Thank you so much for the help! I was able to fix it.
I’ll start doing a few cards a day now with Subs2SRS and hopefully it’ll improve my listening a little 
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Thanks for this. I am still listening Teppei sensei for beginners a second time but after this I will use your recs 
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LOL @ the poll!! 
I voted for かがみの孤城 because seeing you mention it again after all those other people mentioned loving it…
finally prompted me to buy the audiobook at the link you provided audiobook jp
So far, I’d only bought Kiki’s Delivery Service from audiobook jp, so at least I already had an account and had figured out how to play the mp3 files on my Android phone using an app called Musicolet. That app was nice because it will also play all of my many musical record albums from the last 20 years that I have on my phone. Google’s old mp3playing app waa dropped when Google bought YouTube and only offered a subscription service…
And then, because I am a nut who likes that “bottom up” method of reading the ebook also…I bought the ebook from Bookwalker.
That took a while! I accidentally downloaded the audiobook that plays at double speed!! Oops! That was just too fast for me!! Oof!
So…omk3, I voted for かがみの孤城 just because "misery loves company*.
It’s a dreamy-sounding girl… sometimes with a royal musical accompaniament, but that music doesn’t play through the entire book. (thank goodness)
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This is why Japanese pro wrestling is good, because pro wrestling match commentary isn’t even slightly necessary to follow the plot of the match, but it can add to the excitement and give useful context, so it’s a great way to practice just listening, because you have plenty of visual stuff to keep your attention, and you’re not missing out on anything essential even if you understand none of the commentary. The problem is that pro wrestling vocabulary might not be the most useful or relevant for everyone, haha, but I’ve found that a surprising amount of it shows up other places as well.
If anyone wants to try it out, here’s a match I always recommend, because it’s very creative and the violence isn’t too intense.
Here's a description explaining the stipulation and giving some context (it's explained in Japanese at the beginning of the video):
Leading up to this match, Asuka accused DDT Extreme Champion Akito of being boring, and she wanted a deathmatch involving hundreds of light tubes to prove that she was a better fit for the Extreme title. But Akito thought that the fear of breaking one light tube was greater than the excitement of smashing hundreds of them, so he devised this stipulation instead.
The match starts with a demonstration of the rules: regular wrestling rules apply, but if you break the single light tube in the match, you lose. If both people are touching it and it breaks, the person on the offense loses. If the tube is on the mat and someone is thrown onto it, the person who was thrown loses. It’s an incredible stipulation, and the result is an immensely creative match! DDT uploaded the match to youtube after it placed 11th in the Net Pro Wrestling Awards’ 2019 list of best matches.
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watching about 2 hours worth of shows every day so far. After doing 2.5 hours of Conan every day + the Movie on Saturday, I’m burnt out on Conan, but got into Shield Hero on Monday, and watching 3 episodes a day. No complaints.
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audiobook.jp has a pretty good app that’s available on android(& iOS) btw! (and I’m not in Japan, so it’s definitely available abroad) Let’s you do things like slow down or speed up audiobooks, set sleep timers etc.
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I did not know that! Thx…I couldn’t see how to adjust playback speed in Musicolet (it was designed for music mp3’s)
Very true, which is why I went ahead and bought the audiobook for かがみの孤城 too! My plan is not to refer to the written text at all though (I don’t even have it). Let’s see how that goes.
So far, I’ve listened to the first track (about 20 minutes). It’s surprisingly clear and not especially fast. I’d say I caught about 80% of the words, and even several full sentences, but making sense of what I hear in real time is another thing altogether. I’m sure it will get better, at least I got the general idea for sure. I’m now debating whether I should give each track a re-listen to give me a chance to catch more, or just get on to the next track. Re-listening is better for comprehension, but much worse for momentum. If I make things too hard for me, I’m in danger of getting bored with the project, and I don’t want that. Another thing that I’ll figure out as I go, I guess.
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Popping back in again to share progress!
I finished listening to 時をかける少女 - and it was pretty alright I think for the first audiobook I’ve listened to all the way through without referring to the text. The last couple of chapters had a lot of exposition so I ended up listening to those twice but got much more on the second time through. My verdict of the book hasn’t changed much, I think it’s a really good pick for a beginners audiobook (the vocab is generally pretty everyday, with more sci-if terms repeated enough and clear from context), it’s short and the audiobook is pretty decent production-wise, with no especially off putting character voices. The story itself I found a bit meh but that’s probably just because it’s too short to be able to do much interesting. Still an enjoyable enough listen and I can watch some of the adaptations now!
