I might listen to more tonight, but it’s been a big youtube day. I’ve found some new youtubers I really like which is great 
I also passed my monthly goal of 50 hours 
I’m at 50.8 now. Since there are two more days left in the month I’m going to keep trying to push out hours for August, but I’m ramping down in September to a goal of 30 hours.
Which speaking of: September Listening Challenge 👂 is now ready for sign ups!
Today I did 1.5 hours of random audiobook chapters, but was unable to settle on anything I was really interested in. 
I didn’t realize it, but audiobook.jp was running a promotion this month where you would get 1,000 coins if you listened to three books from a list of 100 books selected by their staff and I accidentally ended up meeting the criteria from the stuff I listened to. 
Good timing, did audiobook know about the August listening challenge? 
Real life has been busy, so I’ve done it bit less than normal. But good busy - I ate a Naruto set meal in Yokocho, London.
Thursday
Shinobi Japanese app: 15 minutes
京都寺町三条のホームズ | L29 - 20% complete: 45 minutes
Friday
Shinobi Japanese app: 6 minutes
京都寺町三条のホームズ | L29 - 24% complete: 55 minutes
Total: 2 hours
(Edit: did a bit more)
Done! I’ve finished my 50 hours, and a day early to boot! 
Here are some thoughts from me, after thinking back over this experience:
As expected and hoped, most of my time went into audiobooks. I “read” a whole bunch of books this month, all but one a children’s book, and all but one started this month. I did not dip into any podcasts, as planned, and unfortunately basically didn’t listen to any drama CDs; I would’ve like to. I did end up watching some hours worth of Youtube and anime/TV, which surprised me a bit. I tended to drift to those last two when I was tired and looking for something “easier” to listen to; in reality, they were harder material than the audiobooks I was listening to, and my overall comprehension was never very high. I suppose my brain equate YT and TV in English as a low-energy activity, hence me leaning on those.
I find it amazing I was able to listen to so many hours this month, and humbling that even after 50 hours, I don’t really feel like my general listening abilities improved more than a tiny little bit. My comprehension with individual books did slowly but surely increase quite a bit when listening to that specific book, but I don’t really feel like the benefits have carried over into any new books I started after; it always feels like I’m back at square one.
Back when I was really struggling with intermediate reading, I was highly motivated to keep at it; I enjoy the process of reading as much as the story itself, and there was plenty of material I had my sights set on to one day be good enough to read fluently. I never kept track of my time spent, granted, so it’s difficult to compare to time spent doing listening practice, but I did have a good amount of material I would bounce around and re-read.
Listening, on the other hand… So far, my feelings sum up to this: I enjoy being able to listen things and experience the content, but I feel very little motivation to actually put in the hours needed to reach that point. I’ll put on an audiobook, TV show, etc., and all I can think is, “I’m bored”. 
Those moments when I realize I can listen to a chapter of something and understand the vast majority of it are awesome, but with nothing to pull me forward, I’m not sure how to best continue the learning process. My current daily life isn’t really structured around time that’s easy to insert listening into, and I honestly don’t have any enthusiasm to listen to twenty minute sessions of whatever; unless my attention is 110% focused on that twenty minute session, I end up feeling like nothing got accomplished. I’d prefer longer sessions with increased focus, but doing that during this challenge has shown me how difficult it is, for a variety of reasons.
So like I said, I’m not really sure what to do past this point. I think part of it is just brain exhaustion. This has been waaaay more listening input than I normally do, haha, and this last week especially has been a push to make the deadline. It’s very possible and likely I do the challenge again in October (or whenever); I guess it’s the short term in-between that I’m not really sure how to handle. Consistency is key, as they say, but I don’t really want to re-arrange my daily schedule to scoot that in, honestly.
Anyway, I’ve just been chewing over this and wanted to get it off my chest. Despite the tone of my preceding paragraphs, I’ve really enjoyed doing this challenge with you all, and even if the effects are hard to pin a number to, I’m sure that these past fifty hours were definitely not wasted. I hope I can one day reach a point where I can just pick up whatever to listen to and be able to enjoy it without issue.
