🔉 🎙 Listen Every Day Challenge (Summer Edition) 🏖

Forgot to post in this thread. During the last 4 days I didn’t do as much listening as I hoped for, but I still listened to episodes 311 – 371 and also relistened to some episodes on my phone.

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Noriko talks a bit too “teaching Japanese” style :sweat_smile: at least the sample I tried. The small talk women talk in a much more natural way, though, albeit with some English mixed in, so they might be promising, thank you! I’m not super into podcasts (even in English) but I think for shadowing it might still be a good option.

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Jun 21, Tue of Week 13 of pre-Summer :cherry_blossom: 2022’s planning

Now, I have found audio tracks (on Audiobook.jp) with parellel text (on Bookwalker), although there might be more to be found in YouTube.

  • Committed
    • 2 episodes of Death Note (EP.6-7)
      • For the reference, 7 is about that (おんな)
    • 2 general Japanese YouTube (or other video/audio services), probably news, podcast, or language itself
  • Try to commit
    • SPY x FAMILY episode 1
      • I have listened to half of the episode just a few days ago, to the same point of reading in book club.
      • I don’t want to watch ahead, if I don’t know vocabularies, however. So, I avoid watching further than reading. Considering the current proper reading speed. That would still be within the end of episode 1.
    • 3 episodes of Samurai Champloo (EP.5-7) [1] I give up.
      • Truthfully, I want to avoid rushing as well. I would just put this in lower priority, nonetheless.
    • 1 episode of やがて君になる (EP.3)
      • Actually, it’s not that hard. It’s doable, once I have less priority queue.
    • 20-min of Audiobook.jp listening Not for now.
      • I have bought 聞き放題 after all.
      • Actually, I have already listened to around 10 minutes, but rewinded many times; before I decided to get the text on Bookwalker as well.
  • Considered
    • Black Jack OVA (1993)
    • キノの旅
  • Additional
    • 進撃の巨人 S01 EP.1

Listening

:cherry_blossom:
第13週目 20 :ear: 21 :headphones: 22 :headphones: 23 :headphones: 24 :headphones: 25 :ear: 26 :headphones:

:ear: ≧10 minutes; :headphones: ≧30 minutes

Recording (pronunciation / reading aloud)

:cherry_blossom:
第13週目 20 ・ 21 ・ 22 ・ 23 [2] 24 [3] 25 [4] 26 [5]

  1. Actually, the club is now on to 8-10, but I am not exactly sure that I will be able to catch up. ↩︎

  2. お月さまに化けたタヌキ

    ↩︎
  3. じょうるり半七

    ↩︎
  4. 十七毛ネコ

    ↩︎
  5. 頭のいいヒツジ

    ↩︎
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How do you feel about there being multiple (usually 2) hosts? If that’s okay then I have a bunch of ones I listen to that might be worth a shot (though they are generally all games/anime/VN related so might not be of interest). Otherwise…maybe 4989 American life? It isn’t isn’t specifically learning focused (more of a diary type thing).

One thing that I have tried that has helped me find podcasts outside of the learning space is just to search by the name of games, shows etc that I’d like to hear people talk about (eg I found quite a few of the ones I listen to now by searching for ときめきメモリアルGS4). I’d expect that the same thing could work searching for names of films, shows that etc that you are interested in!

Edit: in fact I got curious and did a search for ミステリと言う勿れ in apple podcasts and quite a few things came up including this one which seems like it might fit your criteria? 大丈夫だよ大丈夫 or this one seems very clear Something good podcast

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I feel like multiple hosts actually works better because you end up with more natural speech. People monologuing can be natural, but often there’s more exaggeration IMO, and you miss out on the little phrases that make conversation ‘flow’. 相づち and such.

