🔊 🎙 Listen Every Day Challenge - Winter 2023 ❄ 🧤

:snowflake: Day 18, 18th of January :snowflake:

:headphones: Back to my Home Post

Once again tried the new method of listening to Teppen. Episode #15 was about the weather and rather easy to understand because I already knew enough of the words.

Also some talk about the different weather patterns in the different regions of Japan. I can never remember what they’re all called, so maybe I should write them down.

  • 北海道 Hokkaidō - has the Kanji for North in it, and sure enough, it’s the northernmost region of Japan!
  • 東北地方 Tōhoku - Kanji for East and North, so the region to the northeast of Japan.
  • 関東地方 Kantō - Kanji for East, so the easternmost region of Japan.
  • 中部地方 Chūbu - Kanji for Middle, which isn’t very helpful, considering you can see how it reaches further north on a map.
  • 関西地方 Kansai - Kanji for West, well, I guess technically it is? It is located west of the regions of Japan that have east in their name, but there’s still a ways to go.
  • 中国地方 Chūgoku - Kanji for Middle, when we already had both east and west to the right of it. Ridiculous.
  • 四国 Shikoku - Refers to the four provinces on that island. Easy to remember.
  • 九州 Kyūshū - Refers to the really long tail of islands. Apparently there are nine parts.
  • 沖縄県 Okinawa - ??? don’t know these yet, no mnemonic.
15 Likes

January 18 :film_strip:

I may have watched multiple episodes of MIU404 today. :sweat_smile:
Seriously, this show is great!

Tomorrow, I’m thinking of trying at least some of the Akutagawa/Naoki stream @NicoleIsEnough linked (and hopefully not impulse-buy any of the nominees before it’s even over :eyes:)

16 Likes

January 18th!

Another small amount of listening today. Work has been exhausting this week, so I’m struggling to keep up with everything - hopefully the rest of the week will be a bit less frantic!
Today I listened to JapanesePod101’s Upper Beginner Season 1, Lesson 15. This whole season is focused on keigo, and today’s lesson was about how to use 伺う.

(Home Post)

15 Likes

Yesterday and today, each: One episode of Comprehensible Japanese Intermediate.

And I accidentially watched this today:

I think I got most of the gist and maybe 60-70% of the details, but even without all of those this was pretty fun to watch. Seems the channel has a lot more. Would be perfect with Japanese subs!

17 Likes

Well yesterday I randomly clicked on a Netflix movie, only looking at the key visual :joy:

Mostly because it looked like a live action drama that won’t have too much of a complicated plot, and with a dialog similar to real-life conversations. I actually finished it much faster than I thought I would, only stopping to check some unknown words. Except for some medical terminology, I would say the dialog is not that hard to follow.
So if romance/sad/sentimental movies are anybody’s thing, I would say this falls into this category :blush:

Movie:
桜のような僕の恋人
TRAILER

15 Likes

Jan 19, Thu of Week 4 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

君の膵臓をたべたい Ch.7 [2/2]. The foretold event eventually… came.

かがみの孤城 March [9/10]. I followed along with text. It becomes 1-2 sentences per page (on Bookwalker on mobile) for a while. Around 5-6 letters per sentence.

In any case, with text, it’s just easier. Without text, my understanding is just bad. For かがみの孤城, I need almost no look-up. For the other series, I probably should look up more than that.

So-matome N3 Listening Ch.3 [4/6]. Business. On the other side, perhaps I should get a reading comprehension workbook later. That would probably be better for reading speed and comprehension. (In particular, email and notice quick reads.)

14 Likes

:headphones: :desktop_computer: :sound: :snowflake: January 18

Listened to Teppei for beginners #21. I was planning on doing more than that but ended up getting busy with other things. Oh, well, it’s still something.

16 Likes

:snowflake: Day 19, 19th of January :snowflake:

:headphones: Back to my Home Post

Episode #16 of Teppei today. This new method is forcing me to pay more attention, which is already in limited supply. :joy:

I think I will continue to do one episode per day and then after some time return to relisten to them (maybe next listening challenge?) as a sort of check-in for evaluating my comprehension.

15 Likes

:snowman: :snowflake: MissDagger’s Home Post :snowflake: :snowman:

:blue_book: my bookmeter profile :closed_book: my study log :green_book:

Post template

:snowman: :snowflake: DATE :snowflake: :snowman: :speaker:
Home Post

TITLE :emoji:

Challenge Plan

The plan!

My plan was to start in February but as often the case, I just kinda started listening to stuff and I guess I got started?!?!

So my plan is not very complicated. I have no specific goal except get better at listening comprehension. :joy:

I will probably be trying a few different podcasts to find 1-2 that are the right level that are interesting. So I might end up only listening to one episode and figure out it is a bit above my head. On my log, I have a list of podcasts and grammar resources (in Japanese) that I want to try and see how they work for me. I’ll be trying them out one at a time until I find a couple that works for me.

My hope is to focus on the reading challenge first, but on the other hand, I usually find time to listen to something in the middle of my day, while reading is generally evening activity. I’m not really a podcast listener, so I will probably only spend a little time on listening each day, and I won’t be going for full comprehension, instead I want to train my brain to recognize everything it already knows in text in spoken form. :joy:

My listening is sooooo far behind my reading. :joy:

So yeah, I don’t have specific goals, instead for this first challenge, I just want to build the habit and see where that gets me.

