🔊 🎙 Listen Every Day Challenge - Winter 2023 ❄ 🧤

March 9 :heavy_multiplication_x:
March 10 something, I don’t remember what though - probably booktuber videos :arrow_forward:
March 11-14 :heavy_multiplication_x:
March 15 :film_strip:

Long time no update, but then I had nothing to update about. I somehow could never find time for listening… Anyway, today, at long last, I managed to finally finish Drive My Car. It took me less than it would take me to read a novel, but not by too much :joy: And I would definitely have read the short story it was based on faster than that.

It was slow, painfully slow. It felt very much like the Murakami story it was, dreamy and disjointed and a little dark, but not quite. It had several very interesting elements, but it dragged out a little a lot too much. Oh, and apart from some secondary side characters, no one ever as much as cracked a smile in the whole long movie. :eyes:

Language-wise, I found it clear enough most of the time (I was watching with English subtitles, mind). There were several different languages as well (I didn’t understand those, not even most of the English!), and we also get to hear what is possibly the entirety of Uncle Vanya in Japanese. A strange experience, certainly, but even Uncle Vanya wasn’t as intimidating as I would have expected. Not that I’m rewatching without subtitles to make sure.

If someone else has watched it, any idea what the ending was all about? Why does the driver suddenly have Kafuku’s car and the Korean couple’s dog and is shopping in Korea? I could understand that the couple maybe moved back there and offered her a job, but the car? Did she kill them all? And did we ever even learn her name?

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Took a few days of rest from Japanese because of vacation :airplane: :beach_umbrella: but I managed to take some time to listen to grammar videos and to watch a randomly picked Netflix movie 夏への扉 ―キミのいる未来へ― during my flight.
Now that the trip is over, it is back to usual studying schedule.

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I have to recommend this channel for conversation listening, he’s so good at making you envision a whole scene with just a few words, and his characters are so realistic it’s crazy

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Mar 16, Thu of Week 12 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

夢十夜 Night 9-10 (end). Some understanding is made possible by reading along. Sometimes I still don’t really understand from listening. Probably read-aloud first, the re-listen?

国語文法 [13/50] – 品詞の分類.

残月記 : そして月がふりかえる Ch.7 [9/12].

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Mar 17, Fri of Week 12 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

残月記 : そして月がふりかえる Ch.8 first half [10/12]. Maybe not so bad. Will find time to read tomorrow. Also, re-listen through.

夢十夜 Night 1-5. Big run-through, until my concentration dropped (at 5).

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Mar 18, Sat of Week 12 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

新完全マスター聴解 日本語能力試験 N2 Ch.4/3 多くの情報の中から必要な情報を拾う.

夢十夜 Night 5-7. Re-listening.

Then listen to songs suggested on Youtube and also some saved ones. I don’t want to listen to 残月記 yet, but 2 tracks left of the sub-story (そして月がふりかえる). Anyway, I have read to the end.

国語文法 [14-15/50] – 品詞の分類. So listed POS’s.


Mar 19, Sun of Week 12 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

残月記 : そして月がふりかえる [11-12/12] + 月景石 [1/13]. Also, re-listen to a track of そして月がふりかえる.

夢十夜 Night 8-10. Re-listening.

国語文法 [16-17/50] – 名詞.


Mar 20, Mon of Week 13 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

残月記 : 月景石 [1-2/13].

国語文法 [18/50] – 名詞・こそあど.


Mar 21, Tue of Week 13 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

残月記 : 月景石 Ch.2 [2-3/13].


Mar 22, Wed of Week 13 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

国語文法 [19-20/50] – 形容詞. Yesterday I also tried 19, but too dizzy and failed to comprehend.

残月記 : 月景石 Ch.3 [4/13].

Youtube notifications, so Yuka-sensei in a Chinese hotpot restaurant (and me listening Chinese failed). Also, some news. With enough visual hints, it works. I also see some documentaries on Youtube, maybe English sub isn’t so bad, but take care that I really listen. Vocabularies may be harder to catch, but perhaps OK if known in advance. (Also if guessable specialized vocabularies.)