I’ve actually heard 4989 before and not been into it :sweat_smile: but 大丈夫だよ大丈夫 seems intriguing (views on mental health in Japan? 他のマンガのトラウマシーンもご紹介) so will definitely give full listen (did a short sample just now). Something Good doesn’t seem quite my thing, but I appreciate you taking the time to look!
I think I might just take a dive down a rabbit hole and listen to a ton of samples to find some people I vibe with. :hole: :rabbit2:

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Jun 22, Wed of Week 13 of pre-Summer :cherry_blossom: 2022

I realized it might be better to make it a real Listening Every Day Challenge. I will track a week at a time, although the real goal is this last 2 weeks + Summer’s first 2 months. After all, quantity matters a lot, at this stage.

Schedule on the week plan post.

Rather than ticking only for listening everyday, I would give credits for listening longer. I know about , but the icons are far more customizable and beautiful.

Repeating the same track doesn’t count; while anime, movies, or YouTube counts all the same.


  • I installed Podbean on Android, where I can choose Japanese region (and many other regions) to see Japanese podcasts (which are interesting and appear to be quite updated).
    • As far as I have tried, I can’t change Spotify’s region, but of course, there are already some Japanese podcasts. (Probably only as many as on YouTube.)
    • I have always been subscribed to YouTube, so technically, I can play podcasts on YouTube and turn off the screen.
    • Nonetheless, I am worried how much I can tolerate listening to relative poor quality and receiving insufficient information and fun.
  • I decided to unsubscribed from Audiobook.jp. I still have the trial period until 3 July. Of course, I can always resume before then.
  • I watched Death Note on Netflix today, where I have read ahead, but I don’t necessarily catch sounds that well. But not so bad, and I wish the quality will eventually improve.
    • At least, the goal is to know enough vocabularies before listening.
    • I don’t intend to watch ahead of reading, nor do I intend to read ahead of the book club, so there will be a limit…
    • Some other series I might read along watching includes SPY x FAMILY (there is book club, but I would whether it will off-shoot?); and 進撃の巨人 (no book club yet [1], so always my freedom). JoJo might be another option, but I don’t quite like the animation.

  1. albeit mario さん seems to want to read it ↩︎

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Forgot to post again :sweat_smile:
During these two days I’ve listened to episodes 372 – 435.

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:sound: Listening Room: Date 20220622 :loud_sound:

Day I: 入らず山の鬼婆 :mushroom:

Listening スタート!

To start with I’m gonna be listening to whatever daily story there is on Hukumusume and see how it goes from there, I’ll think about venturing into other content as I (hopefully) progress (I also need to find some listening resources that I’ll want to listen to, I’ll go searching later).

Today went as I expected it would really: that I can pick out certain words and follow the story to an extent, but then get hopelessly lost… only to pick it up again when a cluster of familiar words pop up again, to then get hopelessly lost once more. It’s mostly the in between the subject words that I can’t understand, I seem to be able to pick up on nouns best, but then never quite get what that noun is doing.

Well, it was about mushrooms, and Ojiisan in the mountains and a demon, I think I got the jist of it. Just the fine details escape me.

Shroomy

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Ended up reading and listening to it myself. I’m going to re-read it more carefully, but from what I gathered It’s about an old man who was gathering mushrooms and went to the Forbidden Mountain where a demon old hag lived. The old man wanted to return before dark, but there were a lot of mushrooms there and gathering them took too long. The old hag demon wanted to eat his legs, but the old man managed to escape with the help of the Mountain God who sent a pink cloud that took the old man home. Since then, whenever the old man goes to mountains, he always brings some gift to the Mountain God. But he never dares to go to the Forbidden Mountain again.

Now I’m going to read it more thoroughly, with looking up the words.

Anyway, thank you for the link!

Update: I did read it more thoroughly [1]


  1. ↩︎

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Does listening in your sleep count? Twice I fell asleep while listening (and countless more times I just tuned out after a while). I start off understanding a fair amount, but very soon I lose concentration for whatever reason, and then I just get bits and pieces, or even give up processing completely. So, still stuck in the first half of that second chapter, which I’ve listened to maybe 4 times, not necessarily paying attention or even being awake throughout :sweat_smile:

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Can’t figure out how to add my name to the list as it only gives me html when I click to edit it and I don’t know how to work that :sweat_smile: so instead I’ll just post here and follow along on my own.

