🔉 🎙 Listen Every Day Challenge (Summer Edition) 🏖

Sep 8, Thu of Week 11 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

It seems to be bad, or at least inefficient, for learning, to listen to something without understanding much. (Above some threshold, perhaps.) So, I put HUNTER x HUNTER (no sub) on hold for now. Also, I still need to catch up on reading manga version Vol.5. (Well, almost catched up.)

Most obvious thing about learning values would be vocabularies and Kanji…

I have another series to watch with JP sub – yurucamp S1. Comparing with かぐや様は告らせたい S3 (also with JP sub), I need to look up less vocab for the former. Anyway, I hope to finish the series, and Kaguya is at Ep.9 (of 13), and yurucamp is at Ep.3 (of 12); so Kaguya seems like a better choice.

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The first episode of Pokemon is about 60% pokemon noises, so that’s pretty easy to understand :grin:

I watched Cherry Magic on repeat for the entirety of my recent quarantine, and now I understand about 95%, I’m practically fluent in the language of Cherry Magic. I find myself saying 魔法使い randomly in my dreams lol

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OMG this is the best joke ive had all week!!!

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お月見ピッピ! 中秋の名月!

Think this is the longest I’ve listened to, an hour’s worth of Japanese talking about the moon (and the weather), but most importantly, the 'mon :durtle_yellow_rodent:

Words I picked up easily:
そう、そう、そうですよね、そう、そうそう、満月, そうそう、はい、はい、ピッピ

I think I did understand a bit more than I thought, so that’s good. Plus it was pretty chill and relaxing.
I can’t see the moon here yet, so no moon celebration just yet, but soon the moon will rise and then the dango eating will begin I wish I had dango, but まるいチョコ will have to suffice

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Sep 11, Sun of Week 11 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

Even so, I returned to watching HUNTER x HUNTER (1999) without subs (now at Ep.35). It isn’t exactly impossible, but I need to try my best to listen carefully.

yurucamp S1 Ep.3-4 aren’t particularly difficult with JP subs, so I feel I can truly half-read and half-listen. (i.e. I can feel the difficulty of listening itself, more.)

Kaguya S3 (now at Ep.10) is a little different. I feel it is on hard side (but perhaps not really, if I know enough vocabularies), so I feel I read more than listened. Vocabulary-wise, perhaps https://jpdb.io comes to rescue? [1]


    • Nonetheless, jpdb doesn’t have a vocabulary list for HUNTER x HUNTER (1999). Also jpdb doesn’t cover manga.
    • I saw https://koohi.cafe but it doesn’t have enough manga series, it seems.
    ↩︎
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Sep 13, Tue of Week 12 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

I rewatched HUNTER x HUNTER (1999) Ep.1-2, tried without sub first; then compare with EN sub… I think it is bad use translated sub as a beginner (but might be OK as an advanced). Also I didn’t miss much by listening alone, but what was difficult to listen and understand, remains difficult to listen and understand…

Maybe because I studied this one without JP sub, I am not sure if I improve from the first time I watched them.

I watched an episode of かぐや様は告らせたい S3 just now. It took almost 5 hours; half because I rewinded a lot to listen carefully; another half is because I took a lot of reaction screenshots (it’s hard to pause just at the right seconds). This series might a good one to rewatch, also with divisible episodes (10-min each); because I remember the contents of both manga and watched anime episodes well, so for fun and I want to capture the joke as fast as natives.

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Sep 16, Fri of Week 12 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

I watched かぐや様は告らせたい S3 to the end. I wasn’t slacking off on looking up, though; just took enough time. Well, I was curious to how anime adaptation would be, and I knew far after that. For the manga, I recently got my hand on Vol.26. It’s close to ideal, although a rough road, I think.

HUNTER x HUNTER (1999) would probably continue to be important for me, as I read the manga beyond what I watched right now (Ep.37), but there are not only occasional differences, but sometimes new parts altogether.

Also, I would have to find another series with JP sub. An obvious one would be probably be Yuru Camp.

I saw a pitch accent trainer website. I can try, but I am not sure if training would be my listening turning point… (Although I believe it should help for speaking, which I rarely do.)

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I don’t think a pitch accent site (pretty sure I know the one you’re talking about) would help with parsing words, but something like SuperNative might if you won’t to mix in more focused short-burst type study.

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Have you tried it yourself? With only one very general home screen and a sign me up button, I’d hate to give any of my details without knowing what I would be getting in return or what I would be expected to pay (if anything) further down the road.

