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).
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softlyraining’s listening corner 
January 3rd
Today honestly sucked, one reason being the headache I’ve had for several hours. So, I decided to stay on the Comprehensible Japanese train and just relax while listening to The Tortoise and the Hare. Something I like about her videos is how she’ll say the same concept but in different ways; for example, うさぎはびっくりしました followed by 驚いていました (I’m paraphrasing). It’s a small but nice touch.
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I’m having one of those low-energy days so I watched this Youtuber showing a bunch of fashion coordinates for a white puffer jacket and called it good enough. I’m short so I do a lot of clothing shopping when I visit Japan (or I did pre-pandemic, and presumably will do so again in the future), and fashion is one of my stronger listening areas, but also one I don’t want to forget.
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I did 52 minutes and 13 seconds of listening to podcasts. It was mainly new episodes of season 1 of Noriko’s podcast. To be honest I didn’t understand much. I like the speed and clarity with which she speaks, but unless I transcribe episodes, I don’t pick up on much. I did transcribe an episode of teppei about chocolate, and in particular how Spanish chocolate gifted from his in-laws is much bigger, and how he prefers sweeter milk chocolate as it goes better with coffee which he likes to drink when eating coffee… drinking coffee!
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January 3
Listened to Teppei’s for beginners podcasts #3 - #5
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Jan 4, Wed of Week 2 of Winter Q1 2023 
Today I listened to 君の膵臓をたべたい Ch.2 [1/2]. Then, Learn Japanese with Noriko about お好み焼き.
I also listened to a little of bilingual JP-CN podcast. Then, I watched Youtube on Oreo here in this forum.
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ミステリと言う勿れ is one of my all time favourite jdoramas!! I watched it earlier in 2022 and fell in love with Masaki Suda’s acting as Totonou Kunou♡
I watched it with English subs at that time, but I’d love to re-watch it paying more attention to what is said (especially Kunou-kun’s rambles!)
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SB's LISTENING CORNER
皆さん、こんにちは! 明けましておめでとうございます!(◍•ᴗ•◍)♡
Hello everyone! Wishing all of you a very Happy New Year! I’m already participating in the Read Everyday Challenge and enjoying it so far, so was excited to find that the challenge had a listening counterpart too! My current goal with Japanese is to immerse myself in the language as much as possible, so I’ll try to be active in both the challenges (though I realise I might end up missing some days in either because of my hectic schedule at uni). Anyway, I’ll try to do my best for this challenge and my immersion journey, and I hope to interact with you all and have some great discussions in the process.
がんばります!(◍•ᴗ•◍)
Listening Resources for this Challenge:
- The Let’s Learn Japanese with Movies Podcast (I started listening to this podcast last year and am loving the stories so far!)
- The Miku Real Japanese Podcast
- Videos on the Onomappu channel
- Videos on the Comprehensible Japanese channel (I was so happy to see so many posts with videos from this channel - it’s one of my favourite YouTube channels for immersion!
) - Audiobooks on Aozora Roudoku
- JLPT N3 Grammar Videos on the 日本語の森 channel
- The Activate Your Japanese series (it has Eng subs embedded in the episodes, but I’ll try to focus on the audio only)
- Shirokuma Cafe on Animelon (I’ve always wanted to watch this anime with only Japanese subs only, so I’m thinking of trying that for this challenge!)
This list of resources is not exhaustive, so if I end up using any resources other the ones I’ve mentioned, I’ll update this list as well as include the resource in my log.
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| 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | 31 |
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| 月 | 火 | 水 | 木 | 金 | 土 | 日 |
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| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 |
よろしくおねがいします!!~
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2nd day of Japanese horror films!
Last night I watched 仄暗い水の底から, the English title is just “Dark Water”, I think the Japanese title sounds cooler and more ominous. Not heard of or seen this one before, but I enjoyed this one too! It was pretty similar to リング in setup and themes, both dealt with a single mother and a child (with broody divorced husband in the background) and the presence of a curse-spirit. But the subplot of this one dealt with the custody of the child rather than a potential reconciliation of sorts like in リング.
The tension and creepy was also good in this one too, I like the camerawork and minimal scoring of these films. It works really well. I didn’t think the lead character was quite as good though, she seemed to be a bit too hysterical at times. I like that it felt like the film was wrapping up but then there was a little more at the end, it had good closure - I think the opened endedness of リング worked but it’s nice to watch a horror movie that actually has a conclusion for once and isn’t just open-ended or extremely random plot twist for the sake of it.
