Thank you! 
1 Like
I’m feeling a bit brain drained by other studying, so today was:
- Yuyu podcast
- Episodes of TV shows I’ve already watched
- Section of an audiobook I’ve already listened to
Getting in the groove of my new year study routine, things will even out eventually
10 Likes
Writing to say that Ill be joining in on another Listen Every Day challenge. I struggled previously with technical difficulties, Nintendo DS studying distractions, and balancing RL work.
During the last challenge I was gifted a rowing machine. I thought this was going to be an excellent way to listen to Japanese while exercising but I wasn’t fit enough to exercise to anything but high intensity music. So I kept working on it and am now listening to Don Quixote (in English) and comfortably rowing 10-15km. If I can finish that, I’d like to step up to Japanese AudioBooks during this challenge.
My “translation station” (laptop) has been failing. Has failed really. Youtube is a guaranteed crash. Making this (type of) thread pretty irritating to me most of the time. Everyone is sharing great content but I’m constantly crashing trying to watch it. I bought a new laptop but it needs to be setup with my OS of choice and configured. I’m getting there. In the meantime, I’ve setup YouTube on my Nintendo Switch. I’m watching restaurant kitchens in action in Japan and starting in on Comprehensible Japanese.
Still listening to Nihongo con Teppei periodically. Added Thinking in Japanese.
Still trying to force myself to listen to Pimsleur Japanese Level 2. Maybe during running, or rowing, got a new set of headphones that actually stay in while running.
I get burned out too easily trying to do these challenges and post all the time. Rather just spread the likes and infrequently take a second to write an update.
10 Likes
softlyraining’s listening corner 
January 2nd
Was low on time again today, so I watched another video from Comprehensible Japanese. There were actually a couple of surprises in this one that I didn’t quite see coming. She certainly has a memorable history with pets. 
14 Likes
Did a chapter of Honzuki vol 2. The chapters are shorter, easier, and more fun than 穏やか貴族の休暇のすすめ。
I also watched a couple of short video by a reptile breeder on Youtube. I like videos about animals. This guy keeps up a running commentary during his videos, and sometimes he has videos about the creepy-crawly things he feeds his lizards and frogs too, which is also fun.
11 Likes
I’m a few days late to the challenge, but for the last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to improve my listening skills by spreading out to different areas and listen to variety of topics and TV shows every day. This will be a great way to track my progress and maybe organize a bit what I have been listening these past days 
Currently listening / watching 
YouTube
- YUYUの日本語Podcast LINK
- Miku Real Japanese LINK
- 日本語の森 LINK
- Onomappu LINK
- Learn Japanese with Tanaka san LINK
- あかね的日本語教室 LINK
- Meshclass 日本語 LINK
- Learn Japanese with Noriko LINK
Anime
TV shows
Movies
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Edit: Continuing on this thread for March.
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13 Likes
January 1
Listened to Teppei’s beginner podcast #1. Not sure where my listening level is so I’m starting from the bottom up.
January 2
Like I said in the reading challenge thread, today I did a mock N2 exam so that was a looot of listening that is way above what I’m aiming for in this challenge, but I somehow passed? Barely, and it was not comfortable listening, so maybe I just got lucky. Hopefully when I try it again a year from now I can actually hear everything comfortably. It was hard but weirdly motivating.
Going back to what I can actually understand easily, I listened to Teppei’s for beginners #2
12 Likes
reply
Thank you so much for the list with links. Ive been wanting to try more listening practice that’s aimed at Japanese learners so these seem perfect to go through and check out. 
I think some of them I had watched before but had forgotten the names of, so extra happy I could find them again.
1 Like
January 3 
Today I watched a short animated folk tale, linked by @pm215 in another thread. It is related to a book we’ve been reading with the IBC, but it’s only loosely related to a story in the book, so I wouldn’t consider it a spoiler. The narration is slow and very clear, so I’m happy to say I understood most of it.
14 Likes
Jan 3, Tue of Week 2 of Winter Q1 2023 
I got started with Nihongo So-matome N3 聴解 that I bought yesterday. I plan to go down the 4-week plan as suggested by the book. The audio quality is quite good, I think. Pitch accents are quite easy to pick up, but other basics like long vowels (two beats) / glottal stops / nothing (short vowels), and perhaps consonants, are still harder. There are also comprehension stuff I had to rewind and check with the answer keys. [2/5] of this week so far.
Windows Media Player Legacy is used to rip CD to MP3, with metadata filled. Last time I tried to copy to smartphone, or upload to Google Drive, metadata became ??? (encoding failure).
