August 8th
What did I listen to?: Obey Me! Boys in the House Ep 5
How much time did I spend listening?: 20 min
Omg, this was the best episode - in a continuation of last episode, Ayme-san, Beel’s VA, and Satan’s VA go to the special cafe to sample some foods and drinks there are a lot of Obey Me! special cafes apparently lmao. But this time, there’s a twist - they have a little competition on who can give the best report on the food (Ayme-san judges and just gets to eat his parfait without commentary ). Satan’s VA is so extra, like why is he so funny I love him. And then Beel’s VA becomes the actual embodiment of his character and starts inhaling his pasta during his report
Also, breaking news, but I inadvertently discovered that apparently Ayme-san is…doing v-tube? V-tubing? Whatever the verb form of that is. I was looking for this video and noticed it in the recommended videos on the side. There’s one titled “Debut Video” that was put up 7 days ago so…I literally don’t know what’s happening??? But I’m going to have to check it out at some point?? I didn’t have time to watch today, but it’s on my list His v-tube character is so cute :3 it looks like him with a little bit of asmo/demon flair tbh, which I’m guessing is sort of what he was going for
I mentioned in the Natively forums today how I love historical nonfiction like Devil in the White City and such. Gimme historical scandal and I’m all about it. So, I tried to find something scandalous on youtube today and was not disappointed:
I learned a lot of new words from this! I usually find Japanese history a bit of chore to learn vocab for, but when it’s something like this, hell yeah I’ll learn 奥女中!
Other words of note:
密通 - adultery. I usually hear 不倫 for this, this has more of a sneaky sneaky feeling to it, but less casual than 浮気.
艶書 - love letters. seems to be a more formal/fancy way of saying 恋文 (which is read こいぶみ of all things)
I watched part of a let’s play again today; this one was of an English conversation quiz app thing so it was interesting to see! The sentences were absolutely absurd lmao but it was fun to judge the translations
4th - LingQ lesson 1 (intensively), Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone chapter 13
5th - LingQ lesson 1 & 2 (intensively)
6th - 1 hour of Yukka music from YouTube
7th - Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone chapter 14
8th - Japanese with Shun podcast 1, 2 & 3.
9th - Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone chapter 15, Japanese with Shun podcast 4.
Kinda feeling the strain of this now since I’m spending most of my time reading or listening it’s no longer dead time I’m using but trying to actively listen to stuff which I’m finding straining when doing so for long periods of time and also finding I’ve less time for studying other things or doing other things (I can’t actively listen and focus intensively while doing something else). I’m also struggling to find different things to listen to to try to keep myself engaged in the subject because right now doing this is actually putting me off learning Japanese and I’m not actually enjoying it at all now even when listening to music. Tried using things like my short story books to listen while reading or LingQ for a similar thing but nothing is helping me.
That’s not to say that I’m having trouble with understanding the stuff I’m listening to. Only Harry Potter and Yukka’s music has been incomprehensible at times. Everything else is comprehensible input, I’m just not enjoying forcing myself to listen to stuff when I’m not in the mood to (I tend not to listen to a lot of stuff in English unless I’m actively playing a game or watching a film, unless it’s passive listening to music while driving.
Decided that even though I’ve been doing this for 40 days straight, I’m done. It’s a decent challenge but if I’m not enjoying it and it’s messing with how I feel about my study of Japanese language then I’m done.
Going back to my own studying methods and I’ll go back to listening at my own pace.
Good luck to everyone else and hope you enjoy your language learning journey however you study
I didn’t watch much, as I am getting busy for my assignments, research and document submission. Not exactly no time, but my attention just don’t want to be taken away. Counting that listening does take more stress and mind power. I started and continued to read manga, though.
Nonetheless, I watched Dr. Stone EP.2 (JP sub), and 獅子王 (Lion King?) is getting more absurd than the scientist guy.
Just now, Netflix on Edge crashed my Windows twice now.
Perhaps I would continue focusing on listening by Thursday, and then find something to speak/read-aloud (and perhaps production, that is written first).
Today the police station has some donuts, but how do divide 13 donuts equally?? And of course, crazy leotard math wizard is here to cause mayhem
I like to imagine that the leotard wizard used to be a respectable maths teacher but after trying to teach the ‘forbidden math’ he was fired and became a delinquent, one day he was in an accident involving forbidden math books and leotards and transformed into the crazy wizard he is today. And this is why the police are called to handle seemingly innocent school disagreements, in fear that the leotard wizard is trying to convert children to the way of forbidden math.