I’ve now moved on to ペンギンハイワェイ - finding this more fun than 時をかける少女, but also pretty approachable, I feel like I’m definitely getting enough to understand and enjoy it which is enough for me! I’m about 5hours/half way through the audiobook just now. It’s weird, I pretty much have no patience for sitting down and reading material for younger readers, but with audiobooks I find that I quite enjoy it. Maybe just because it feels less like work? Who knows 
I’ve also played FAR too many hours of fire emblem 3 houses. It has (Japanese) text as well as full voice acting so I’m not counting it really as listening, but recently I’ve been able to turn the text onto auto progress rather than click to progress which has felt like nice progress seeing as at the start I’d often take quite a while to move through a text box due to looking up vocab etc (that said, I’m pretty far through this route (just finished chapter 17 blue lions) and have played 50+ hours so you would hope that common vocab would have sunk in by now 
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Yesterday I’ve relistened to episodes 264 – 300.
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I hadn’t checked my player settings. I had it on “repeat song”, which means that it automatically repeated the Chapter. 
I’m proud of myself for noticing. 
I feel like I catch a lot of words, but I haven’t understood it, yet. So I won’t be getting bored. I celebrated the words that I recognized and knew what it meant, like 挨拶 (あいさつ greeting, salutation, speech WK44).
You probably won’t even miss the written version (another $20) if you understood that much on first listen! I guess I should admit that I’m a bit envious of you and Sycamore and others’ listening skills…
I want to try Detective Conan…
I missed A LOT of “Fireworks”, I discovered on the English sub re-watch…
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My listening skills are nothing to be envious about, I assure you!
So far I’ve understood the very bare bones of what’s happening (nothing that the book’s blurb doesn’t mention already, really), and a lot of words that I know what they mean but my brain has no time to process properly as the narrator keeps talking.
I just decided to be relaxed about that, and pretend to be a little kid watching a movie for grownups - more interested in this thing that was previously out of reach than actually comprehending, but grateful for all I can get. Kids learn this way after all, so why wouldn’t I? Right?
I’ve almost reached the end of the first chapter, but I noticed my attention waning so I stopped for now. After I finish the whole chapter I may consider re-listening if I feel I’ve missed way too much (as in, not even sure about the who and where, I’m not talking about details here).
The “repeat song” happened to me too. I was wondering why they started with all the music again mid-chapter!
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I think the “little kid” approach is useful. With extensive listening, I just let the Japanese play and go about my business. I rarely “actively listen” during those audiobook sessions (maybe 5-10 minutes here and there). I’m old, so it took 4 months of that before I noticed my brain switch from “this is a wall of white noise” to “…Hey! This seems to be language, let me think about these phonemes…” It seems that several of my friends who watched a lot of anime didn’t have to go through this brain “switch” likeI did.
…It’s been a year and a half since that happened–or has it been 2 1/2? I suffer from pandemic time warp. I thought my comprehension would increase much faster after that breakthrough. pout I’m a 3 year old Japanese toddler learning the language–who got a B in Quantum Chemistry LOL!
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I was watching some TV Japan last night. I saw school children doing earthquake and mud slide drills. Very interesting with all the rain happening now, and possibly life saving drills as well.
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Yesterday I’ve relistened to episodes 301 – 310 and also listened to a number of later episodes on my phone, though I don’t remember the numbers.
On the whole, my yesterday’s listening was fewer than usual, but still better than nothing
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Day: -15 and -14
During these last two days I listened to the first chapter of かがみの孤城 twice, and I’m quite happy with my level of comprehension (given how badly I did with listening only a week ago). The whole chapter (5 tracks) was roughly 2 hours. I listen while I do other stuff (no way I can stop everything and just listen, I get too restless), but I try to listen as actively as possible. I’ve listened to English audiobooks before and with those too I tended to lose concentration and had to replay bits a lot, so I’m quite happy that I’m not completely lost with an audiobook in Japanese.
I feel this audiobook was a really good choice for my level. The language is simple enough for the most part, the completely unknown words relatively few and far between. I realized that my problem in listening comes from processing speed, so to speak. I don’t translate in my head (I would have no hope to catch up if I did that), but I still take longer than speaking speed to process the words I’m hearing. So while I do recognize most of what is spoken, my brain doesn’t have the time to properly process it before the next bit is spoken. Still, I got the gist to an extent that I’m happy to continue to the next chapter, and I’m sure my processing speed will only increase with exposure.
