Social circumstances regarding pets?! 
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Doesn’t seem that intimidating to me, honestly. Communication styles is probably about something like how you’re not supposed to state your opinions and disagree with people too bluntly and stuff. Quartet 1 already tried to teach us rude foreigners manners a couple of times, so that just seems like a continuation.
I’m intrigued by the novels and movies chapter. The chapters that focus too closely on very specific real world needs I’ll never have, because I’ll never do a student exchange in Japan always seem kinda boring to me, tbh. Novels might be more down my alley.
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omg that’s amazing !!!
I just did chapter 5’s listening tasks and got question 1 wrong all together lool and question 2 4/5 correct! Listening is 100000000% my weakest skill and these quartet listening tasks always prove it haha >.< I’ve just seen on your Listen Every Day Challenge post that you’re mostly listening to “Comprehensible Japanese” – I’ve never seen that channel before so maybe I’ll give it a go!! An hour is soooo impressive - did you work your way up to an hour a day or jump right into it?
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I did start with one or two videos per day, so about 15 minutes, and that quickly increased to 30 minutes. The good thing about Comprehensible Japanese is that she uses visual aids, so it creates a stronger connection in your mind. She also repeats stuff and asks questions. It feels a lot like how little kids learn. Then on top of that I added another 30 minutes for passive listening.
If you think that’s impressive, @javerend is doing about 5 hours a day 
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only through sheer force of will and a mid-term monthly goal, idk if I could keep that up long term, and definitely not anything with too many specific comprehension questions
Although I was honestly surprised at how quickly my listening stamina increased. Previously, whenever I did more than maybe 2 hours of listening in a day I’d get into this kinda funky headspace where it felt like everything was all mixed around and then I couldn’t focus anymore. In this challenge so far, I’ve only had that once on the second day when I was trying really really hard to focus on some technical descriptions in a speedrun showcase. Other than that, it’s felt surprisingly normal to boot up a video and watch along, even if I don’t understand stuff and completely miss a sentence or two, I don’t hit like a “panic” mode anymore, and I can just get back into the flow quickly.
A big part of that is getting a lot better at recognizing a thing called “discourse markers”, which are words that indicate what direction/shape a conversation is going to take. In english, those are leading words like “however”, connecting words like “because”, or organizing ones like “first of all”. Being able to recognize those makes following the flow of the conversation a lot easier, even if you miss the specifics it’s a lot easier to kinda intuit what they’re trying to say!
You’d also be surprised how often people repeat stuff in normal conversations too! Once you start to pick up on that you might hear the same new word 3-4 times in a minute and that really helps reinforce it.
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Nice to read your experiences @javerend and @hotdogsuplex . I can feel that it’s soon going to be time for me too to start engaging seriously in listening! Just want to be done with my big novel first.
My library has an online website where you can rent movies for free and you can sort them by languages, was thinking to start there and watch all the Japanese movies, that will cap me to 4 movies a month due to the renting system, I feel like that can be a good start!
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I definitely need to step it up! The only listening practice I do is anime with Japanese subtitles which feels more like reading practice pretending to be listening practice lool 
I think I need to force myself to just listen for a set number of minutes a day without subs (ideally practicing without any visuals too for some of it) and not worry about full comprehension (or even - at the start - any comprehension lool). So maybe I’ll try something similar to you @hotdogsuplex where I do one youtube video and one podcast a day?
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久しぶりですね…カルテットの宿題をサボってしまいます。
Ch.5 Writing Assignment （私のおすすめの料理）
私の得意な料理は…ないです。恥ずかしながら料理が下手くそです。まぁ、カップラメンとかゆで卵を作るならまあまあかな。でも「料理」とは言えないです。どうせ、この課題で簡単なデザートを選びました。手作りクッキーは誰にも作れる、私でも。
私なり簡単なクッキーバー（あとで胃が痛くなったら本当にごめんなさい 
）
材料 (アメリカの単位):
- バター (1/2 カップ)
- グラハムクラッカー片 (1 1/2 カップ)
- 練乳 (1 缶)
- チョコチップ (6 オンス)
- ココナッツ片 (1 1/3 カップ)
- みじん切りナッツ (1 カップ)
作り方:
まず、バターを溶かして鍋に注ぎます(13x9平方インチ)。次に、鍋にグラハムクラッカーに散らして練乳をまんべんなく注ぎます。それから、鍋の上に残りの材料を加えてしっかりと押し下げます。２５分ぐらい間３５０度（カ氏）で焼きます。最後に冷まします。バーの形に切りましたら、完成です。
一口メモ:
ココナッツ代わりに、M&Mとかピーナッツバターチップとかで代用する。ナッツアレルギーの方は、使わないでください！
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My tummy got upset just from reading this (definitely gonna pick up the ingredients next time I’m at the grocery store though)
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I finished copying out all the example sentences for Chapter 5! (And yes, I did copy the entire ‘how to make ramen’ recipe).
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And I’m back to do the reading sections!
読み物１
読む前に
１。あなたはすしが好きですか。あなたの国で、すしは人気がありますか。
私はあんまりすしを食べません。住んでいる州は陸封なので、あんまりシーフードを食べません。アメリカですしが人気だと思います。
２。あなたの国の街に寿司屋がありますか。回転寿司の店はありますか。行ったことがありますか。
寿司屋があるかもしれませんが、行ったことがありません。
Lookups: 陸封 (りくふう), landlocked
読んだ後で
２。あなたが寿司屋の店長なら、どんなすしを作りますか。
きっとおいしいすしを作るはずです。
３。飲食店で、注文の仕方がわからなくて困った経験がありますか。その時、どうしましたか。
私は天才なので、そんな問題がありません。
読み物２
読む前に
１。あなたは料理をしますか。どんな料理が作れますか。
はい、時々料理をします。家族のために料理をします。私は肉を作るのが嫌いなので、だいたいベジタリアンの料理をします。
２。「うまみ」という言葉を聞いたことがありますか。どのようなものか調べてみましょう。
「うまみ」という言葉を聞いたことがあります。
読んだ後で
４。学校で家庭料理を習ったことがありますか。学校で家庭料理を教えたほうがいいと思いますか。どうしてですか。
いいえ、学校で家庭料理を習ったことがありません。教えたほうがいいと思います。一人で暮らすために重要だと思います。
I couldn’t bring myself to write out a whole recipe so I skipped question 5 
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当たり前だろう？失礼な質問だなあ。
I’m going to try to have more fun with the writing exercises from now on. I agree that though the reading and writing exercises are a bit boring, the grammar explanations and reading strategy points in the book have been pretty helpful.
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I was wondering if anyone was reading my replies…
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