賑やかで、とても面白いクラスだと言っていました。
The pronunciation of the g in にぎやか is probably what’s throwing you off here. Some more info:
賑やかで、とても面白いクラスだと言っていました。
The pronunciation of the g in にぎやか is probably what’s throwing you off here. Some more info:
Yes!! I was definitely hearing “ににや” and was confused, that explains a lot
Thanks Myria and @polv !
Mar 10, Fri of Week 11 of Winter Q1 2023
新完全マスター聴解 日本語能力試験 N2 Ch.4/1 話し手の意図を考えて、必要な情報かどうかを判断する.
Age 6 student’s story, from sleepy tanuki’s thread. Also reading posture.
夢十夜 Night 1-3, from omk-san in book club thread. Having text helps. At least after listening, I want to re-read.
国語文法 [5-6/50] – 単語. Comparative much easier to listen than dreams.
残月記 : そして月がふりかえる [1-2/12]. Total 55 tracks including other short stories. At least the tracks aren’t crazily long.
Last night I watched the 2nd episode of スケバン刑事
So much cheese, overacting, moody camera angles and lighting, excessively loud sound effects for emphasis - this show delivers the goods, also that outro song is a complete banger.
This time we have a motorbike scene (were it seems that they only had permission to use a small section of highway so they just do the same thing from different angles with epic music, but who cares, motorbike scenes are cool), and the main character pulls up in front of school, parking it at an angle for additional cool factor, removes her helmet and swivels her perfectly kept hair despite it being mushed inside a tight helmet, and stares with intent to do some learning… ultimate かっこいい
But she doesn’t do any learning, she instead proceeds to get attached by random classmates and she beats them all up, that is until the (who I presume is) headteacher guy comes in with a bamboo stick swinging it round and nearly belting some students in the face with it
It seems she has become the target of a setup (and yes, there is dramatic music here)
This episode was pretty confusing at first, to make myself feel better about my learning I try to tell myself that it’s because of the randomly cut scenes all mashed together rather than my Japanese listening abilities, but…
I especially like that when the bad guys meet their comeuppance just the mere sight of the yo-yo of doom strikes fear in their hearts (and the overly loud leather squeaks as she puts on the gloves so that we know that they are indeed real leather gloves, not imitations, and that she means business).
Sadly, this channel only has the first two episodes of this show, it doesn’t seem like they upload very often so I’m not sure when (or if) there’ll be more episodes. It also took me about as long to watch these two episodes as it did to watch the Kamen Rider show, I guess without the pressure of a subscription running out I get a little lazy. I shall continue to scour YouTube for more whacky fun shows that time may have forgotten about but the good old YT-algorithm hasn’t (and indeed, there are some interesting things popping up in my recommendations now thanks to watching these two episodes)
Mar 11, Sat of Week 11 of Winter Q1 2023
残月記 : そして月がふりかえる [3/12]. Something omnious. I also read along (ahead), but I would track in the thread. Somehow, Bookwalker’s ahead is less than new chapter mark.
夢十夜 Night 4. Listening before reading. Sounds fun. Previous night too.
Mar 12, Sun of Week 11 of Winter Q1 2023
夢十夜 Night 5.
残月記 : そして月がふりかえる Ch.3 [4-5/12]. Something weird happening.
国語文法 [7-9/50] – 文節の働き.
Mar 13, Mon of Week 12 of Winter Q1 2023
夢十夜 Night 6.
残月記 : そして月がふりかえる Ch.4 [6/12].
国語文法 [10-11/50] – 文節の働き.
新完全マスター聴解 日本語能力試験 N2 Ch.4/2 言い換えに注意する.
I listened to the complete Beginner Japanese playlist of Comprehensible Input at 1.5X speed. Most of them I understood 95-100 % while the old-time stories or the one with the names of the sign I understood maybe 80% or so (without subs). I will continue with the intermediate ones before diving back into regular intermediate-level podcasts because I have been feeling like while I have improved from December to February, I have hit a plateau.
In usual style, I signed up for one of these and then proceeded to totally drop off the face of the earth, haha. But the listening is going pretty well for me so far! Haven’t missed a day yet with either Spanish or Japanese.
I have translated, uh, approximately a billion wrestling things over the past couple weeks. Besides the two shows I talked about in my last post in the read every day challenge thread, I finished translating the February 22 press conference (part 1 and part 2), the February 25 show, the March 2 press conference (part 1 and part 2), and the March 6 show, which is called “The Night Before Grand Princess '23” but which thankfully was not the actual night before Grand Princess, or there’s no way I would have finished translating it in time, haha.
