August Listening Challenge 👂

50 hours sounds good. NVM, I’m updating to 40 hours so I don’t kill myself lmaoo. I’ll try to make it 25 Korean / 15 Spanish but I’m not too worried about keeping that ratio exact.
For Korean, I’m going to try and not use dramas/videos and actually do more audiobooks lol. Spanish will probably mostly be videos.

Plan:

Spanish: Dreaming Spanish videos, Cuentame podcast, Chill Spanish podcast
Korean: Podcasts, Audiobooks
Note: (ㅈㅅㅋㄹ (4h), 어느날 정글 (7h 30m), 모범생 (5h), 햇빛초 대나무 숲에 새 글이 올라왔습니다 (3h), 스토리텔링 버스 (3h 30m), 여기는 커스터드 특별한 도시락을 팝니다 (5h)

Log

Spanish

Dreaming Spanish videos:
Podcasts:

Spanish hours
5
10
15
20
25

Korean

Audiobooks:
Podcasts:

Korean hours
5
10
15
20
25

7 Likes

Ooh, I’ll join! This will be good for accountability. I’ll pledge 31 hours of Japanese, JP subs ok. I want to get back into German (too much Japanese focus!), but I need to be realistic (I prefer to set my unrealistic goals in private, so no one can see me fail).

Plans

There are none!

Log

YouTube

8/3:
-Comprehensible Japanese
8/4:
-Comprehensible Japanese
8/10:
-Learn Japanese with Tanaka San

anime

8/2:
-Chi’s Sweet Adventure: Summer Vacation
-Pokémon Concierge
8/3:
-Chi’s Sweet Adventure: Summer Vacation
8/4:
-Chi’s Sweet Adventure: Summer Vacation
8/7:
-Chi’s Sweet Adventure: Summer Vacation
-Shirokuma Cafe
8/13:
-Shirokuma Cafe
-Little Witch Academia
-My Happy Marriage

Podcasts

8/1:
-Japanese with Shun
8/3:
-Nihongo con Teppei (for beginners)
8/4:
-Nihongo con Teppei (for beginners)
8/6:
-Japanese with Shun
8/10:
-Nihongo con Teppei (for beginners)

misc. audio

8/1:
-Satori Reader, audio only
-Bunpro grammar sentence audio
8/2:
-Bunpro grammar sentence audio
8/3:
-Bunpro grammar sentence audio
8/10:
-Bunpro grammar sentence audio

8 Likes

I like your log filler text. :rofl:

7 Likes

Hey - I thought this might be of interest to some of you.
[Caveat - it’s not easily available outside of Japan, so I’ve actually not listened to it - it just sounds interesting]

It’s an NHK radio show I stumbled upon, where the host have a ‘classic’, or a classic author, explained to them. I think the aim is to help open up and make the classics more easily accessible. (Albeit to a Japanese audience, so I don’t know how easy ‘easy’ is).

Each classic gets 4 25-minute episodes, so it adds up to plenty of listening, if anyone is looking for stuff to listen to.

10 Likes

One more day (in my timezone)! I personally have some audiobooks queued up and some unfinished TV shows and movies I plan to finally get through

Excited to see what everyone uses to ramp up their numbers! :ear:

edit: …2 more days in my timezone. July has 31 days, not 30. :melting_face: It has been a long 30th day

6 Likes

I think I’m going to join as well. Instead of an hour goal I’ll try to finish listening to the second part of 本好き in August, so around 2.5 audiobooks. Let’s see how far I get.

7 Likes

わくわく- less than 12 hours until August. :flushed:

so far I have plans to watch this unknown アンノウン S1 | L30?? and at least parts of this ゴーストハント | L26??

and potentially listen to the 江口 podcast on audible.

Plenty of audiobook and youtube options as well. Just need to make sure I do a bit everyday. :pray:

5 Likes

I spent most of the day travelling with nothing better to do, so I’m off to a good start. I finished the second half (really more like last 1/3) of 本好き 5 and even got started on volume 6.

Current status:

Volume Progress %
5 ■■■■■■■■■■ 100%
6 ■■□□□□□□□□ 29%
7 □□□□□□□□□□ 0%
Total ■■□□□□□□□□ 28%
5 Likes

I’ve started my own challenge as well, earlier than expected this morning for me. I’ve begun listening to 華麗なる探偵アリス&ペンギン | L21; it’s extremely cute so far. Seems to be a good level for me; there are sections I’m not understanding, but the plotline is simple enough to follow that I can pretty easily pick it back up again. About a third of the way through the book; I was beginning to lose focus in the last 20 minutes or so, so I might go back to re-listen in my next session.

That’s one thing I guess I don’t really consider until I’m about five minutes into listening: I really take my reading stamina for granted, insofar as I have very little listening stamina. This audiobook was a bit easier, granted, but I’ll need to build up my brain’s stamina before trying anything much more difficult.

