夏へのトンネル、さよならの出口 [1-2/17]. Track 1 is just 登場人物. The audio is in 聴き放題. I have also bought Bookwalker counterpart. I’ve found this one from searching the forum for N3 audiobook.
また、同じ夢を見ていた is also in 聴き放題, with the same author as 君の膵臓をたべたい; but I don’t like a female voice. So, maybe later.
I would put 吾輩は猫である on hold for a little longer. Harder to follow, even with text. With reading alone, I am still probably not good enough.
I was looking for something else when I came across a TV special based on a 宮部みゆき book uploaded to youtube. Since it hasn’t been copyright struck yet I wonder if they simply don’t care as much about (presumably) early 2000s made-for-TV movies.
Anyways, @omk3 , from what I’ve watched thus far (around 9 min) I think you’ll like it and it’s fairly approachable I’d say. Slow and clear narration, dialogue (excusing a few small points) is likewise clear and not too complex. 宮部みゆきスペシャル 魔術はささやく - YouTube
Also, I popped open Viki to see what new they had and found 教祖のムスメ which I watched the first episode ages ago, really liked it, and true to form, never finished it. It looks good though for anyone looking for a mystery/suspense high school drama (no comedy aspect, rather dark IIRC): Master's Daughter | Japan | Drama | Watch with English Subtitles & More ✔️
Today I watched a video of the first chapter of Ruri Dragon, which I’m currently reading with the ABBC.
I was trying to focus on listening comprehension and mostly succeeded, but I did end up pausing to read a few speech bubbles.
February 25-26
I keep missing days lately. Not happy about it.
February 27
One episode of Heaven and Hell. I’m nearing the end, and it’s reasonably fun, but there are still things that bother me, even excluding the soul exchange premise. The lead actress’s way of acting, with that sudden cold smile every few minutes especially gets on my nerves.
Having posted exactly once at the beginning of the challenge it hardly even feels right to say that I’ve been participating. Aside from the lurk and like I’ve offered nothing. Posting really stresses me out. Especially when I find myself trying to rephrase how I’ve continued doing the same thing the following day.
I have been listening everyday however.
In January I was really into Japanese Ammo with Misa. Particularly this listening practice playlist: Listening Practice - YouTube
I’ve been listening to Aozora Bunko Audiobooks in my vehicle, Edgar Allen Poe, 江戸川乱歩, and H.P. Lovecraft.
Something new that I’ve been meaning to share for a while. Bouldering competitions seem to be popular in Japan, they’re typically long videos, I find the competition mesmerizing, and count the commentary as passive listening practice. Boulder Japan Cup Male Final 2023🔥 (Condensed) - YouTube
My favorite thing during this challenge though has been acquiring Japanese dubs of Western movies that I know and love in English. Not as easy I would have liked it turns out. Started with Amazon and only 1 of the 5 movies (Blu-ray) that I ordered, that explicitly stated Japanese language in the description, actually contained Japanese audio. Faced with the realization that a huge price difference on movies between the Japanese region and mine meant movie studios would go out of there way to hide Japanese audio from my region, I resorted to importing Japan and Hong Kong edition Blu-ray and DVD discs. Took forever to get here of course but I really love watching my old favorites dubbed into Japanese. Still, many of the movies I’d like are out of print now and ebay has not yet turned up any gems for me. But the hunt is fun itself. Oh, also I’ve been multi-tasking movies with 漢検 practice on my Nintendo DS Lite. Just about to wrap up level 8.
Of course, I’ve watched most of the videos shared here as well. When I got in trouble for watching @basilsauce 's trainwreck gyaru videos I knew I had discovered something good here.
It took me two and a half movies just to get through writing this. I’m so jealous of the folks that make posting look so effortless.
Did a lot of Genki exercises. I keep forgetting that I can check my work by going through the provided listening material. And it’s great listening practice (but I’m often too lazy to check).
That’s it for me for this listening challenge. Next month is my own stuff. I managed 44 out of 59 days, could be better, could be worse. I had a lot of other commitments, and I’ve been stuck in a bit of a plateau with my Japanese skills. I’ll be continuing with Genki, but I hope I can get back my motivation to improve my Japanese listening skills with some more fun input.