Edit: I read a little more about it on Reddit and decided to give it a try. Apparently the front page is so bare because the creators are not maintaining it any more, they’re just keeping it running. I tried an exercise where you’re played a very short clip from what I assume to be a broad selection of actual Japanese media, then you see the sentence you heard written down, and you need to fill in one missing word to test your understanding and recall. Looks fun and promising, at least if the difficulty increases, because the first few clips were incredibly easy even for my own limited listening abilities.

Edit2: The difficulty does increase, and I’m loving the variety and the immediate feedback. This is really good for some brief but focused listening practice. Thanks for the recommendation, @pocketcat!

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Oh yes, sorry for not clarifying! I used it back in 2020 I think. I ended up preferring making audio cards for Anki, but it was a nice jumping off point for me and I did do several drill-type sessions starting out. I don’t recall ever being prompted for payment.

Glad you like it! :smiley:

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If so, I would probably simply go back to my old same way. I didn’t SRS much these days. Anki is more of note-taking for now, rather than actual SRS.

Nonetheless, I would try to do careful listening in any case, rather borderline understanding. I want to eventually able to listen without seeing the text (and perhaps can guess what to check in a dictionary).

I haven’t tried it much, but it does have bad UI before logging in. But based on reviews here, perhaps I should try more?

Screenshots after login

I guess Speak Back looks interesting, although pretty basic for now. Recording doesn’t work somehow.

If watching is short enough, I wouldn’t want to see text just before audio, although it is good for
checking afterwards.

Quiz is probably what I like the least. Indeed, normally I listen for structures too.

At least it does give me some Anki ideas, but I also don’t want to do unnecessary works.

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I just finished my first Drama CD :durtle:
It’s called 華Doll - I saw it mentioned on reddit a while back, and since it was basically free and easily accesible (it’s on Spotify) I figured why not. Trying random things is fun :melting_face:
Its described as ‘a darker spin on the idol genre’ (…I didnt even know that was a genre…) & is about a group of young adults who, well, want to become an idol group. They join a project that’s supposed to draw out their full potential & basically make them the ‘perfect idols’. As part of that the project leaders put them under full surveillance & make them swallow a plant seed that at some point makes a flower (tattoo??) appear on their body (?? wild concept :joy:). Drama ensues :tada:
In all honesty the plot isn’t like the most interesting, but because the voice acting and everything is so nice it was still really pleasant to listen to. Like anime for your ears. I like it :joy:
Will probably listen to the 2nd season as well at some point :durtle:


Is there gonna be a new challenge next month, same as with the reading challenge? image
I fell off track more or less immediately after this one started (whoops) but am ready to try again :joy: Need lots of listening practice so plan is to listen to alll the things image

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Sep 17, Sat of Week 12 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

Today, I went outside with my family. There were times I can’t focus well and felt sleepy (tried reading うらら迷路帳 and got impatient very quickly), so I seek a YouTube that doesn’t feel too difficult. Looked at a playlist in NHK subscription, I watched the first 2 clips. Didn’t look up, because I didn’t have energy; but they have not-so-hard JP subs. Also didn’t rewind for the same energy reasons.

Regardless, I also watched a episode of HUNTER x HUNTER (Ep.38, no sub) in the morning.

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Sep 19, Mon of Week 13 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

I watched an episode of Yurucamp S1 with JP sub, and it was much less tiring than かぐや様は告らせたい.

I also watched an episode of HUNTER x HUNTER with no sub. It now almost catches up with my manga reading.

Now, I should mention about resuming watching a series on Netflix - JoJo (Stardust Crusaders) - with Subadub Chrome Extension (I am on Brave browser). Unlike Language Reactor, I can use this extension to hover on JP sub and add vocabularies (and Kanji) to Anki with Yomichan. Also, press edit and add tags, or copy contents from other related entries. Other ways I am using to get videos on my laptop cannot be hovered by Yomichan. [1]

Subtitles can be wrong too, so I would then just type in with Google Japanese Input IME and search in Yomichan directly.

About JoJo, I have read a little of Part 3 Stardust Crusaders in free period in Bookwalker, and also most curious about Steel Ball Run that I saw in my teenage years.

The only con is, Netflix doesn’t allow screenshots, which would anyway only slow down my watching and sometimes hamper comprehension. (In contrast, Bookwalker allows.)