Another thing I’m finding out (and that’s a good problem to have, I guess), is that the more I understand the more frustrated I get with the bits I don’t understand. I constantly need to remind myself that my attitude should be that of a child, enjoying the whole experience without being bothered by all the nuances I miss. It sometimes takes conscious effort, I admit. I had to resist looking at the book sample to fill in the gaps in my understanding.
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Pretty rough study day for me today. I barely made it to completing all my reviews this evening, so I’m not going to push myself to do any extra tonight. I did have some real life conversations in Japanese today, though, so maybe that counts. I don’t usually count that stuff in my study log, because sometimes they seem to go super well, and sometimes they just… don’t. But today I think I understood basically everything, and was even able to respond appropriately (I think), so I’ll count it as a win. Still won’t mark it on my study log though 
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I listen to audiobooks while going for walks, cooking, or cleaning. Sometimes also on the bus when I’m staring out the window. I need something else too.
Yay! I’m glad this one is working out! I really enjoyed that audiobook, I thought it was quite well produced.
For myself I recently started watching 卒業タイムリミット (trailer). It has 15 minute episodes which makes it easy to watch sneak in here and there. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to get very dark, but as it’s an evening drama perhaps I shouldn’t speak too soon. The overall atmosphere of the show feels pretty light, though.
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I listened to a program last night about Japanese vending machines having bags of bugs in various
flavors. They focused on Spicy Bar-B-Q bugs. The presenters were not overly inclined to try them out.
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Ten days in! I thought maybe it was a good time for another update.
Kind of a neat milestone for me is that I’m getting into La Casa de las Flores enough that I keep finding myself wanting to watch more episodes past my daily minimum haha. Usually watching/reading in Spanish or Japanese is really exhausting for me (if I’m aiming for as much comprehension as possible), so it’s really cool to realize that I’ve gotten far enough with Spanish that I can watch episodes of that show and understand enough of it without having to pause and look up things, and that it’s not too tiring for me to watch it.
More La Casa de las Flores thoughts
I mentioned to my coworker, whose native language is Spanish, that I started watching this show, and she said it was a good choice, haha, because she likes it, and it’s her brother’s favorite show. She told me that one of the characters in particular has a way of speaking that’s considered stereotypical for upper class Mexicans, so I’ve been trying to pay attention to that to see if I can notice a difference between her speech and that of the other characters.
The plot of this show is structured so that pretty much every single episode introduces at least one significant twist, and I feel like I’ve been able to understand just about all of them, though I do often lose the nuance (like, one of the characters got arrested, and my comprehension wasn’t good enough to understand exactly why, because a lot of the legal stuff is just beyond me).
I am really enjoying it, though! It’s a genuinely compelling show. I really appreciate the strong focus on LGBTQ themes. It’s also a very visually appealing show with really colorful sets, though since my eyes are on the subtitles most of the time, I don’t get to appreciate the visuals as much, haha.
As far as Japanese goes, progress has been generally slower, but that’s not too surprising. I read/listened to a few more of the 童話, and I’m continuing to enjoy them. I feel like my reading comprehension without Yomichan is okay, my reading comprehension with Yomichan is somewhat decent, and my listening comprehension is… abysmal .
I ended up looking up a few of the stories on wikipedia, just to double check my understanding, and it was a relief to realize that my comprehension was completely fine, actually. I feel like those are a pretty good example of where my grammar is at now, and usually there are only a handful of unknown vocab words in them (though naturally the words I don’t know tend to be the ones that are pivotal to the story).
I got some pure listening comprehension practice in the form of CyberFight Festival, a huge crossover wrestling show (it had English commentary and some live translation on twitter, but both were of course at a delay, so it still counts for listening practice), as well as a TJPW VOD show that I watched a few days before it.
I also watched part of a TJPW press conference that I talked about in the pro wrestling thread. Mostly I wanted to see how one part of the presser that was described in the transcript actually played out. I turned on the youtube autocaptions for help, though they’re riddled with mistakes (really looking forward to the upcoming “タイトル町”).
And I watched the third episode of 夢プロレス－dream on the ring－. It was fun to learn more about 上原わかな! I thought it was sad that she faced opposition from her parents when she wanted to get into the entertainment industry. She seems like she has a decent skillset for wrestling, with experience in cheerleading and kickboxing and working as an idol. She also really loves food.
All in all, even if it’s not the best for strictly practicing your listening ability, I think one benefit of listening with subtitles/transcripts is that it’s forcing me to practice processing the language at the speed it’s spoken at. That in itself is a skill that has to be built up, I feel .
About two weeks of the challenge left for me!
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