Japanese-wise I could understand everything the children said (like last time, they were all about six years old) but struggled with some of the adults - again, the ex-husband man is mumbly. And I had no idea whatsoever what the apartment caretaker man said at all, pretty sure every sentence he said was somehow condensed down into two syllables conjoined together with a single, thick string of mumble.
Onto tomorrow’s film! (well, tonight’s really but I’m too tired after to write anything)
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Day 4, 4th of January
Today I watched a Comprehensible Japanese video about playing a spot the difference game (#10). Really nice content that is similar to Tadoku books in that you don’t need to know the vocabulary to understand what’s going on.
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January 4 
Two more episodes of ミステリと言う勿れ! One included some fun kanji practice too, and quick number recognition. Not that I managed to follow that too closely. 
Totonou really is adorable. 
I’m watching with English subtitles too. I try to not rely too much on them, but I’d get horribly frustrated if I couldn’t follow the plot properly, and possibly give up watching altogether, so I reckon that’s a good compromise. Have them there, glance at them as little (and as late) as possible.
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January 4th!
Today I watched 3 episodes of Cells at Work, with english subs.
I’ve been reading the manga of this series with the ABBC and finding it really difficult, so I thought watching the anime might help me out a bit with all of the biology related vocab.
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Day 3 - January 5th
Teppei-san talked about his experience in learning a new language. It’s interesting to know that he’s studying Spain, aside from English!
New words
- 第一回＝first (used in first episode~)
- 自然＝natural
- 個人的＝personal
- 真剣＝serious; earnest
- 初級＝beginner level
- 中級＝intermediate level
- 上級＝advanced level
- 手加減＝measuring by level; adjusting/doing by feel; knack; skill
- 時期＝time; period; phase; stage
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I decided to give this a try as I don’t watch much fashion stuff. I got like 80% but there were a few ? moments. I was a bit baffled by some of her outfits, but a couple were pretty cute.
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First time joining a challenge! 
A few days late but that’s okay!
I’ll mainly be listening to podcasts and watching youtube videos (w/subtitles in either japanese or english)
| Jan | ||||||
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| 02⬛ | 03⬛ | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 |
| 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25✖ | 26 | 27 | 28✖ | 29 |
| 30 | 31 |
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| 月 | 火 | 水 | 木 | 金 | 土 | 日 |
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| 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 |
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And the 1h 45min Holotalk episode I started 2 days ago is finished! Wohoo! That was hard, but fun.
I have a few more Holotalk episodes I’m interested in, but for the next days I definitely want to do things that aren’t quite this long. There’s a lot of podcasts I want to check out to see how I like them, and maybe an episode or two of Comprehensible Japanese can’t hurt either!
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January 3rd and 4th
It wasn’t much, but I listened to some songs and tried to discern lyrics and make sense of them. Having trouble finding stuff to do that is interesting tbh.
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softlyraining’s listening corner
January 4th
Listened to an episode of Sayuri Saying. She discussed her goals for the new year: doing voice over work and improving her driving. I can relate to that second one: I only have my learner’s permit, rather than a full driver’s license. I grew up in a city with extensive public transit, so a car was never a necessity. Where I’m living now, however, is a different story… 
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I started Crayon Shin Chan 2 days ago and how is this a children’s show I. DO. NOT. KNOW. I am enjoying it though. Watching with Japanese subtitles, understanding about 5 %, going through it a second time with language reactor and then a 3rd while writing down all the vocabulary I do not know which is quite a lot. I think I might go through each episode this way and on the 4th watch I will do it after reviewing the vocabulary I have written down.
Also I am going through Bite Size Japanese and Nihongo con teppei for beginners, but I do not enjoy podcasts as much as shows although they are easier to understand.
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Checking my clockify stats tell me yesterday I listened to podcasts for 1h13mins and spent an hour transcribing a couple of podcasts such that I might understand them better. A lunchtime dog walk really helps boosts those minutes as my usual route is about 40 minutes long (depending on how many other dogs there are for mine to play with)
I’ve only had one coffee this morning so far so the memories are coming back slowly. I vaguely recall an episode of Noriko where she’s talking about a Japanese phrase that’s a variation of ‘little by little/bit by bit’. I do remember feeling grumpy about not understanding as much as I’d like but there we go, that’s why I’m practicing!
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