My translation speed is about 600 characters per hour (including the initial draft, watching the video, asking questions in the pro wrestling thread here, and implementing edits and doing the final polishing), so just for fun, I estimated how much time just the February translations took me, and it came out to be about, uh, 37 hours total .
I did have one small listening comprehension breakthrough with the first press conference. I was totally confused by one line in the transcript, then when I actually listened to the presser, I realized that Mizuki had said 可能性 instead of 試合 (which is what the transcript had), which made a lot more sense. I’m always really happy when my listening comprehension is good enough that I can problem-solve stuff like that on my own.
Instead of sharing a photo from one of the shows or pressers that I translated, I’m gonna share one of the promotional images they put together for Grand Princess! I truly think the poster design person has outdone themself here:
I learned when I saw this poster that 熊猫 is another word for panda, which made the team of Haruna Neko & Andreza Giant Panda make a lot more sense haha, because it’s actually a pun! 猫熊猫
I’m really excited about the show, though I’m also bracing myself for a heavy translation workload because it’s TJPW’s biggest show of the year .
If anyone in this thread is looking for something a little different for listening practice, TJPW uploaded Yuka Sakazaki vs Mizuki from October 7, 2020 to youtube (here’s the live translation thread for it for a bit of additional context, and the post-match comments translation if your listening isn’t quite up to the task. Also, I probably should clarify that these translations are the work of my predecessor Mr. Haku, not me!). The video will only be up until the 17th, so you only have a few days to watch the match for free, but it’s a good one! This is, in my opinion, the best match TJPW has ever done thus far. It really felt like it took the entire company to an entire new level. They’re going to be reprising this match at Grand Princess.
I’m currently trying to finish a short essay about Mizuki and Yuka’s story over the past few years so that people have more context for their upcoming match, since there was a good chunk in the middle there (from the end of 2021 through most of 2022) where a lot of the story was getting a bit lost on the English-speaking fanbase, since I was doing my translations but had yet to take them public (well, they’ve always been public on this forum, haha, but I doubt many fans have found them here).
It’s kind of a strange experience citing my own translations, but, well, helping other folks understand the stories is why I’m doing this!
Mar 14, Tue of Week 12 of Winter Q1 2023
夢十夜 Night 7.
残月記 : そして月がふりかえる Ch.5 [7/12].
国語文法 [12/50] – 連文節.
What’s this? An update so soon? I guess it’s happening now because I anticipate being busy from the 18th onward, haha. This is the calm before the storm…
I finished my essay on Mizuki and Yuka Sakazaki’s story! It ties together a bunch of story threads from the past few years, pulling highlights from stuff Mr. Haku translated, and then a bunch of stuff that I translated after I took over with the translation in an unofficial capacity. I think it covers enough ground to be fairly accessible to non-fans, so I figured I might as well link it, haha.
During this current wrestling lull, I tried out Language Reactor with the new season of Aggretsuko! Nothing major happens in this screencap, but I’ll spoil it just in case:
Hey, I know that word!
Here’s TJPW wrestler Yuki Arai’s かかと落とし, which she named Finally (yes, in English), after the name of one of her SKE48 songs.
So far, Language Reactor seems pretty neat! It can be a little bit overwhelming, but it’s definitely helping me get more out of my listening practice with Japanese while I’m still not at a point where I can watch unsubtitled anime.
Some part of me wants to try it with Spanish, but I’m having a pretty good time watching Bob Esponja without any subtitles right now, so maybe if I get tired of that show or want something a little more challenging, I’ll give it a go.
Mar 15, Wed of Week 12 of Winter Q1 2023
夢十夜 Night 7-8. I didn’t read 7 yesterday, so decided to re-listen, and read 7-8.
残月記 : そして月がふりかえる Ch.6 [8/12].
After that, just Japanese songs from that thread. I stopped paying for Spotify a while ago, but I still pay for Youtube Premium (+Music). Youtube news seem doable, sometimes have transcript in description; but I am not particularly interested in them.
March 9
March 10 something, I don’t remember what though - probably booktuber videos
March 11-14
March 15
Long time no update, but then I had nothing to update about. I somehow could never find time for listening… Anyway, today, at long last, I managed to finally finish Drive My Car. It took me less than it would take me to read a novel, but not by too much And I would definitely have read the short story it was based on faster than that.