  1. Maybe they can, with some research? Also, Netflix on web browsers can be screenshot’d in Linux, afaik. ↩︎

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Sep 21, Wed of Week 13 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

Today, I watched an episode of Yurucamp S1 with JP sub.

Lots of tasty anime grills

タン(しお)

(ぶた)バラ(にく)

(とん)トロ

ロース ハラミ

ホルモン (シロコロホルモン)

(くし)

ハンバーグ

I was also tricked by to 1 minute or so of 嘘 explanation at the end…

I tried to watch an episode of HUNTER x HUNTER with no sub, but it’s getting ahead of my reading (although flows of the story (directing) are different); so I am not sure if I should continue before reading.

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imagen

I’ve been terrible at keeping up with this :sob: . I needed a break after all and have been progressively resuming reading, already settled with it, but I admit I haven’t done any proper listening since the start of the month. I plan to resume it at some point soon, but for now I probably won’t be using this thread much, unfortunately. Lately I’m trying to balance the amount of pressure I put onto myself, and even though I keep listening here and there, I’m not sure if I want to add daily listening again just yet, at least in an imposed manner.

Also unlocking the thread so that polv can keep posting (max number of posts in a row is 3 if I remember correctly?).

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I am not sure. Perhaps within 24 hours as well?

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Sep 22, Thu of Week 13 of Summer :beach_umbrella: 2022

Yesterday, I went to a fitness center, but failed to book a class, so I listened to more かがみの孤城 (1 track = 1/4 chapter), as well as watching (on smartphone) an episode of JoJo on Netflix with JP sub. For both of this, I didn’t really pause to listen deeper. (And I still question very much whether I really understand かがみの孤城.)

Because of JoJo, I am using Language Reactor again, to see translation of the names. Also, seeing English translation (interpretation) might not be so bad.

Today, I also watched an episode of HUNTER x HUNTER with no sub. Whether I watch ahead of manga or not is confusing, because the story line is slightly different (and shuffled).

About the value of listening, in order to be able to really listen, I am thinking about the concept of Tadoku (so, Tachou, in this case). Perhaps something like, listening at my limit of understanding and tolerance, in order to raise my limits, and be able to listen to more things.

However, I consider listening with or without visual cues, and listening with read-along subtitle (transcript) a little different, as subtitle can be read perhaps about a second before hearing. (While with visual cues or not does much less difference.)

There is also a thing about pausing. Pausing very little, and pausing and reconsidering a lot, would be a lot different, both have their own benefits.

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Summary post

I said I was going to post updates in this thread and then totally didn’t, whoops! :sweat_smile:

Been a bit of a wild month for me, in both good and bad ways. I have managed to keep up with listening every day (in both Spanish and Japanese), though!

One thing I did want to talk about is the most interesting translation experience I’ve had thus far!

Dalys and Stephanie Vaquer, luchadoras from the Mexican company CMLL, recently wrestled in a one-off match at Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling on September 11 (here’s my post about translating this show). Naturally, they did their post-match comments in Spanish! So when translating their comments into English, all that I had to work with was the video footage in Spanish (without a transcript), and then a Japanese translation of what they said.

Listening challenge hard mode!

I really wanted to translate directly from the Spanish, so I started off by transcribing the interview, and then I asked a friend of mine who’s fluent in Spanish to double-check my transcription. After that, I translated it and then got that same friend to look at my translation, haha, to make sure I wasn’t off-base.

I missed a few things when transcribing it, but otherwise did decently well! I was very surprised! Listening comprehension is absolutely my biggest weakness with Spanish as well as Japanese. But thanks to this challenge, I’ve been practicing a lot more this year, and I think that really helped me get to a point where I’m capable of translating something like this.

In the other thread, I’ve been including photos from matches so that my posts are more interesting, so here’s one from this show, haha. This is Yuka Sakazaki and Mizuki vs Pokotan, a mascot from DDT Pro-Wrestling, and Demonio Uno (not pictured), who is a zombie (?). In the photo, Yuka is hitting one of her signature moves, the Magical Merry-Go-Round, on Pokotan.

Some day, I will be trilingual and fluent in all three of the pro wrestling languages, and then I will be unstoppable :triumph:.

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I randomly was suggested this video and thought it was fun, short, and easy so recommending here:

I love that goal. I’m actually making tentative plans for a year or two from now to pick up another language and it’s being determined by two things:

  • It needs to be a category one language (excluding the romance languages which I studied years ago and didn’t click with)
  • It needs to have good detective / mystery fiction

Passion really does drive the learning process :joy:

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