August Listening Challenge 👂

All Languages
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I had the urge to start watching カードキャプターさくら S1 | L20 again, and I don’t need subs for it (… and it left Netflix anyway and no jp subs on Crunchyroll) so I guess I’m in as well. I’ll try and do 5 episodes a week so… let’s say 10 hours for me.

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:handshake:

I think I have come across them because of you. Love them.

Welcome, welcome. The more, the merrier. :smiling_face:

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Started listening to my next book, ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 1 | L23. Seems to be an okay level; like アリス＆ペンギン, there are chunks where I’m not sure what’s going on, but chunks that I’m able to follow relatively well. Finished the first chapter, so:

Today’s Total: 29 min, 30 sec

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I listened to 3 more chapters today. The グーテンベルク仲間 scene was hilarious :joy:

Volume Progress %
5 ■■■■■■■■■■ 100%
6 ■■■■■□□□□□ 51%
7 □□□□□□□□□□ 0%
Total ■■■□□□□□□□ 37%
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Started listening to this yesterday and am now close to 2 hours.

Also listening to this: 失敗図鑑 すごい人ほどダメだった! | L25 will add the time when I am done.

Edit:
Watched this:

30 minutes

15 minutes

Status: 7:00/50

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Oh I have that too and was considering listening to it. Let me know what you think of it!

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If you like people related history, you might enjoy it. It’s aimed at kids, so it’s not very deep, but it’s a decent listening experience. :smiling_face:

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Another one shamelessly stealing the template from eefara and Biblio :blush:

I’ve been lurking for a few days and I’ve decided to commit to the challenge. I’m going for 50 hours of Japanese. I plan to mainly listen to YouTube/podcasts (repeatedly) and TV shows and Anime.

Time Goal: 50 hours

Log

Youtube

Youtube:
The Bite size Japanese Podcast
Comprehensible Japanese

TV/Movie/Anime

TV/Movie/Anime:
斉木楠雄のΨ難 S1 | L29

Just remembered to add my time for 1 -3 Aug. :sweat_smile:

  • :heavy_check_mark: : I listened that day, but didn’t hit the ~96 min. needed to fulfill the daily average.
  • :100: : I listened to 96+ min. that day.
:sound: Aug :sound:
月 火 水 木 金 土 日
01[:100:] 02[:100:] 03[:heavy_check_mark:] 04[:100:]
05[:100:] 06[:100:] 07[:heavy_check_mark:] 08[:100:] 09[:100:] 10[:100:] 11[:100:]
12[:100:] 13[:100:] 14[:100:] 15[:100:] 16[:100:] 17[:100:] 18[:100:]
19[:100:] 20[:100:] 21[:100:] 22[:100:] 23[:100:] 24[:100:] 25[:heavy_check_mark:]
26[:100:] 27[:100:] 28[:100:] 29[:heavy_check_mark:] 30[:heavy_check_mark:] 31[:100:]
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I’m a little surprised at how many new people are joining now that August is here. I wonder how many people will be here by the end.

I’ve been watching about an episode a day of 僕の心のヤバイやつ S1 | L24 and 見える子ちゃん S1 | L26 as well as a couple episodes of ドラゴンボール S1 | L24 every day so far. Planning on finishing ハリー・ポッター シリーズ | L28-31 this weekend too.

I also tried watching ガンスミスキャッツ | L24 but as soon as they started talking about plot I got completely lost. Since I don’t have any subs to fall back on with this show I am going to have to stop watching for now. It sucks because I really liked the first couple of minutes and wanted to continue. I imagine that I’ll have to watch/read some simple detective stories to pick up some of the vocab that I need for this show before I can come back to it.

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Day 3:

Managed to listen to just over an hours worth today.

Another 4 episodes of Japanese with Shun, 4 short stories and 肉屋おうむ. The podcasts are around 10 minutes each now, the short stories are relatively short in comparison and then 肉屋おうむ was just over 15 minutes. Needless to say, it’s the one I understand very little of, not because of the length, but because it’s spoken at natural speed (with no way for me to slow it on the iPad) and it’s harder difficulty than I’m used to (probably around Lv 34 or higher). :sweat_smile:

I am finding it difficult now to keep up motivation for this especially after listening and talking in English all day but maybe that will be easier now I’m on holiday for a week. :thinking: I think I will have a better reception with it by splitting it up over the day instead of cramming it once I’m finished work.

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I hope your holiday is as conducive to your listening as my trip has been. I’m either stuck on transport for long periods, or I’m so exhausted from whatever I did that day that I just want to close my eyes and relax for a while. It usually takes me a lot longer to get through an audiobook. Really, all my progress so far is thanks to motion sickness and exhaustion :joy:
Enjoy your holiday!

