Yesterday and today, each: One episode of Comprehensible Japanese Intermediate.
And I accidentially watched this today:
I think I got most of the gist and maybe 60-70% of the details, but even without all of those this was pretty fun to watch. Seems the channel has a lot more. Would be perfect with Japanese subs!
Well yesterday I randomly clicked on a Netflix movie, only looking at the key visual 
Mostly because it looked like a live action drama that won’t have too much of a complicated plot, and with a dialog similar to real-life conversations. I actually finished it much faster than I thought I would, only stopping to check some unknown words. Except for some medical terminology, I would say the dialog is not that hard to follow.
So if romance/sad/sentimental movies are anybody’s thing, I would say this falls into this category 
Movie:
桜のような僕の恋人
TRAILER
Jan 19, Thu of Week 4 of Winter Q1 2023 
君の膵臓をたべたい Ch.7 [2/2]. The foretold event eventually… came.
かがみの孤城 March [9/10]. I followed along with text. It becomes 1-2 sentences per page (on Bookwalker on mobile) for a while. Around 5-6 letters per sentence.
In any case, with text, it’s just easier. Without text, my understanding is just bad. For かがみの孤城, I need almost no look-up. For the other series, I probably should look up more than that.
So-matome N3 Listening Ch.3 [4/6]. Business. On the other side, perhaps I should get a reading comprehension workbook later. That would probably be better for reading speed and comprehension. (In particular, email and notice quick reads.)
January 18
Listened to Teppei for beginners #21. I was planning on doing more than that but ended up getting busy with other things. Oh, well, it’s still something.
Day 19, 19th of January
Episode #16 of Teppei today. This new method is forcing me to pay more attention, which is already in limited supply.
I think I will continue to do one episode per day and then after some time return to relisten to them (maybe next listening challenge?) as a sort of check-in for evaluating my comprehension.
MissDagger’s Home Post
my bookmeter profile 
my study log 
My plan was to start in February but as often the case, I just kinda started listening to stuff and I guess I got started?!?!
So my plan is not very complicated. I have no specific goal except get better at listening comprehension.
I will probably be trying a few different podcasts to find 1-2 that are the right level that are interesting. So I might end up only listening to one episode and figure out it is a bit above my head. On my log, I have a list of podcasts and grammar resources (in Japanese) that I want to try and see how they work for me. I’ll be trying them out one at a time until I find a couple that works for me.
My hope is to focus on the reading challenge first, but on the other hand, I usually find time to listen to something in the middle of my day, while reading is generally evening activity. I’m not really a podcast listener, so I will probably only spend a little time on listening each day, and I won’t be going for full comprehension, instead I want to train my brain to recognize everything it already knows in text in spoken form.
My listening is sooooo far behind my reading.
So yeah, I don’t have specific goals, instead for this first challenge, I just want to build the habit and see where that gets me.
Video: Comprehensible Japanese, Intermediate 
Podcast: Sayuri Saying Everyday 
Podcast: Tomo’s Real Japanese Talk 
Podcast: Easy Japanese 
Podcast: YUYUの日本語podcast
Video: にゃんテレNEWS 
Anime: ロマンティック・キラー 
Anime: Cardcaptor Sakura 
TV Show: ミステリと言う勿れ 
Game: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 
Numbers/digit comprehension 
Assorted/random (including animes I don’t plan to keep watching) 
Missed/nothing 
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January 16-19 
Home Post
Jan 16: Comprehensible Japanese お盆の風習
Jan 17: Comprehensible Japanese 日本の秋
Jan 18: Bits and pieces of a few videos: cat news videos and origami videos. All of them mostly kicked my butt, but I could understand some of it
Jan 19: YUYUの日本語Podcast , episode 1, 日本のメッセージ文化. I followed the gist of the conversation but lost some of the details. Also was confused by ボイスメッセージ, until I realized that it wasn’t boys message which made no sense, but b as v. xD Aka voice.
January 19th!
Today I watched another origami video. This time to make a cat shaped bookmark. Its the most complex one I’ve made so far, and it didn’t go too badly.
I am still in the middle of doing N4 grammar but I have started Nihongo con Teppei meant for intermediates. When I listen without subtitles I sometimes understand 50% and sometimes less but when I listen with subs I get about 70 or 80 % of some episodes and I am like whaaaatt? But this means I can sometimes understand the gist of some conversations but most of the time I can only catch a few words. I keep trying to tell myself to just keep going because living in Japan is frustrating when people treat you like you’re dumb (this comes from a place of wanting to help most of the time I believe).