It was slow, painfully slow. It felt very much like the Murakami story it was, dreamy and disjointed and a little dark, but not quite. It had several very interesting elements, but it dragged out a little a lot too much. Oh, and apart from some secondary side characters, no one ever as much as cracked a smile in the whole long movie.
Language-wise, I found it clear enough most of the time (I was watching with English subtitles, mind). There were several different languages as well (I didn’t understand those, not even most of the English!), and we also get to hear what is possibly the entirety of Uncle Vanya in Japanese. A strange experience, certainly, but even Uncle Vanya wasn’t as intimidating as I would have expected. Not that I’m rewatching without subtitles to make sure.
If someone else has watched it, any idea what the ending was all about? Why does the driver suddenly have Kafuku’s car and the Korean couple’s dog and is shopping in Korea? I could understand that the couple maybe moved back there and offered her a job, but the car? Did she kill them all? And did we ever even learn her name?
Took a few days of rest from Japanese because of vacation
but I managed to take some time to listen to grammar videos and to watch a randomly picked Netflix movie 夏への扉 ―キミのいる未来へ― during my flight.
Now that the trip is over, it is back to usual studying schedule.
I have to recommend this channel for conversation listening, he’s so good at making you envision a whole scene with just a few words, and his characters are so realistic it’s crazy
Mar 16, Thu of Week 12 of Winter Q1 2023
夢十夜 Night 9-10 (end). Some understanding is made possible by reading along. Sometimes I still don’t really understand from listening. Probably read-aloud first, the re-listen?
国語文法 [13/50] – 品詞の分類.
残月記 : そして月がふりかえる Ch.7 [9/12].
Mar 17, Fri of Week 12 of Winter Q1 2023
残月記 : そして月がふりかえる Ch.8 first half [10/12]. Maybe not so bad. Will find time to read tomorrow. Also, re-listen through.
夢十夜 Night 1-5. Big run-through, until my concentration dropped (at 5).
Mar 18, Sat of Week 12 of Winter Q1 2023
新完全マスター聴解 日本語能力試験 N2 Ch.4/3 多くの情報の中から必要な情報を拾う.
夢十夜 Night 5-7. Re-listening.
Then listen to songs suggested on Youtube and also some saved ones. I don’t want to listen to 残月記 yet, but 2 tracks left of the sub-story (そして月がふりかえる). Anyway, I have read to the end.
国語文法 [14-15/50] – 品詞の分類. So listed POS’s.
Mar 19, Sun of Week 12 of Winter Q1 2023
残月記 : そして月がふりかえる [11-12/12] + 月景石 [1/13]. Also, re-listen to a track of そして月がふりかえる.
夢十夜 Night 8-10. Re-listening.
国語文法 [16-17/50] – 名詞.
Mar 20, Mon of Week 13 of Winter Q1 2023
残月記 : 月景石 [1-2/13].
国語文法 [18/50] – 名詞・こそあど.
Mar 21, Tue of Week 13 of Winter Q1 2023
残月記 : 月景石 Ch.2 [2-3/13].
Mar 22, Wed of Week 13 of Winter Q1 2023
国語文法 [19-20/50] – 形容詞. Yesterday I also tried 19, but too dizzy and failed to comprehend.
残月記 : 月景石 Ch.3 [4/13].
Youtube notifications, so Yuka-sensei in a Chinese hotpot restaurant (and me listening Chinese failed). Also, some news. With enough visual hints, it works. I also see some documentaries on Youtube, maybe English sub isn’t so bad, but take care that I really listen. Vocabularies may be harder to catch, but perhaps OK if known in advance. (Also if guessable specialized vocabularies.)
Mar 23, Thu of Week 13 of Winter Q1 2023
国語文法 [21-22/50] – 副詞.
残月記 : 月景石 Ch.4/1 [5/13].
Mar 24, Fri of Week 13 of Winter Q1 2023
残月記 : 月景石 Ch.4 [5-6/13].
国語文法 [23-24/50] – 接続詞・感動詞.
Yesterday and today, I’ve found new music artists on Youtube to subscribe to.
Another random Netflix pick, so I ended up watching movie バブル today.
Pretty sandard story, but great animation. Didn’t pick up all words, but I woud say it is not a problem to follow what is going on in the movie.
The title reminds me of the timeless classic バブルへGO!
Recommended if you want to learn more about the バブル時代 and love crazy time machine shenanigans. We watched it in one of my university courses, haha.