Watched Back to the Future Part 1 w/ JP Dub and Sub. The subtitles aren’t clearly readable sometimes. At full speed anyway. I’ll give the trilogy another go with subs on before I go freestyle. Really, I’m only looking when I get lost/ space out. I think I actually paid attention to listening most of the time this time though. I’ll give myself a C-.
More かがみの孤城 . 1.3x speed and there was a good chunk where I didn’t need to pause at all.
I think the next track may be the last track I listened to with any kind of active attention, so it should get more interesting after that.
It was fairly easy to understand. The videos aligned really well with my current language knowledge, and the difficulty was around N4.
I really enjoy Speak Japanese Naturally because the videos are so relaxing and calm, but I wish eng subs were optional. I usually completely avoid looking at the english subtitles, but sometimes it’s hard because my brain gets lazy. So I try to watch videos from this channel only once or twice a week.
quick reflections
I really cannot comprehend numbers and months in Japanese yet. If it’s SRS practice, then I take my time to think about it, but usually it’s very difficult for me to understand T_T
I learnt actively this time, and looked up some vocabs I didn’t know + added them to my Bunpro review pile. Excited to see if I can recall the meanings when I review them later today.
Lastly, I think I’ve depended too much on picturing kanji, because now I take more time to recall the meanings when I can only hear the word. Might need to think about this more, and change the pattern. Also hoping that I’ll eventually get used to hearing words as well (thanks to this challenge)
I’m going to jump on this, a couple of days late but that’s irrelevant.
I’ll probably use a combination of beginner youtube videos, podcasts, and maybe some Anime with Japanese/no subs. (I’m currently watching Initial D with English subs but I don’t want to include it as part of the challenge). Listening (and speaking) has been left behind for a while but I think I’m finally at a reasonable level of comprehension where listening to beginner stuff won’t be a massive chore.
I listened to the Nihongo Con Teppei episodes 126-129. The first two episodes were easy to understand because I was familiar with almost all of the words that he used. However, the other two episodes were more difficult so I listened to them twice.
After that I watched two Comprehensible Japanese videos. The first one was a beginner video about karaoke which I didn’t have any problems with. So I tried an intermediate video about Fukuoka’s local specialities next and struggled quite a bit because I didn’t know enough food/cooking related vocab. I had to rely heavily on the pictures and drawings to follow along.
残月記 : 月景石 Ch.4/2,9 [6,13/13]. To end with the reading.
国語文法 [40-41/50] – 助動詞 (3-4/10). Now conjugation table might need review of former clips.
Some random news on YouTube. With some text and focus, I can understand. Particularly, I like ANN.
For me, months and single digit dates are particularly easy, because memory triumphs counting. Four digit years are a big killer. I just usually failed. (May have improved a little with a game – https://langpractice.com/japanese/.)
Today is monday, which means 月曜の朝ミオ time! I promise that I watch non-vtuber things most of the time, but the monday mio streams are one of the things I do watch pretty much every week. I usually just watch the first half, which is where she puts out a weekly prompt (usually food/culture/season related) and people write in responses on twitter. She goes through a bunch of responses and just talks for a while, it’s very chill to just put it on while I’m drinking my coffee or something. Looks like the next one (after todays) isn’t until 4/24 though, so i’ll have to find something else for the next couple mondays
I listened to the first conversation in the first Tobira chapter. Something something festivals. It had a few very useful phrases that concerned asking for clarification.
I feel like I’ll benefit from doing some read-out-loud exercises, so I might try that once I do a re-listen.
Today I watched episode 3 of Rilakkuma and Kaoru. Again, I was pleased with how much I could understand. I didnt have to stop and read the subs a few times, but not so much that I wouldn’t have been able to mostly get what was going on if I hadn’t checked.
April 3rd
Quick update. Listened to more of Akiko’s American Foreign Exchange. I went beyond the episodes that I’ve already listened to, which is when I started to space out. I wanted to check out some of the things people posted, but my laptop’s in desperate need of an outlet, so maybe I’ll do that tomorrow.
Back to the Future Part 2 JP Dub. I had already been watching for 15 minutes before I noticed the lack of subs. woops. Decided to roll with it. Did really well with the first half but lost focus during the second. Still, a C grade effort.
Also watched the Speak Japanese Naturally that was shared above.
The last few days I “only” watched the Let’s Play of Zelda Breath of the wild. One episode per day. I would say I understand about 1/3. I can guess the meaning of another 1/3, because I know the game (actually I am replaying it at the moment). And the other third… I do not understand ^^;
Today I also started to listen to the Harry Potter 1 audiobook for about 15 minutes (I already bought it in Japanese a few years ago because I was naive and thought I just have to listen to it and I will learn Japanese automatically lol). But I must admit, that it is still too advanced for me. If I wouldn’t know the story by heart, I think I wouldn’t understand what’s going on. Maybe, some time in the future, I will read the book and listen to the audiobook simultaneously. Or first read a part (and look up what I do not understand) and then listen to it.
国語文法 [42-43/50] – 助動詞 (5-6/10). I also read a little of 活用形 today, then rewatch. Maybe I should have read and taken note as a reference before, but oh well…
Nihongo Con Teppei - 4 eps. It was easy to understand. I’m glad they repeat synonyms of some words, makes it super fun to learn!
Learn Japanese with Noriko - 3rd ep on “why do you learn japanese?” [link]. It was slow in the beginning so I had enough time to recall and understand, but the speech had a bit of urgency in the end (or maybe it looks like that because I’m not great at listening yet). So I did zone out a little. It was motivating though, because I understood most of what was said.
omg this looks cool, thanks for linking it! It’s also very fun, I just spent 20 mins writing numbers hjshsjh
April 4th
I ended up watching an episode of Good Morning Call on Netflix while I ate breakfast and folded laundry. The cheesiness factor is sizable. I could handle some of the goofiness, but sometimes it was a little too much for me. Comprehension-wise, the hardest moments were when the two main characters were talking with an older woman about their rental contracts and when they were fighting with each other (their delivery sped up quite a bit).
April 4
I watched some Alice in Borderland today on Neflix, season 2. It‘s always funny watching a live action adaptation of a manga, because some lines are so painfully manga-ish. Also, one character exclusively speaks in very forced-seeming Kansai-ben, which is also a remnant from the manga, I assume.
And I also watched part of the 空家 video I like the 調べてみたら series a lot.