I’m sure the hours aren’t wasted and are having impacts you just have trouble seeing. I also think that your improvement in the one book would likely translate to improvement in similar level/content books.
Perhaps it may be easier to quantify over longer time periods if you stick to a consistent (but smaller) listening target. After 100 more hours (so…~3 ish months if you do 30 hours/month) is the book that feels hard now not so bad?
It’s also possible that listening just isn’t your priority right now, because it sounds like most audible content just doesn’t enthuse you as much as books which is fine. Unless I’m mistaken your reason for learning is the same as mine which is to say ‘for shits and giggles’ so improving an area via methods that make you unhappy makes no sense at all 
Ah, thank you for the kind words, cat!
Hmmm, that’s a good thought. Could be fun too to pick a specific book as the progress check; I feel like if I’m only listening to it once every couple of months, that should probably keep me from unintentionally tilting the comprehension in my favor through accidental memorization of what’s going on.
I’ll need to ponder long and hard how many hours I’d like to set my next listening challenge to. 30 hours is about an hour per day, which sounds nice after 1.6 per day, at least.
Yep, that’s pretty much it! I suppose reason-wise my biggest two right now are the possibility of understanding people talking when I can visit Japan again, maybe in the next year or two, and being able to more enjoy the movies and TV shows we’ll watch on Sundays, but both of those goals are pretty low-key for me.
That method problem is my biggest issue for sure for now; this past month has been a good way to try out a couple of different techniques and scenarios for getting in listening practice, so if nothing else I have a better understanding of what does and doesn’t work for me.
I think listening is like the hardest skill to actually quantify improvement in. I’m sure the 50 hours have done something for you, it just might not be very obvious. I’ve done (almost) 40 hours over the last 2 months and I’ve definitely had a lot of thoughts like ‘nothing’s even changed even though I did all this listening.’ But then, I’ve noticed some positives too, like when there’s accidental synchronicity between my listening and reading material (I learn a word from reading and suddenly it’s in my podcast, etc).
Yeah, if you don’t enjoy listening to begin with - i.e. are used to put on an audiobook/podcast while walking/doing chores/crafting - or use stuff like youtube or netflix as a wind-down tool after work, it’s difficult to make it work. But if you do, then you get so much listening done, that listening even ends up being stronger than reading. 
I really should focus on reading but my brain is like “but listening is so comfortable”. 
We have problems on the opposite side of the spectrum. Combined we’d make the ulitmate Japanese learner.
1:45, 35.6/35 hours
I had a feeling I was going to get this done today, and then I was feeling kinda down this afternoon in a way that I knew a Miyazaki film could fix and decided to watch Spirited Away to take me over the line*.
I haven’t quite decided what I’m doing tomorrow. I’m invested enough in the anime that I’ve been watching that I’m sure I’ll watch an episode or two, but I’m far enough from a bigger stretch goal that I probably won’t bother making a big push.
I knew when I started the movie that there was no universe I was going to count the full runtime since there’s so much time spent being atmospheric with no one talking. I considered just cutting the runtime in half except I know I could Do It Correctly™ and instead downloaded the subtitle file and did some annoying data munging to get the actual duration of time subtitles appear on the screen. It came out to a whole 40 mins out of 2 hours.
I’d be interested to do something like this for other sources, but to do something like a tv show would require data processing of multiple files instead of just one and then we’re talking writing code and that sounds like work…
But given how little actual dialogue was in the movie I’m actually starting to wonder if my 18 mins for an anime episode estimate is still too generous…
PSA: Spirited Away is not a level 23 film. There’s no universe where it’s easier than Dragon Ball. I think way too many people have seen it in English/with subs and are remembering what happens when they don’t understand the dialogue.
I can relate. I usually watch Japanese stuff every day, but it isn’t studying, it‘s recreation. Nonetheless August was my worst month this year, with just 40 hours, well it‘s kind of my slump month. Therefore I didn’t take part in the challenge, this tends to turn recreation into work, which in itself makes the slump take even longer.
Man, from my perspective you always seem to be reading something! Even if it’s just little chunks each time, I’m always impressed with your consistency!
