And this, but I didn’t make it, because I’m not folding thirty sheets of paper, thank you. It would look cool though, if I had the patience.

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:sound: Listening Room: Date 20220725 :loud_sound:

Day XXXIV: :mount_fuji:

NHK school video. A folktale story, it said it was aimed at kindergarten level but I did not find it easy one bit.

Also love the woman’s Yama-uba voice, she sounds like a proper hardcore yakuza :rofl:

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Today I listened to some news about the most recent Sakurajima eruption:

and also

but only the first three minutes :sweat_smile: as it then switches to other news.

(and there are lots of other news videos available if you google search for 桜島)

I also watched some more 博多豚骨ラメンズ (I started watching each episode twice, on two different days, and that improves my understanding quite a bit.)

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Home Post

My recap of last week! :blush:

Turns out watering the garden is really conducive to lots of listening, haha.

This week I finished listening to the audiobook for 魔女の宅急便 vol. 1. :partying_face: I think that’s my first, completed Japanese audio book?!
Also a lot of podcast episodes, and quite a bit of youtube. I also took up Terrace House, once again. I always have fun watching, yet I never manage to finish. We’ll see.:joy:

18 :broom: 19 :broom: 20 :fast_forward: 21 :fast_forward::broom: 22 :tv: 23 :fast_forward: 24 :broom: :studio_microphone:
Listening Logs

18: Listened to chapter 7 and about half of chapter 8 of Kiki, about 50 minutes.
19: listened to Kiki while watering the garden. ~ 50 minutes again, I think I’m halfway through chapter 10 now
20: I clicked on this let’s play shared by natarin and before I knew it 20 minutes had passed. So much fun, haha. 『 速すぎるRPG 』が本当に速すぎて笑う - YouTube … I’d actually been following this gamer already but it’s been ages since I watched any let’s plays.
21: Watched 2 videos shared here: A book review shared by omk3 and a book summary about how to lose weight shared by pocketcat.
And then in the evening, watering in the garden green house, I listened to some more kiki. Halfway through chapter 11 now. So close to the end!
22: Watched 2 eps of Terrace House Boys and Girls in the City. Fun. :3
23: Watched a youtube video about a ‘recommended top 10 older 東野圭吾 works’. I own one, so I’ll be reading that one next I guess. Or after ガリレオの苦悩, after which there’s a book missing in my Detective Galileo collection anyway. So, soon-ish. :slight_smile:
… This channel has a lot of videos on 東野圭吾 books~ … let’s watch another, haha. This one’s a book shelf introduction. Half of it is taken up by 東野圭吾. Also Unread Books. I like this guy. :joy:
24: Today, while watering the garden, I listened to the last bit of Kiki, as well as another 2 episodes of The Real Japanese Podcast.

I’ve noticed a bit of a reluctance to listen to something else so I don’t need another icon. That is not an intended result. :joy: It also doesn’t look pretty when they take up a different amount of space so some of the columns are wider… Maybe I’ll stick to an icon for ‘most minutes listened to’ on a given day or something. I’ll think on it.

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July 25th!

I listened to Episode 30 of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners, and also watched an episode of Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens.
Also spent a little bit of time listening to KANA-BOON, if music counts as proper listening practise?

(Home Post)

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Summary Post

July 25th
What did I listen to?: Super Bunny Man Let’s Play Part 7
How much time did I spend listening?: 27 min

Finished this series off today. Guess I’ll have to find something else to listen to next :joy: These videos felt low effort, even though I definitely did not understand a good portion of what was said. I wasn’t really trying that hard to understand, I guess lmao - or I didn’t really feel a need to understand everything, so it didn’t bother me when I didn’t.

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Jul 26, Tue of Week 5 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

Today’s story is 娘の寿命 (:studio_microphone:).

Story impression

「あんたは、何才まで生きたいんじゃ?」 – Just choose your age to be written in a notebook! Then, there is no proof that age was lengthen either. (Other than she died at exactly 88 years old.)

「白酒と杯を三つ、 – Yeah, 杯 is just written without a reading guide. It is read さか-ずき〔「さか(酒)つき(坏)」の意〕


Yesterday, I watched YouTube on Being Japanese documentary with the second Japanese subtitle. [1] I picked out Japanese spoken lines, here (with git diff). [2]

Then, I took a look at NHK for School, which is sorted by school grades too. (Thanks, Jona-さん) It appears to have Furigana and full transcript, but sometimes it drops Kanji, and not using Furigana. [3]

Also, it has only two modes – small (about 1/3 of screen width) and fullscreen. Fixed with VMware. (My actual screen is a large Ultra-Wide HD screen, so I should use make use of the space wisely.)

On Language Reactor, there is already vocabulary lookup (dictionary), but I altered settings a little - no audio, and add external link to https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/srch/all/WORD/m1u/ (Goo exact match).

Extra:

I have seen the phrase before; but this is the first time I have heard it being pronounced, also a little longer than I think. This is the first time I searched and found the origin as well. The anime in the search result is distracting.


  1. Zulu”, for spoken Japanese with Japanese written sub, lol. (and “Japanese” for English and omit Japanese speech.)

    Mostly spoken in English, and Japanese speech is minimal. :smile: ↩︎

  2. So, I learnt that 帰国子女 isn’t necessary female. ↩︎

  3. ひょうたんからコトバ appears to be interesting (and meaningful) for me.

    • I think this ひょうたん is exactly 瓢箪.
    ↩︎
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Home post

LEDC
Week 5

July 25
Nihongo con Teppei Z, episode 33.

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July 25 :blossom: Home Post

I accidentally did mostly listening again today? I don’t know what’s happening to me :joy: I watched some more let’s play stuff, and then a couple more episodes of Tiger & Bunny for funsies. I’m having a lot of fun with it; it’s exactly the kind of chaotic nonsense I’m all about :laughing: There’s cool language stuff too, lots of distinct ways of speaking, there’s a samurai speech guy, go figure. So yeah, going pretty well!

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