🔊 🎙 Listen Every Day Challenge - Winter 2023 ❄ 🧤

[basilsauce]

Pushing myself to do the listening/reading practice I’d intended for this challenge is hard. I’ve done some of it, but also skipped days, and I don’t know whether to check off the calendar box or not because I often did listen to Japanese on those days, just… not what I was supposed to.

Japanese videos on Youtube I’ve watched to procrastinate/avoid audiobooks have included

• Several videos about lizards, frogs, snakes, and mealworms
• A quiz to determine your fashion body type
• A “best beauty products of late 2022” roundup
• A video showing off a new type of snow shovel for roofs that someone in Hokkaido invented
• Assorted “news” clips about cute animals (like lambs)
• A few interviews with musicians I like

Part of the problem is that I’m not a fan of audiobooks or podcasts and don’t listen to them even in my native language. (English) But also, I just don’t like these (audio)books very much. 穏やか貴族の休暇のすすめ felt like such a chore I finally gave up and decided to officially quit it.

Honzuki #2 is better but it’s still not that exciting to me. I wish there was an abridged version with a tighter focus on plot because I don’t care about the details of the invention processes.

[omk3]

January 17

Second episode of MIU404. It’s such a joy to watch! There was more tension and emotional complexity to this one, but it wasn’t without humour. And the main characters are great, I love them both.
The Japanese subtitles mostly got in the way, but I did use them once or twice. I’m not sure if I’m keeping them.

@pocketcat

Netflix original called The Journalist you may enjoy.

I had looked at the Journalist before because it really looked like something I’d enjoy. The start of the first episode was so fast-paced that I decided that it wouldn’t be ideal for listening practice, but now that I think about it, it’s not like MIU404 is slow and clear. I guess I’ll revisit the Journalist after MIU404.

@basilsauce

I don’t know whether to check off the calendar box or not because I often did listen to Japanese on those days, just… not what I was supposed to.

Check the box, it’s still listening! It’s hard for me too to find interesting content to listen to most of the time, so I get it. I wouldn’t insist on trying to listen to something that bores you, you need something engaging and fun that makes you forget you’re doing deliberate listening practice . Hope you find it soon. Meanwhile, if any of those lizard, frog and snake videos were any good, I’d love a link!

[Sylph]

January 16

Listened to Teppei for beginners #18 and played BU$TAFELLOWS for 2h. It’s a great feeling when there’s an easy sentence I can understand just by listening and I can basically skip over the text and go fast. Doesn’t happen that often as there’s quite a bit of specific vocab sometimes but… progress!!

[polv]

Jan 17, Tue of Week 4 of Winter Q1 2023

So-matome N3 Listening Ch.3 [2/6]. Weather and traffic report. Long numbers are difficult to be listened to, and as a result, time of arrival in an airport. Year numbers (in かがみの孤城 ) are probably even harder.

I looked at audiobook.jp, which also has a book club in this forum (perhaps I should see Natively too?); as well as what was in my wish list. Other than the theme, BGM is a decision point. Particularly what caught my eyes as the next candidate is 世界から猫が消えたなら (and the text).

Pokemon EP.10, but I am not sure if I am ready to watch with no sub yet…

君の膵臓をたべたい Ch.6 [2/2]. I am getting more irked by the use of 「ザ:wavy_dash:」くん, for around 4-5 times in the track. I also listened to other 聴き放題’s, but they are limited by understanding and availability of the text. (I am eligible for 聴き放題 until 31 Jan.)

かがみの孤城 March [7/10]. More sub-stories.

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@x90PT

Anyone else going pretty hard with the listening? Or am I just trying too hard?

It’s about convenience, really. Listening-only fills into some of my time pretty well. It is also a little stimulating, so it becomes a priority.

However, my understanding is still worrisome. It’s currently the best if I have a text. Still, I focus more on quantity than quality. This is in contrast with reading, which I mostly understand very well; as well as mine well.

Watching with JP subtitles has to be chosen carefully as well. Some of them, I am sure I hear almost every words and understand the hearing; while some are more focused on reading, and picking-out-understanding by sound is probably not really working.

VN, which I didn’t post in this thread, is the case that I slow down enough to ensure that I hear every words, along with reading and learning. Some of them, I might not understand the first time, but I am sure I would, for the second or third time. Of course, there are more difficult lines as well where I just mostly give up. (I still would have some cloudy understandings.)

I am not sure about active immersion part, but probably I would want to know if I really remember and not miss the same context shortly later on or not. It’s more about memory (short-to-medium term) than SRS. I learn more vocabularies and do comprehension exercises alongside for the hope of improving.

Perhaps for comprehension, taking a break and pondering, and even sleeping, might be quite important. I don’t want to absorb too much per session/day. Intercalating with other activities may allow increasing session counts.