I really don’t. (and this was a strong month, because the listening challenge actually also made me read more, paradoxically. ) And on days where I do it’s often just 10-20 minutes if that. 
I try for a couple of hours on the weekend but it’s almost 4 pm here and I haven’t done anything in JP but almost read a complete book in EN. 
Eh, I don’t consider learning another language any kind of good reason not to keep reading in other languages. Do what makes you happy!
Sadly this ended in failure for me. I got down with a cold these two last days.
So as posted per August Listening Challenge 👂 - #164 by Megumin, I ended with 17.5h/20h
I read a LN physically for the first time this month (and finished the last 50 pages in a day–probably the most Japanese I’ve read in one day before) bc of the challenge. I imagine my manga reading was also way up (haven’t looked yet). I’m not sure if that was challenge related, but probably a knock on effect of the challenge making Japanese my default recreation when my partner and I weren’t watching TV together. So same 
That’s still 17 and a half hours of Japanese listening 
It’s still pretty damn good, especially if you’ve had days you’ve not been feeling well.
Lol I literally wrote some code yesterday to analyze folders of subtitle files. Different goals though, I was looking to gauge density by characters shown per min instead of aggregate time shown on screen.
Sorry for polluting the thread but I felt the coincidence was too strong.
Bumper final day for me.
京都寺町三条のホームズ | L29 - 32% complete: 50 minutes.
Should be on week 5 by tomorrow. I think I’ll be able to catch up to the bookclub within a week if I can keep my focus… 
Shinobi Japanese app: 0 minutes (app wouldn’t work for me today) 
Podcasts: 30 minutes
Started a VN with Japanese audio: 3 hours 40
Total: 5 hours
So was it worth it?
For me, 100% yes. I don’t usually spend much time on listening, so this has been a great challenge for me. I’ve found that I really enjoy listening, despite being fairly bad at it. I also think my Japanese Skype conversations have improved (but this might be wishful thinking )
However, as is my way, I’ve thrown myself into it at the expense of neglecting my reading, writing, speaking and grammar study. Through pure chance, I’ve also not seen my Japanese teacher for 3 weeks - so no homework too. So I’ll aim for 30 hours next month and try to balance it with other disciplines.
Thanks all for the insights into what you’ve been listening to and the daily updates - it’s been fun.
See you on the September challenge.
So, got 1.5 hours done and now I’m crossing over the finish line on the last day! 80/80 hours complete! 
That was a real challenge!
It’s been such a blast logging with all of you and reading what everyone’s doing. I especially appreciated reading all the little struggles and victories we had throughout the month. It’s so great that we have a little community here and can cheer each other on. 
I’ve done a few of these listening challenges before just on my own (it’s less fun doing it solo), including a year long one of 500 hours as I mentioned before in this thread, so I am starting to feel “experienced” when it comes to pacing myself and looking for the small . Being an advanced learner is kind of weird because the path to improvement gets less and less obvious and requires more and more focus on specific niche things, so it’s kind of easy to be like eh good enough. But!! I want to keep learning and improving, so the challenge this month was a good chance for me to push hard looking for little things I could focus on. Here are some little realizations I had this month while doing all that listening:
I should pay more attention to pitch accent and diphthongs
The most useful thing listening does for me right now is to teach me the difference between the way I hear words in my head when I just read them, and the way they’re actually pronounced. Sometimes things are slightly different, especially words that have rising intonation, or seem like they should have a rising intonation but are actually falling. One word that stuck out to me this month was 調整, which is actually ちょ↑うせい and sounds different than the mental image I had of it. Likewise 給料 seems like it should be heiban since it’s a double kanji compound but it’s きゅ↓うりょう！
I’m not really super strong when it comes to pitch accent (obviously, since I am super into reading instead 
) but I think it’s good for me to pay attention where I can and really listen to words.
Another thing is words such as 今や - I always read this in my head like いま・や, but because of the glide y sound it is closer to いまいや when saying it quickly. I think it’s good for me to pay attention to words like that and try to internalize those sound changes over time and become aware of them because 1) it’ll help me read faster and 2) pronouncing things wrong like that could lead to miscommunications.
