🔉 🎙 Listen Every Day Challenge (Summer Edition) 🏖

Oh my goodness I love 仮面病棟. I think I’m biased a bit from seeing the movie first, but listening to this audiobook is just excellent. I’m picking up all these little details that point to the final “unveiling” of the twists and for the first time I’m fine listening to an audiobook sitting down and don’t have to be walking about or doing chores to enjoy it.
I looked into the author out of curiosity and found out he’s a doctor, which honestly makes a lot of sense. Both this book and 硝子の塔の殺人 have quite a lot of medical themes, and in both the main character is a doctor.

At the rate I’m going I’ll probably finish this book this week (:scream:) and will need to find another audiobook to listen to. I do actually have some others I started and haven’t finished, but none of them really excite me. I guess I could try listening to 不機嫌な果実 which I gather to be about a married woman having an affair and is supposed to be rather saucy? I bought it back in 2020 with an overly ambitious goal to practice listening with it and understood next to nothing :joy: but I listened to a few minutes a couple months back and I think I’ve improved enough to tackle it.

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:sound: Listening Room: Date 20220718 :loud_sound:

Day XXVII: : あわてふろしき :octopus:

Listened to today’s Edo tale!

Still having a hard time listening along, but with things that happen to be in Japanese that I’m casually listening to/watching (like gaming/Pokemon) it feels like I can pick out more words and phrases, not sure if that’s just my imagination or not, or if all this listening is working :thinking:

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July 18th.

I listened to two episodes of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners today.

I find it hard to focus on listening when there is anything to distract me so I tried closing my eyes to help. The result was that it took me ages to manage to listen to both of the episodes because I kept falling asleep :rofl:
In my defence, its really hot here and I’ve been really busy at work lately so I’m pretty tired out, but it was only about 6pm. :sweat_smile:
I got there in the end!

(Home Post)

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Jul 19, Tue of Week 4 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

Today’s story is 良寛 (:studio_microphone:).

良寛の優しさのは問題なく、でも竹の子と竹の差はなんで?


Yesterday, I watched Death Note EP.10, which is just as satisfying as ever. However, no sub and I might not catch many things well. I wonder if I should study subtitle? [1] Also, what about the audio? Do they need to be extracted and segmented?

In the end, it’s also about the balance of time and energy… and psychology of mine.


  1. I know the subtitle source isn’t so legal… ↩︎

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Home post

LEDC
Week 4

July 18
古見さんは、コミュ障です。 episodes 23 and 24.


Watched the last two episodes of the season I think? That did look like a season end to me. I’ve really enjoyed this series even with a couple things I didn’t like, that was fun! Sucks that it’s over tho ;-; cute protagonists.

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July 18 :blossom: Home Post

Today I watched a bit more let’s play stuff and then the next episode of よふかしのうた. I still did it without subtitles and I got most of it I think! It’s definitely a different comprehension experience than reading though :joy: but hey it’s all progress!

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:sound: Listening Room: Date 20220719 :loud_sound:

Day XXVIII: : 良寛 :bamboo:

I also listened to today’s folktale on Hukumusume, from Niigata prefecture!

Additionals
:heavy_check_mark: Two Episodes of Pokemon

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Update 13th-19th:

13th - kung Panda 2, 80 minutes of Gackt, Over the moon (ultraluminary), Rainych - blinding lights (Japanese)

14th - Monster Hunter: Legends of the Guild, 80 minutes of Gackt, Over the moon (ultraluminary), Rainych - blinding lights (Japanese), Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone chapter 3.

15th - intermediate short stories for Japanese learners 青森ねぶた祭り

16th - Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone chapter 4

17th - Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone chapter 5

18th - Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone chapter 6

19th - Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone chapter 7

Notes: I’ve listened to Harry Potter before, nearer the start of my language learning journey, but noticed this time I’m actually picking up a lot of the non Katakana words so can follow the story better (even though I know it pretty well in English). I think next timeI listen to it, I’ll also read along with so I can try to pick up more of the grammar and kanji/ vocabulary in context.

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So listening to episodes of Bite Sized Japanese from the beginning but with subtitles this go around and the jump in my understanding is making me happy (just now got to Level 12 of WaniKani).

Go figure huh. I mean the ultimate goal is being able to understand 80 to 90 % without subs but I keep having to remind myself that even though I started studying Japanese 8 months ago, I am still very much middle beginner (N5 vocab and grammar still outside of Wanikani) so I must feel proud and keep going and improving.

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July 19th!

Today I listened to episode 24 of Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners.
I also watched 2 episodes of Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens (with subs).

I’m hoping to build up my listening stamina a bit during this challenge since I find it really hard to focus on listening. My listening comprehension needs work too, but my main problem is that my mind just wanders off after a few minutes and I stop actually hearing anything!
Nihongo con Teppei is a good length for me right now though, so thats a good starting point.