[Twelvewishes]

Day 17, 17th of January

Back to my Home Post

Some more Teppei today. First I tried #14 without looking at the subtitles. Then I relistened but while trying to read along. Conclusion: it’s still too early to leave out subtitles. But I think I will continue to do it like this; I noticed that I paid less attention to the audio if I read along, so maybe this will help. I will train my listening and actually understand what’s being said.

[lucylavelle]

January 17th!

Another tiny listen today as I had a really busy day at work today and I’m really tired. Episode 106 of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners.
Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have enough time to do something more substantial.

(Home Post)

[jrmr50]

Really cold in the UK at the moment so dog-walking was off the agenda, as it’s prime pod-cast listening time, it meant I struggled to get the minutes in a bit. I listened to a new episode of noriko and shun. Shun was talking about old and new friends. Mmm what was noriko talking about again, morning routines I think, I’m getting it mixed up with a new episode of teppei where he was talking about meals & meal times in Japan. Really need to transcribe those episodes so I have a better idea of what’s going on. Definitely in a confidence trough at the moment with my Japanese, mainly due to sleep issues, where I probably make the same number of mistakes but I really feel it more. It just takes a good night’s sleep, a nice coffee, and a good tutor lesson to bring it back back up.

[Sylph]

January 17

Listened to Teppei for beginners #19 and #20, and played BU$TAFELLOWS for about 2h.

[polv]

Jan 18, Wed of Week 4 of Winter Q1 2023

So-matome N3 Listening Ch.3 [3/6]. In a school.

君の膵臓をたべたい Ch.7 [1/2].

かがみの孤城 March [8/10].

[NicoleIsEnough]

Quick heads up to all the keen listeners who are also readers: 2023-01-19T07:00:00Z the live stream of the Akutagawa and Naoki Prize winners will start. I watched it a bit last year and while I maybe only understood about 50%, I found it quite entertaining nonetheless. They will talk at length about all the authors and their books, and then of course they will announce the winners!

第168回 芥川賞・直木賞発表&受賞者記者会見

I will not watch it all the time as I have a few meetings coming up tomorrow, but if I manage to get up-and-ready early enough I will watch at least the start.

[Twelvewishes]

Day 18, 18th of January

Back to my Home Post

Once again tried the new method of listening to Teppen. Episode #15 was about the weather and rather easy to understand because I already knew enough of the words.

Also some talk about the different weather patterns in the different regions of Japan. I can never remember what they’re all called, so maybe I should write them down.

• 北海道 Hokkaidō - has the Kanji for North in it, and sure enough, it’s the northernmost region of Japan!
• 東北地方 Tōhoku - Kanji for East and North, so the region to the northeast of Japan.
• 関東地方 Kantō - Kanji for East, so the easternmost region of Japan.
• 中部地方 Chūbu - Kanji for Middle, which isn’t very helpful, considering you can see how it reaches further north on a map.
• 関西地方 Kansai - Kanji for West, well, I guess technically it is? It is located west of the regions of Japan that have east in their name, but there’s still a ways to go.
• 中国地方 Chūgoku - Kanji for Middle, when we already had both east and west to the right of it. Ridiculous.
• 四国 Shikoku - Refers to the four provinces on that island. Easy to remember.
• 九州 Kyūshū - Refers to the really long tail of islands. Apparently there are nine parts.
• 沖縄県 Okinawa - ??? don’t know these yet, no mnemonic.

[omk3]

January 18

I may have watched multiple episodes of MIU404 today.
Seriously, this show is great!

Tomorrow, I’m thinking of trying at least some of the Akutagawa/Naoki stream @NicoleIsEnough linked (and hopefully not impulse-buy any of the nominees before it’s even over )

[lucylavelle]

January 18th!

Another small amount of listening today. Work has been exhausting this week, so I’m struggling to keep up with everything - hopefully the rest of the week will be a bit less frantic!
Today I listened to JapanesePod101’s Upper Beginner Season 1, Lesson 15. This whole season is focused on keigo, and today’s lesson was about how to use 伺う.

(Home Post)

[TobiasW]

Yesterday and today, each: One episode of Comprehensible Japanese Intermediate.

And I accidentially watched this today:

「だからそーじゃなくてっ」第1話 | あたしンち | [ENG sub]

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!

[TayaP0702]

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

[polv]

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.)

[Sylph]

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.

[Twelvewishes]

Day 19, 19th of January

Back to my Home Post

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]

MissDagger’s Home Post

my bookmeter profile my study log

Post template

DATE
Home Post

TITLE :emoji:

Challenge Plan

The plan!

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.

What I am Listening to

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

What I’ve Listened to Each Day

			Jan
月	火	水	木	金	土	日
						01
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

			Feb
月	火	水	木	金	土	日
		01	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

[MissDagger]

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.