I’ve decided I’m going to try listening either to an short story audio book (on days I’m working as I work shifts and the chapters are approx 10 minutes long so can listen to one chapter on each break) or one of the many Japanese podcasts I’ve got saved for listening since they’re fill Japanese by a native speaker with no English in them, approx 15-30 minutes per podcast episode.

Hoping between those I’ll get a substantial amount of listening done over the next 2 months.

Good luck everyone :slightly_smiling_face:

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If you want to make a home post (with a fancy calendar or your own study log) then I can add you to the list, otherwise just posting here also works. Welcome!

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Thank you :blush:

I’ve got a calendar on evernote I’ll use so I’ll just post on here occasionally throughout if that’s ok.

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Here’s a really random question, but does anyone know if there is an audio version of The Little Prince (星の王子さま) by Antoine de Saint-Exupery? Or where to look for one?

I have the print copy and I thought it would be good to try reading along to the audio. But I’m not sure how many books in translation make it to the audiobook stage. :sweat_smile:

Any advice is appreciated :slight_smile:

There are several on audiobook.jp (based on different book versions?)

There’s a youtube reading too (in two parts):

Length is very different though. Different versions of the text maybe?

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Home post

I skipped one day since last update, but most days I’ve listened to Sakura Tips, あらB.fm, and the live broadcasts on this weather channel which I think someone in this thread recommended.

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Yesterday I listened to episodes 436 – 477. Also listened to

thanks again to @Zakarius さん for the link.

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I finished また,同じ夢を見ていた! My first audiobook :durtle_noice:

And I actually liked it quite a bit! This kind of contemplative slice of life-ish stuff isn’t necessarily my favorite genre so I feel like I might have enjoyed it less if I had spent tons of time with it via intensive reading, but as an audiobook it worked really well. Especially because every character has their own narrator and everything, I always think that adds to the listening experience.

Even though there were still more than enough sentences that I didn’t understand my comprehension was overall good enough to get into this chill flow state of just following along and not worrying about what I don’t get and that was really nice?? I should listen to audiobooks more often :durtle_love:

Huh, this used to be 3 levels higher than 同じ夢 but right now they’re both level 25 :see_no_evil:
I’ve only just started 時をかける少女 (I’m like 15 minutes in) but so far I would say 同じ夢 is a bit easier - we’ll see. Also wow, is this really not even 3 hours long? That is short :laughing:

That has happened to me more times than I’d like to admit :laughing:

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:sound: Listening Room: Date 20220623 :loud_sound:

Day II: 出来心 :moneybag:

Listened to today’s Edo tale! This was a little easier because it was shorter, but I still didn’t understand much. I feel I can hear the words and distinguish which word is which, but it takes a little longer to understand and then the story gets a sentence ahead of me.


@trunklayer, thanks! I always read the story after to check how much I did understand (which is relatively little :sweat_smile: )

If you ever want some folk stories to read or listen to then Hukumusume has loads, there’s about five stories for everyday of the year (and then there’s loads of offshoots everywhere to other things), not all of them have an audio recording but a lot do. It’s a really useful site for learning!

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Jun 23, Thu of Week 13 of pre-Summer :cherry_blossom: 2022

I think I am following Zakarius for daily Japanese 童話 according to the website. However, not every day has audio, so I am going for only ones that have audio. And, I also noticed that there are more than one places for diaries (daily reading)

  • Also repeat (with recording), that is, my monologue.
  • I will also try to remember them, and adapt without scripts.
  • I indeed might not know some words ahead, but Yomichan is fast enough to look up for pronouncing.

For this week (20-26 June), there are

Now, I wonder if I should read something shorter for repeating? Or, should I adapt to that a few minutes’ length?


Some other notes…

  • Sometimes in anime, like 進撃の巨人 – some important words are hard to pick out. Death Note and やがて君になる seem easier. However, I am attracted to some themes, and have conflicting feelings about others. Also, sharp voice and 萌 in moderation.
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