What I am Listening to

Video: Comprehensible Japanese, Intermediate :shinto_shrine:
Podcast: Sayuri Saying Everyday :tanabata_tree:
Podcast: Tomo’s Real Japanese Talk :teacher:
Podcast: Easy Japanese :rice_cracker:
Podcast: YUYUの日本語podcast :headphones:
Video: にゃんテレNEWS :cat2:
Anime: ロマンティック・キラー :cupid:
Anime: Cardcaptor Sakura :sparkles:
TV Show: ミステリと言う勿れ :curly_hair:
Game: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild :shield:
Numbers/digit comprehension :1234:
Assorted/random (including animes I don’t plan to keep watching) :ear:
Missed/nothing :mute:

What I’ve Listened to Each Day

Jan
01
02 03 04 05 06 07 08
09 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 :shinto_shrine: 17 :shinto_shrine: 18 :cat2: :ear: 19 :headphones: 20 :shinto_shrine: 21 :loud_sound: 22 :rice_cracker: :tanabata_tree: :cat2:
23 :mute: 24 :shinto_shrine: 25 :mute: 26 :ear: 27 :shinto_shrine: 28 :mute: 29 :tanabata_tree:
30 :shinto_shrine: 31 :tanabata_tree:
Feb
01 :tanabata_tree: 02 :mute: 03 :mute: 04 :mute: 05 :shield:
06 :teacher: 07 :shield: 08 :mute: 09 :teacher: :1234: :cupid: 10 :curly_hair: 11 :ear: 12 :ear:
13 :sparkles: 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28
15 Likes

:snowman: :snowflake: January 16-19 :snowflake: :snowman: :speaker:
Home Post

Jan 16: Comprehensible Japanese :shinto_shrine: お盆の風習
Jan 17: Comprehensible Japanese :shinto_shrine: 日本の秋
Jan 18: Bits and pieces of a few videos: cat news videos :cat2: and origami videos. :loud_sound: All of them mostly kicked my butt, but I could understand some of it
Jan 19: YUYUの日本語Podcast :headphones:, episode 1, 日本のメッセージ文化. I followed the gist of the conversation but lost some of the details. Also was confused by ボイスメッセージ, until I realized that it wasn’t boys message which made no sense, but b as v. xD Aka voice.

16 Likes

January 19th!

Today I watched another origami video. This time to make a cat shaped bookmark. Its the most complex one I’ve made so far, and it didn’t go too badly.

(Home Post)

15 Likes

I am still in the middle of doing N4 grammar but I have started Nihongo con Teppei meant for intermediates. When I listen without subtitles I sometimes understand 50% and sometimes less but when I listen with subs I get about 70 or 80 % of some episodes and I am like whaaaatt? But this means I can sometimes understand the gist of some conversations but most of the time I can only catch a few words. I keep trying to tell myself to just keep going because living in Japan is frustrating when people treat you like you’re dumb (this comes from a place of wanting to help most of the time I believe).

16 Likes

Yuyu will be what I challenge myself with when I make it to N3 grammar cause he speaks so damn fast.

9 Likes

My grammar is about N3, but not my listening. :sob: So yeah, I can totally see that. So the first episode (on apple podcasts) was a conversation with a friend (I don’t think they continue like that?), and I could follow the flow of the conversation and I got the gist of it. But I definitely was lost from time to time when they were talking more details. So yeah, definitely not for me yet. Although I might try a couple of more episodes later to see if it is the same for all of them for me.

11 Likes

This is very similar to the method my mum (a retired language teacher) told me to use.
Find audio with text.
Listen once without looking at the text.
Next listen, follow with the text.
Final listen, without looking at the text again.

If I know about this why don’t I do it :thinking:

Oh it’s because it’s much more intensive way of doing it. Great when I’ve got time to sit down at my desk and do it.

14 Likes

Yeah it’s quite a commitment. Luckily I was used to doing two episodes before, so when now I just do one episode two times it’s easier to manage.

But I’m happy to see that my method has merit. I was really just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. Monkeys and typewriters etcetera.

11 Likes

Transcribed the new episodes of Noriko about morning routine and Shun about friends.
Took the dog out for a walk in the cold at lunchtime so I could get my listening minutes in, sorry dog.
Managed to get back to my target of around an hour a day after 30minutes the day before.
It’s still difficult, I still zone out, even after listening to the same episode time and again there’s bit’s I don’t get. Oh well keeping going in the hope it’s getting better.

12 Likes

:headphones: :desktop_computer: :sound: :snowflake: January 19

Listened to Teppei for beginners #22 and #23, played BU$TAFELLOWS for 45 min.

13 Likes

Jan 20, Fri of Week 4 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

君の膵臓をたべたい Ch.8 [1-2/4]. Memoir with erased names. (Crossed out with a ballpoint pen, but read with new SFX.)

I listened to Youtube Kanken Level 2, 2.5, 3. I might just pass from 2.5 downwards. Readings are guessable and relatively straightforward; but meanings are sometimes more problematic. Longer phrases and Yojijukugo help. I can imagine listening alone being troublesome, especially when bare and isolated, but going up from lower levels probably would help?

かがみの孤城 March [10/10] + closing [1/3]. Although I understood the years from reading along with audio, I don’t think I would pick up most years when listening afterwards the third time. How to read dates isn’t exact to my mind, but that would be much easier to train.

13 Likes

:snowman: :snowflake: January 20 :snowflake: :snowman: :speaker:
Home Post

Comprehensible Japanese, 多読 (intermediate) :shinto_shrine:

I listen/watched this with subtitles on. I could probably have done without, but for most of the video I only glanced at the subtitles when I was confused. (Except for a couple of minutes at the end where I let myself get stuck, before remembering to look away.)

Comments on the content of the episode

Would I be able to read a lot more volume if I read easier books where I could read without look ups? Absolutely. Could I look up a bit less in what I was reading? Probably, but not significantly.

But having fun should really be the number one rule. Which is why I read things where I have to look up a lot, because it happens to be what I want to read.

I do however agree that reading helps a lot with getting good at a language and it does indeed teach my brain to skip translating and just begin understanding. Bit by bit. ^^

14 Likes