11 Likes
Not going to be listening everyday but gonna try and be a bit more listening-active than the last thread (I had like two posts I think?)
I have a least four days of listening practice set, but hoping I’ll get more than that in. Since, looking on Amazon’s Freevee channel, I noticed they have some JP horror and the great thing is you can turn subtitles off. There maybe some others but they haven’t exactly made navigating for films easy. This is for Freevee UK, so they may have more (or less) choice in other countries.
Anyways, last night I watched リング which was fun. Seen it before with subtitles, but it was a lot more immersive without. Even if I did get lost on what they were saying at times, especially mumbly-おじいさん and fast-talking and mumbly ex-husband man. I could fully understand the kid though without problem, I think he was meant to be about 6, but pretty sure that’s a year or so higher than my listening comprehension from the previous threads 
Progress!
I think the film’s pretty great, I like the concept and it’s well put together, with pacing, good use of tension and all that. The effects are good too saying that’s it’s about 25 years old now, so I really wonder why, with all the effort and care it felt like they put into making it - like masking practical effects with well placed camera angles and all that - did they use the most comical DONK stock-noise for a very pivotal moment in the plot. I had to pause, it confused me so much 
14 Likes
I am glad that the links were helpful! I’ll make sure to save what I’ve been listening to, so if I find something new I’ll definitely update the post later down the road 
3 Likes
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9 Likes
I’m using a technique whereby I put episodes from a few different podcasters onto a spotfiy playlist. I then listen to the playlist for repeated exposure. I’ll transcribe episodes that I find really difficult to comprehend.
My mixtape is episodes from
- Nihongo con Teppei
- Sakura Tips
- Japanese with Shun
- Learn Japanese with Noriko
My goal is to improve my chances of passing N4 listening section in the summer (ha! assuming I passed the N5 one which was tough!)
So I’m trying to listen for an hour a day. When I get a bit bored of my playlist, I’ll challenge myself with new episodes. I’ve not listened to any N4 drills yet so can’t gauge the difficulty - I’ll listen to some soon I guess.
15 Likes
Day 3, 3rd of January
Only one episode of Teppen (#5). I didn’t quite get all of it, but I understood the gist. I’m starting to come to a point where Youtube captions aren’t quite accurate anymore, so I might need a few more passes of each video where that happens.
16 Likes
Day 1 - 2 episodes of Sakura’s Tips podcast, which I just started from the beginning again
Day 2 - Onomappu’s most recent video where he calls a friend and just chats. I watched it three times - first with no subtitles, then again with JP subs, and finally with English and JP subs
Day 3 - I had to get a train and bus today, so listened to my Japanese music playlist for the whole journey (that counts right…). Then I watched two episodes of JJBA (with EN subs though), as well as another Onomappu video on delinquents, which I did the same way as yesterday where I watched it three times.
Thanks to everyone posting all their links/resources, especially the YouTube ones! I’m always looking for new JP YouTubers that are good for beginners. I’ve noticed with the things I’ve listened to I do tend to get the gist of what’s being said even if I don’t understand everything.
Out of curiosity, are there many people doing audiobooks and what are your sources for that?
17 Likes
January 3rd!
Today I listened to an episode of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners, and then attempted 2 more origami videos.
Today I made a simple box - this one turned out ok, other than I’m using really cheap paper so its very flimsy!
And I also made a tulip. I messed up folding the petals so its wider than it should be and the petals are too small, but I’m still quite pleased with it because it stands up on its own and thats kind of fun
16 Likes
Day 2 - January 4th
This is more suitable for me! He didn’t speak too slowly, yet it was still comfortable for me to understand. I listened to the track two times. Once without pause and I understood most of what he said. The second time, I paused to look up words I didn’t know for sure so I could understand everything. I think this was the perfect practice for me, so I’ll be continuing like this.
New words
- ゴチャゴチャ＝messy; confused; chaotic
- 高級＝high class; high grade; high quality
- 経つ＝to pass (of time); to elapse
- 訳 (わけ）＝conclusion from reasoning
- 途中＝on the way; en route
- 態度＝attitude; manner; behaviour
- 努力＝effort; exertion; endeavour
- 報われる＝to be rewarded (passive of 報う）
- 語学学習＝language study; language learning
- 上達＝improvement (e.g. in skill, ability)
15 Likes
Super tired and super busy today, so a single video:
Hereafter referred to as ‘the art channel’ so people don’t get sick of me posting them
15 Likes
It’s late today, and I feel a bit burned out after hours of reading and playing Pokemon Legends in Japanese, so I just watched 7 more minutes of the Holotalk stream from my last post (instead of finishing the last 45 minutes as I originally planned).
13 Likes