I re-listened to the episode of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginner’s that I struggled with yesterday (E.41). I managed to understand it today, but I still found it unusually difficult. It took a few listens for me to fully grasp it.
I also listened to 2 Core Words videos from JapanesePod101, and watched Bubble on Netflix (With English subs).
Last week I went to a music festival which totally broke my listening streak… Mainly because I listened to a lot of music, but also because my cellphone batteries were empty
Anyways, to make up for that, I talked to two Japanese friends on Sunday and Monday, respectively, and I had a conversation lesson today. I also watched/listened to another episode of Flying Witch (without subtitles). It is pretty much manageable - I think I get about 70-80% comprehension which I’m super happy with.
About 30 mins of the episode, they talk about games that made them buy different consoles.
I’ve decided I want to be much more carefree with podcasts, they’re virtually endless and there’s no point in trying to catch up on them from start to finish, there’s absolutely no way I can do that. I’ll listen to whatever episode has an interesting enough title and leave it at that (which is probably what normal people do but my brain insists on going through things in order).
Continuing yesterday’s travels through unusual history videos, today I watched a video on the history of periods and period products in Japan:
It was interesting but not shocking, and highlighted my need to practice reading/listening to more formal explanatory content. Can’t just be novels and crime shows all the time!
Just watched the rest of that English conversation quiz video today; I was mostly preoccupied with playing バディミッションBOND which did actually have a few cutscenes without subtitles so hey that counts!
Thank you, best of luck to you as well! Recognizing when something isn’t working for you is as important a skill as anything, you got this
Oof very relatable, maybe that’s part of why I’m so bad at podcasts but if I don’t listen in order how will I follow the over-arching plot of this conversation podcast!!
I think you can count 40 straight days of listening as a roaring success, tbh. Not to get too philosophical, but I think a challenge like this is good for pushing yourself a little out of your comfort zone, and then once you’re there you can take a look around, see your study from a new perspective, and then choose your path going forward. It seems to me like that’s exactly what you’ve done, and I hope it’s been a useful experience for you even if you aren’t continuing.
I personally have failed at the “every day” part of the challenge, but I’ve found some great listening resources and I’ve been having a lot of fun listening to the stuff I’ve been listening to, so I count that as a win too!
Thanks, that actually puts it into a better perspective. I was kinda feeling like I’d failed due to not completing it but the positive side is that I’ve found some new material, tried something different and found a way that works for me.
Thank you
Glad you’ve found some great new stuff to listen to and you’re enjoying the process.
Today I watched 4 episodes of Old Enough. I’ve been watching with english subs on, but I’m gradually finding that I can follow a lot of what is going on without reading them that often.
My comprehension falls apart when the narrator is speaking, so I still need the subs at the moment. but the simple way that most people talk to the children is generally fine for me to understand.
Feeling pretty burnt out today, between work stress, a feeling of stagnation, and a bad language exchange partner conversation. Days like this I wonder why I’m studying Japanese at all, so I may unplug for a few days, not sure yet.
I did make myself do some listening today though, enjoy:
If you’re ~intermediate listening level and you want to hear someone spill the tea on a time they were cheated on this is solid practice. Nothing really out there for vocab, not spoken super fast, hard subs for a fall back.
August 9th and 10th
What did I listen to?: Obey Me! Boys in the House Ep 6 and 7
How much time did I spend listening?: 14 min and 19 min
I did listen yesterday, I was literally just too lazy to post But the episode I watched yesterday was so cute!!! The two Satoshis check out the merch and try to pull their own characters (this eventually turns into trying to call the character they’ll pull before they open it instead). I love how Kada calls Baby Satoshi “Oni-chan,” it’s so cute
Today I watched the conclusion of this series, where Lucifer’s VA and Mammon’s VA check out the little mini games (ft. Ayme-san and Satan’s VA being so extra with the camera angles during the ending interviews Why is it always you two)
I finally watched another episode of Tiger & Bunny today! It felt good to get back to it, and their hijinks were as dumb and wild as usual It was sweet though, 虎徹 was trying so hard to celebrate バーナビー’s birthday because he’s a mother hen and he got all the heroes in on it and it was very cute but also a hot mess Nice to listen to something with more meaningful plot again
Oh no, I’m sorry, I hope things get better soon! Whatever you need to do to take care of yourself
). Satan’s VA is so extra, like why is he so funny 
scandalous 