(Home Post)

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:star_struck:

You surely understand that I cannot let you walk away without sharing the link :grin:

pretty please :pray:

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I’m now 50% done with 仮面病棟 having listened to another decent chunk while commuting. This puts me at right after they find the body of the murdered nurse for those who saw the movie version. On track to finish by this weekend.
I think I found something to read after which I’m excited about:

Just look at that subline! 同窓会で出会ったら殺したい人はいますか? :joy:

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I’m just watching it on Crunchyroll! No JP subs unfortunately :frowning: but I’ve wanted to watch it for ages so settled for english subs.

And here is me thinking you were talking about a documentary or somesuch :joy_cat: :woman_facepalming:

Anyways, I’m a bit confused by the first episode tbh, but it’s very nice to catch a glimpse or two of Hakata :heart_eyes_cat: although Tenjin Core is no more :cry: They closed down all the shops a few years ago and probably destroyed the building by now…
Will watch once more tomorrow or so!

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Summary Post

July 19th
What did I listen to?: Super Bunny Man Let’s Play
How much time did I spend listening?: 18 min

As I predicted, I didn’t really know what to listen to today, because I wasn’t really feeling a long episode of anything after a day at work.

And then I remembered
These videos were recommended to me a million years ago by the lovely Omun (haven’t seen them around in a while :cry: but their recommendation lives on in my saved Youtube playlists :joy:). Idk what strange mind created Super Bunny Man, but it is weirdly entertaining. I feel like I caught more of the commentary than I did the first time I watched through these, although it’s still quite fast/frantic and hard to catch at times lol.

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Home post

LEDC
Week 4

July 19
Several Monster Hunter World weapon introduction videos

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July 19 :blossom: Home Post

Just watched another let’s play today! I’ve been in a silly let’s play mood lately, and I’ve been enjoying these dumb RPG videos :joy:

キヨ talks at a million miles an hour always which was pretty overwhelming at first but I think I’m getting used to it actually? Push me past my limits :laughing: I’ve certainly gotten enough for these wild RPG concepts to be entertaining haha.

Oh man yeah Super Bunny Man is absolutely wild :joy: definitely the sort of thing to watch if you just wanna have a silly goofy fun time lmao

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I’m intrigued that you are reading out loud, polv. I think that it is absolutely helpful to me, but I haven’t done it at all in the last several months.

I thought I wouldn’t bother with Hunter x Hunter series in all Japanese for a while, because of all the topic-specific vocabulary. I haven’t tried the first episode again in a while. I’ve gone through it twice, so far.

I just really REALLY want to actually know every word in a first episode of something!

My friend extracted sentences from the first episode of Midnight Diner Tōkyō Stories… and we did a group read-through line by line once on Discord with Netflix/Language Reactor. I think all that works brings me closer, but I haven’t reviewed that Vocabulary again and given it another try, yet.

I’ve been binging Japanese Quest Breath of the Wild play through videos. He uses waaay too much English. I’ve played BOTW through 3 times in full, so I really really want to understand it all in Japanese. It was too far over my head last year when I tried. His vids are 4 years old… but he just started live-streaming Xenoblade this week. The language seems 50% within reach. I’m tempted to try it.

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mon…ok…nothing…it was a public holiday though…I went out… public announcements, random people, directions, waiters…does that count??
tues;tuesday cafe, dance, yoga
wed: social cafe event, then met up with a Japanese friend (switched between English and Japanese)

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That might be a good idea. A series in vogue that also has JP sub (at least in my region) would be SPY x FAMILY. Combined with Language Reactor, that would be easy to do, as well as easy to compare to native audio.

I am tempted to try Death Note, but in my region, there isn’t JP sub in Netflix (although I can get the text some other ways).

Another way is to download the subtitle transcript, then add narration lines (in Japanese, self-composed) – to make a fully standalone audiobook transcript.


Jul 20, Wed of Week 4 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

Today, as well as yesterday evening, I listened to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=363UfVStHTs&list=PLd0QB86GkG8MqIGVKfRCGtXph9hdjybwH in which the subscription came from earlier listening from Hukumusume. The voice is clearly spoken, with a nice BGM; however, I didn’t catch much, as well as there is no real Japanese transcripts for this one. (YouTube do have auto-generated option, however.) The actual transcripts are supposed to be found here – https://hhs.parasite.jp/hhslibrary/.

In the evening, I took a booked italki lesson, but the teacher said he can’t speak English, and I can’t speak Japanese well. (He can speak Mandarin and Japanese.) He recommended to find a English-speaking teacher. Then, I booked an instant trial 30-min class with a new teacher. She was ok, but I am not quite satisfied. (I entered italki classroom too early and got kicked out; then I talked via Skype.)

Then, my trial sessions ran out. Nonetheless, I booked a professional teacher to teach me N4-N5 grammar tomorrow. (Yeah, I specifically chose grammar lessons; as well as I gave my self-introduction in English, and chatted in Japanese afterwards.)

So, in total, I talked in Japanese (with speaking and listening) for about 1 hour, but far from smooth.

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