Today I listened to 2 episodes of Nihongo con Teppei for beginners.
Its late so my concentration span was pretty poor but I managed to understand everything, though I had to rewind a few times when I caught myself zoning out!
End of the challenge already!
I managed to listen every day, though a lot of days I only managed to do a tiny amount of listening. I’ve had a really busy start to the year though, so although I did less listening practise than I had hoped - without this challenge I probably would have done hardly any at all - so I’m counting this challenge as a success.
Big thanks to @omk3 for hosting, and to everyone who participated - I got to watch a lot of fun videos through your recommendations!
I’m still going to keep listening every day in March, but I’ll probably take a break from doing daily posts, though I’ll still be lurking around in the thread
See you all again for the Spring Challenge!
Well, that didn’t go very well
Since my last post on the 16th, I haven’t done any listening at all, I just got overwhelmed with life and let it drop In total, I listened on 12/28 days. This is the exact same number of listening days I had in the last challenge, but I did start this challenge later, so like…percentage-wise, I guess I did better? lol. And if I hadn’t participated in the challenge, I’m sure I wouldn’t have listened at all, so that’s something. Big thanks to everyone who gave me listening material suggestions/ideas/recommendations I don’t know why it’s so much harder to stick with listening. But I’ll keep trying Maybe next challenge will be better, I think April and May should be less busy than the past two months have been.
Ah so this is the end.
While I didn’t miss any days, I don’t think I took the challenge as seriously as I should have. There were some days that I had some meaningful listening done with good content consumed, but there were also a lot of days where it was limited to stuff like music. I’m sure any listening is good listening, but I always listen to music. Probably should have tried to find some better things.
And, I ended the official challenge with a missed day. Hmm…
I listened to Japanese for 50 out of 59 days during this challenge. I did find interesting content to engage me this time, and I have certainly made progress in comprehension, but listening is still something I struggle to fit in my day, and will often sacrifice it in favour of reading. I suppose that’s okay. I will continue to try and listen to Japanese as often as possible until the next challenge starts. My ultimate goal is still to be able to enjoy audiobooks, and while I’m closer to it there’s still a long way to go. I suppose I should devote more time to that かがみの孤城 audiobook some time soon, instead of just remembering it whenever I feel unwell.
Congratulations to everyone who took part in this challenge - I hope it has been fun as well as beneficial. Feel free to continue posting here until the new thread is up in April!
Listening from playing Tales of Arise about an hour.
End of challenge! I missed a couple of days but overall I was more consistent than I expected. I have been doing this in a very low effort way and even like this I feel there’s been some improvement. The last week I’ve been doing very very little so I’m going to take this month off and I’ll probably join next challenge with renewed energy and hopefully some more ambitious plans.
It was really inspiring seeing what everyone was doing, especially those people that can straight up watch series and movies and understand Hoping to get there in time. Thanks, everyone!!
J-drama didn’t went well, although I made through 4 episodes of 緊急取調室.
日本語総まとめ 聴解 series has a nice summary of the left page of each pair of pages, but I can’t count of the exercises to be sufficient. Nonetheless, probably it’s quite handy for habit making.
Audiobook might work well for understanding the storyline, but I felt didn’t understand well enough for おいしいごはんが食べられますように.
A contributor to my listening is also Anki quiz on listening (vocab + sentence) to handwriting, to ensure that I recognize the vocabulary, which I started doing consistently since end of January.
Since it’s my focus, I can’t thank you @omk3 enough for hosting the challenge.
Paving the path forward. At least my listening in audiobooks isn’t good enough yet; and the quality might be extrapolated to YouTube, shows and podcasts.
44/59 days.
Definitely listened to more than previously but could still be more. Don’t really have much else to say. Looking forward to the next challenge thread and trying to get more next time.
In total, I listened on 12/28 days. This is the exact same number of listening days I had in the last challenge, but I did start this challenge later, so like…percentage-wise, I guess I did better? lol. And if I hadn’t participated in the challenge, I’m sure I wouldn’t have listened at all, so that’s something. Big thanks to everyone who gave me listening material suggestions/ideas/recommendations 
I don’t know why it’s so much harder to stick with listening. But I’ll keep trying 
Hoping to get there in time. Thanks, everyone!!