Yuyu will be what I challenge myself with when I make it to N3 grammar cause he speaks so damn fast.
My grammar is about N3, but not my listening. 
So yeah, I can totally see that. So the first episode (on apple podcasts) was a conversation with a friend (I don’t think they continue like that?), and I could follow the flow of the conversation and I got the gist of it. But I definitely was lost from time to time when they were talking more details. So yeah, definitely not for me yet. Although I might try a couple of more episodes later to see if it is the same for all of them for me.
This is very similar to the method my mum (a retired language teacher) told me to use.
Find audio with text.
Listen once without looking at the text.
Next listen, follow with the text.
Final listen, without looking at the text again.
If I know about this why don’t I do it 
Oh it’s because it’s much more intensive way of doing it. Great when I’ve got time to sit down at my desk and do it.
Yeah it’s quite a commitment. Luckily I was used to doing two episodes before, so when now I just do one episode two times it’s easier to manage.
But I’m happy to see that my method has merit. I was really just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. Monkeys and typewriters etcetera.
Transcribed the new episodes of Noriko about morning routine and Shun about friends.
Took the dog out for a walk in the cold at lunchtime so I could get my listening minutes in, sorry dog.
Managed to get back to my target of around an hour a day after 30minutes the day before.
It’s still difficult, I still zone out, even after listening to the same episode time and again there’s bit’s I don’t get. Oh well keeping going in the hope it’s getting better.
January 19
Listened to Teppei for beginners #22 and #23, played BU$TAFELLOWS for 45 min.
Jan 20, Fri of Week 4 of Winter Q1 2023
君の膵臓をたべたい Ch.8 [1-2/4]. Memoir with erased names. (Crossed out with a ballpoint pen, but read with new SFX.)
I listened to Youtube Kanken Level 2, 2.5, 3. I might just pass from 2.5 downwards. Readings are guessable and relatively straightforward; but meanings are sometimes more problematic. Longer phrases and Yojijukugo help. I can imagine listening alone being troublesome, especially when bare and isolated, but going up from lower levels probably would help?
かがみの孤城 March [10/10] + closing [1/3]. Although I understood the years from reading along with audio, I don’t think I would pick up most years when listening afterwards the third time. How to read dates isn’t exact to my mind, but that would be much easier to train.
January 20
Home Post
Comprehensible Japanese, 多読 (intermediate)
I listen/watched this with subtitles on. I could probably have done without, but for most of the video I only glanced at the subtitles when I was confused. (Except for a couple of minutes at the end where I let myself get stuck, before remembering to look away.)
Would I be able to read a lot more volume if I read easier books where I could read without look ups? Absolutely. Could I look up a bit less in what I was reading? Probably, but not significantly.
But having fun should really be the number one rule. Which is why I read things where I have to look up a lot, because it happens to be what I want to read.
I do however agree that reading helps a lot with getting good at a language and it does indeed teach my brain to skip translating and just begin understanding. Bit by bit. ^^
I don’t know how it compares with Teppei, but I really like the Miku Real Japanese podcast. They’re usually (based off the 7 I have listened to) a conversation with another Japanese teacher (so a good way to find more resources), and most of the time I’m able to follow things alright. She also does shorter solo episodes, where she takes a little more time to explain difficult words.
By the way, I’ve been doing the challenge for … almost a week? and going strong! Thanks for linking interesting content everyone! I think I’ll keep watching あたしンち 
Day 20, 20th of January
Episode #17 of Nihongo con Teppei. Always really appreciate his casual chatter in the beginning.
Today was about words used to describe family, so relatively easy. At least I think so. He seemed to be using his family as an example (he had mentioned them before when talking about where they lived). I think right now I’m less concerned with finding out what he’s saying exactly and more with getting the overall contents, it makes it less frustrating.
So I want to keep using this intensive method with Teppei, but use something else to listen to extensively. I guess I’ll use PiroPito for that.
January 19
January 20 
Yesterday I passive-listened to the whole Naoki/Akutagawa live stream while doing other things. That was a lot of passive listening. It was an interesting experience because even if I wasn’t giving it my full attention (or sometimes not any), my brain still latched on a recognizable phrase or two every now and then without me meaning to. So I guess a stream of Japanese is not just noise to my brain anymore, but something to be processed and understood. Progress! On the other hand, what I understood while passive listening wasn’t that much less than what I understand when I listen actively, so yes, still a long way to go…
Today I was shorter on time so I just watched two random videos by two different booktubers. Funny how I always tend to recognize a couple of books per video. I guess I spend more time in online book shops that I should. 