I should shadow more
I did a couple hours of shadowing this month (as opposed to like, the zero hours I normally do) and it was really interesting! In order to match the accent of the narrator, I had to use my soft palate and nasal cavity more than I think I usually am when I talk to people in Japanese so it was kind of eye opening. I could maybe articulate further back in my mouth, and my あ vowel sound is possibly not low enough. And on a not phonetics related note, pronouncing anything in the passive or causative with られる is HARD and like a tongue twister at full speed. I think I will keep casually shadowing when the mood strikes to see what gains I can get from it.
Listening on my commute into the office works well but listening on the way home is not as effective
This is easy. I’m more focused in the morning for sure. On the way home I’m often distracted and still wound up from work, so the listening practice I get is lower quality. I think I’ll try to only do audiobooks in the morning from now on and just listen to music when I go home. Commuting into work + the time when I get ready in the morning and do my hair and makeup (being a high maintenance girly turns out to be great for getting your Japanese listening hours in💅🏻) will still net me a solid chunk of time each day that’s easy to fit into my schedule!
Listening is the best way for me to become able to talk about my job in Japanese vs. just reading
I watched a few YouTube videos + and listened to some audiobooks related to my job this month and I feel like I internalized the vocabulary way better than when I read books related to my job in the past. During the month, I had lunch with some Japanese acquaintances and felt very confident explaining what I do for work, and I’m positive it’s from the listening vs. reading. As a caveat, I’ve read several books about my profession before so I had a base amount of vocabulary that made it easier for me to acquire new words from listening.
My favorite things I learned that are job related:
過小評価 - to underestimate
The pitch accent for the online whiteboard tool “Miro” is み↓ろ - and I had a lightbulb moment that the name sounds like Japanese (is it Japanese I wonder? )
Older books aren’t so hard when you listen to them
I listened to some 太宰治、谷崎潤一郎、and 芥川龍之介 and I felt like listening was easier and faster than just reading! I think going forward I’ll always try to do audio alongside text if possible when it comes to older stuff. A lot of the kanji use in books like that is archaic, but the words themselves aren’t actually hard or different, so it’s a great way to learn to associate a sound with kanji.
Ummmm ok thank you for coming to my TED talk. I will see you all in the September thread!
Challenge summary
Total time: 13:26/50 hr (27%)
Aug 16, Fri: Uyghur (46 min)
Aug 17, Sat: Carcinization (12 min)
Aug 18, Sun: Japan visa for Chinese people (22 min) + るろうに剣心 S2E12 (23 min)
Aug 19, Mon: るろうに剣心 S2E13 (23 min)
Aug 20, Tue: るろうに剣心 S2E14 (23 min)
Aug 21, Wed: るろうに剣心 S2E15-16 (46 min) + むいむいKanji (12 min)
Aug 22, Thu: るろうに剣心 S2E17 (23 min)
Aug 23, Fri: るろうに剣心 S2E18 (23 min)
Aug 24, Sat: るろうに剣心 S2E19-21 (69 min)
Aug 25, Sun: Utada Hikaru (18 min) + プリン (12 min) + るろうに剣心 S2E22 (23 min)
Aug 26, Mon: Dramas (39 min) + るろうに剣心 S2E23 (23 min)
Aug 27, Tue: Foreigners chat what lang? (14 min)
Aug 28, Wed: むいむい Wikipedia (21 min) + るろうに剣心 S2E24 (23 min)
Aug 30, Fri: Vietnam border (26 min)
Aug 31, Sat: るろうに剣心 S2E25-26 (46 min)
In the latter half of the month, I did have e-learning videos – Zoom recordings of old lectures (and I didn’t finish yet), but I still had free time for change of pace and language listening.
But I didn’t easily touch 50 hours with that pace of listening. Maybe I’d get closer if I find anime easier to listen to. I had found JP sub (on 
) and sub ON with decreased visibility, but then I regretted after 5 episodes (about 2 hours), so now back to sub OFF.
I am probably not going to join September Challenge due to both of being an off-month in WK challenge and that I am not supposed to focus too much on language learning, but rather my job. I would consider about Nov, etc., though.