Mar 23, Thu of Week 13 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

国語文法 [21-22/50] – 副詞.

残月記 : 月景石 Ch.4/1 [5/13].


Mar 24, Fri of Week 13 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

残月記 : 月景石 Ch.4 [5-6/13].

国語文法 [23-24/50] – 接続詞・感動詞.

Yesterday and today, I’ve found new music artists on Youtube to subscribe to.

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Another random Netflix pick, so I ended up watching movie バブル today.
Pretty sandard story, but great animation. Didn’t pick up all words, but I woud say it is not a problem to follow what is going on in the movie.

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The title reminds me of the timeless classic バブルへGO!
Recommended if you want to learn more about the バブル時代 and love crazy time machine shenanigans. We watched it in one of my university courses, haha.

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Thank you so much for the recommendation! Didn’t know about this movie, judging by the trailer it looks really fun :grin:

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The Listen Every Day Challenge for Spring 2023 is up!

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Mar 25, Sat of Week 13 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

残月記 : 月景石 Ch.5 [7/13].

国語文法 [25/50] – 動詞.


Mar 26, Sun of Week 13 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

国語文法 [26-27/50] – 動詞・動詞の活用.

新完全マスター聴解 日本語能力試験 N2 Ch.5/1 例と例をまとめる言葉を聞き分けて、話題をつかむ. Has been postponing this one for almost a week. Each section seems long now.

残月記 : 月景石 Ch.6 [8/13].

Shogi rules – 【10分で完璧】将棋のルール説明・駒の動かし方【超初心者向け】 - YouTube

I also tried to watch about baseball news recently.

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I haven’t been very consistent in listening this month, I must say. I’ve missed too many days, maybe about half of them?

I’ve watched about half of Creepy, but it turned out to be actually creepy, and I’m not in a creepy mood right now. Maybe I’ll continue later, if it’s still available then.

As an antidote to the creepiness, I then started watching the Full-time Wife Escapist on Netflix. It’s exactly the kind of romantic comedy show I’d normally avoid, but it’s cute, mindless fun so far. Not sure I’ll watch it to the end, as it’s painfully obvious where it’s going, but for something light to watch, it’s not bad.
Since the plot is not all that complicated, I’m doing relatively okay ignoring the subtitles about half of the time, but of course there are parts where they speak more and faster, and I can’t keep up at all.

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I rewatched Sasaki and Miyano (佐々木と宮野) in Japanese with no subs yesterday. Gotta say I understood sooo little but as I had watched previously with English subs I knew the story. Was very disheartening but motivating for vocabulary study.

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IIRC the two leads ended up getting married in real life. I haven’t watched it but it’s also on my back burner of “palate cleanser” shows

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Ha, that’s funny and cute. I see they married after the show finished. I started watching because I liked Gen Hoshino in MIU404, and Yui Aragaki is also very likeable in her role.

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Mar 27, Mon of Week 1 (of Q2) / Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

国語文法 [28-29/50] – 動詞の活用. Stem, parts, and 1/5/upper/lower. Probably just an intro for me, though.

残月記 : 月景石 Ch.7 [9-10/13].

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Mar 28, Tue of Week 1 (of Q2) / Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

国語文法 [30-31/50] – 形容詞.

残月記 : 月景石 Ch.8/1 [11/13]. Villian (?) got villain’d? Gotta read to make sure. Also, the speaking voice.

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Mar 29, Wed of Week 1 (of Q2) / Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

国語文法 [32-33/50] – 形容動詞.

残月記 : 月景石 Ch.8/2 [12/13].


Mar 30, Thu of Week 1 (of Q2) / Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

残月記 : 月景石 Ch.9 [13/13]. A little more surprise and climax in the last chapter.

国語文法 [34-35/50] – 助詞. Just repeat a little, because I am little confused today.