I’m not entirely sure how I want to mark my progress audiobook-wise on Natively; my fingers are really tempted to also mark time spent while updating the overall book completion percentage, but I get the impression that that’s not how that field was really intended to be used. I’m also hesitating to mark today as a day I’ve “read” for the completely arbitrary reason that I haven’t technically read anything. :thinking: Marking the day as “watched” doesn’t feel right either… I didn’t realize I’d have to be pondering such deep questions this early on. :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s funny, too, because I never have any problems saying I’ve read a book when talking about the few English audiobooks I’ve listened to. I guess it’s because “language learning” is still such a large component of the Japanese experience for me that it still feels weird for me.

@cat I saw you’re reading and/or listening to 三姉妹探偵団 | L27; would it be a good candidate for easy/low stakes listening practice, do you think?

Total so far
華麗なる探偵アリス&ペンギン | L21 : 1 hours, 11 minutes

5 Likes

Yeah, it’s a very easy audiobook with the exception of one man when he talks on the telephone has a voice so distorted I could only pick out pieces, but it’s a very small bit of the overall story.

I sadly am not enjoying it that much (and I usually really like 赤川次郎), but if you go in with low expectations for the plot/characters and just want easy listening it should be fine.

Also I stopped marking my “days read” on here ages ago :sweat_smile: I have a habit tracker which I’ve used for years and separate habits for reading VS listening.

3 Likes

Is it a custom habit tracker? Or an official website/app/etc?

1 Like

It’s Loop Habit Tracker - Google Play link. Last time I checked it wasn’t available on iPhones, but I’m sure there are similar ones. I just like how simple and flexible this one is, and the nice charts it gives me.

For example:

6 Likes

Listened to the next case in 名探偵アリス, about another hour and 16 minutes. I’m not doing a great job catching as much in the high-action scenes; doesn’t help that I keep dozing off in the middle, too. Gotta get some sleep tonight…

Today’s Total so Far
華麗なる探偵アリス&ペンギン | L21 : 2 hours, 27 minutes

4 Likes

Today I decided to start by re-listening to the first 4 podcasts of “Japanese with Shun”, 神様 short story as well as the first 3 short stories from “Japanese short stories for beginners vol 1”.

All in around 53 minutes

Tomorrow is a difficult day with a 12 and a half hour work shift so might try listening to some stuff on breaks or just binging after work.

5 Likes

It’s August already?! Where did my summer go…

Time to get some listening practice in!

5 Likes

Oof, I’ve been doing that recently and feel the pain in my bones. Stay strong!

3 Likes

I’m calling it for the day since I need to read yet. I got 100 minutes (~1.6 hrs) in exclusively on the audiobook for 三姉妹探偵団 | L27
Some of it was during my morning routine and some was while I did chores and cooking after work.

I have 44 minutes left so I’ll likely finish it tomorrow and start something new :tada:

4 Likes

After giving it some thought, I’ve decided to join in too. :partying_face: It’s been a long time since I’ve challenged myself with listening in any capacity, so I’m going to go for an ambitious goal of 80 hours.

I’d also like to try and focus on harder listening material (around level 40 or so) but I’ll probably be mixing it up throughout the month and may even try to watch some movies or anime! :open_mouth:

Time for August 1st:

4.5 hrs

さらば、欲望 資本主義の隘路をどう脱出するか 幻冬舎新書 | L40?? - 2 hrs

秘密 | L40?? - 2x 50 mins (listened twice)

イン・ザ・プール | L31 - 50 mins

—————————

さらば、欲望 資本主義の隘路をどう脱出するか 幻冬舎新書 | L40?? contains a series of philosophical editorials serialized over the course of the past few years (2019 - 2024 I believe?) about globalism, late stage capitalism, liberalism, Covid response, and more fun topics! It’s kind of dark because I guess we live in busy times, but the author has some interesting thoughts. One thing that stuck out today was the idea that post-war Japan’s reality doesn’t reflect “reality” and that everything is some kind of ごっこ、nationalismごっこ, liberalismごっこ etc. Yukio Mishima catching strays being told his coup was some ごっこ!:disappointed: Anyways, this could apply to other countries…is anything real? Am I stuck in a post post post modern spiral? :cyclone:

秘密 | L40?? - Atmospheric, mysterious, delightful. 谷崎 is a 変態 even when he is just describing clothing.

イン・ザ・プール | L31 - listening on 1.5x speed. By the author of ララピポ. This is weird…less weird than ララピポ was, but still weird. :thinking:

6 Likes

Wrong link here I think :sweat_smile: The only book I’ve read by that author I didn’t particularly like, although you and @omk3 have convinced me to read the ララピポ book at some point (I have the audio too, but since I’ll be with the text it won’t count towards my listening hours).

3 Likes

Fixed! :laughing: It is イン・ザ・プール | L31. I think it’s the book in the series that comes before the one you read…it has a creepy doctor and his nurse.

3 Likes