Mar 31, Fri of Week 1 (of Q2) / Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

国語文法 [36-37/50] – 助詞.

Tried listening to first 10-min of 残月記 : 残月記, and figured that I am not yet ready for it. Back to 残月記 : 月景石 Ch.1 [1/13]; which connects well with the latter half of the substory.


End of Winter, New Challenge coming tomorrow. I would need to calm down a little and take more learning and deeper comprehension. Also, less stress, more comprehension, indeed.

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I have been rewatching One Punch Man without subs and I rewatched Cherry Magic the Movie (once again no subs) on Amazon Prime Japan. I can enjoy them because I have watched them before with English subs but relying on the Japanese alone my listening is not at this level. But I am also still doing podcasts meant for intermediate-level learners with subs. Now my level is more pre-intermediate but I understand the general idea and I need this to survive living in Japan.

Trying to just continue repping cards on anki, kanji on here and listening and hope I am improving. I don’t read nor do Grammar review and study as much as I should.

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Summary post

I disappeared again because the Grand Princess translation ended up being 10k+ characters long (I finished it in four parts here on the forum, haha: 1, 2, 3, 4), then I had a 3.5k+ character long press conference to translate, plus a 2.5k+ character show, and a 1k+ character show, all with a deadline of March 31, but I’m thrilled to announce that I managed to get it all done in time somehow! It was roughly 30 hours of work in under two weeks :sweat_smile:.

In the meantime, I had kind of an exciting day of drama when I had one of my translations stolen for the first time and went mildly viral on wrestling twitter because of it (the publication that did it was already under fire for a different reason…).

But Grand Princess was so good!! :sob: It was the most affirming show for me as a fan translator. Here’s a photo from the show, featuring the 147cm Big Kaiju Shoko Nakajima vs Andreza Giant Panda. It’s a scene right out of a kaiju film!

Mizuki vs Yuka Sakazaki was amazing :sob:! I’ll spare my full thoughts on it, haha, because I have a lot of those (see my most recent study log entry for details, I guess?), but I will share one more photo from the show. A happy ending… :smiling_face_with_tear:

I’m about to have probably the biggest test of my listening comprehension thus far, because Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling had a spotlight match at WrestleCon SuperShow on March 30 (one of the many shows happening in Los Angeles this weekend), and I don’t think shupro covered it (they don’t generally cover indie events in America), so I don’t have any transcripts to help me translate the very short post-match comments for that match… I think they’re partially in English, though, so maybe I can do it? I’m still not sure, haha.

It does look like that shupro covered TJPW’s own America show, though, so thankfully I’ll have some help there! Though Namba did the announcements before the show in English, and Mizuki closed the show mostly in English, so there’s less work for me than usual, haha. It was surreal watching a TJPW show where so much of it was in English. I’m so happy for all of the wrestlers that it was such a success, though! And the fans who were there knew the names of their moves and how to respond to some of the classic spots and such :pleading_face:.

The DDT shows this weekend were also very cool! It’s really neat to see how much Japanese wrestling presence there was, and how well it was received by the American crowds. Here’s an article about the event published by L.A. Times. And of course, Kota Ibushi, one of my favorite wrestlers of all time, finally made his return!

I guess on that note, thus ends my challenge!

Mar
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13

= Japanese
= Japanese and Spanish

Perfect score! I don’t think I really watched much that would be exciting to folks here, haha. Pretty much all of my Japanese listening was stuff I was translating for wrestling, or wrestling shows that I wasn’t translating anything for. I got maybe three episodes into Aggretsuko before I ran out of time to watch any more, haha. Maybe I’ll pick that up again in the next challenge? :sweat_smile:

With Spanish, I finished the last handful of episodes I had left of season 1 of Bob Esponja, then watched all of season 2 and a few episodes of season 3.

I’m switching back to reading for the spring challenge, though I’ll probably be back for the off-month again!

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