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A little over 3 hours today.

A decent chunk of ノーマンズランド during a walk. So far I honestly am having trouble staying engaged in the book. There are too many characters that I think I’m supposed to already know. I walked in thinking this was a ‘case of the week’ series but then they dropped spoilers for the first book in the series, whoops. And it seems like there has been character development and tension and I just jumped in midway through all that :upside_down_face: I don’t mind it, but it’s making the police scenes harder because I simply keep forgetting who is who.

I also watched some youtube - I am trying to clear out my Watch Later list and I found some gems.

First one was this video which, content warning, is about the ジャニーズ scandal which broke…a year ago, maybe? The person in the video seems to be a Michael Jackson impersonator now, but was a part of Johnny’s Junior back in the 80s.

The other video I found interesting was this one:

Which is a youtube “紙芝居” paired with a first person narrative short sci-fi story. It wasn’t the most unique story (this particular theme is common in sci-fi) but I enjoyed it all the same.

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August 3rd - 3.5 hours :+1:t2:

イン・ザ・プール | L31 - 1 hr

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?? - 40 mins

聴く日経 (daily Nikkei news clip on the audiobook.jp app) - 20 mins

斜陽 | L38 - 1.5 hrs

—————————

I finished イン・ザ・プール today. It was an entertaining way to spend a few hours for sure. I think I would have enjoyed this less if I read it in book form, but the voice acting was really good and captured the spirit of the characters perfectly imo. My internal dialogue can’t compete!

I listen to the 聴く日経 economic news on the audiobook.jp app pretty frequently because it’s front and center on the app and therefore easy to put on. I find it pretty hard, though. It’s definitely one of the most challenging things I regularly interact with in Japanese. :thinking: A huge range of vocab gets used depending on what the news is and a lot of large sums of yen are read out (does anyone else’s mind just go blank when hearing huge numbers in Japanese lol).

I’m already about a third of the way into 斜陽 | L38 and oh my. :pleading_face: How did he manage to write like that… very, very good so far.

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Thanks, it’s mostly just for a break from work but I do plan to get more listening and studying in.

Motion sickness is the worst. I used to use Seaband acupressure wrist bands or GinGins (ginger hard boiled sweets) to help. I used to get it on all transport including bicycle :sweat_smile: I hope it doesn’t get too bad for you.

I’ve been enjoying the listening so far but do feel I zone out at times if it’s just audio, maybe I should switch it up with an episode or series of an easyish anime.

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August 4th:

Youtube:

00:25

00:15

00:15

00:10

00:20

00:15

0:20

Various videos about cheap chargers. :sweat_smile:

~00:30

Audiobook:
失敗図鑑 すごい人ほどダメだった! | L25 4:45

Status: 14:15/50

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4 hours 20 so far today :sweat_smile:

I’m sure there are diminishing returns but it’s good to get some hours banked for busy days.

Podcasts:
The Bite size Japanese Podcast - same episode 5 times
Japanese with Shun - random episodes

Anime

Looking forward to clicking on a few of the videos from the posts above :smile:

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Day 4:

This morning, I decided to try listening/ watching かぐや姫 to see how much I could understand, and it wasn’t much. Still more than I could originally, but I’ll need to revisit it when I’m better at listening.

In addition to this, I managed to listen to a few more episodes of Japanese with Shun this afternoon, which are relatively easy enough for me, a few words I need to check in each episode though I think listening to them several times in one sitting may be a better way for me to study them, rather than several times across several sittings.

I also managed to listen to a few more of the short stories early evening, I feel I may get more from these by listening, reading then re-listening to them. Will see how I feel after the next few days when I will have finished that book. I might revisit them again before moving to the next one.

Plan for tomorrow will be to continue with the podcasts and short stories, though I think I will try intensive listening, and also watch ハウルの動く城 since I haven’t watched it in a while and I know it’s closer to my level so more comprehensible input. :slightly_smiling_face:
Spreading it out over the day has helped a bit with motivation for me.

Edit for times: 66 minutes on podcasts and short stories, and 2 hours 17 on かぐや姫 though obviously not all of that is speaking.

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I am still in awe about your persistance. I cannot stay concentrated on the same thing. I must really love something to re-listen or re-read it. It’s a great learning tool, but it’s not in my arsenal. :sob:

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I’m not as good as I sound.

The books I’ve re-read, textbooks I’ve re-done or the stuff I’ve listened to multiple times are usually all spaced out so I don’t listen to it consecutively. For listening, if it’s short (up to about 10 minutes), I can focus as long as I can understand at least some of it but I lose interest pretty rapidly after that or if I don’t understand much I switch to extensive listening where it mostly just goes in one ear and out the other :sweat_smile:

It only interests me to re-do stuff to see improvement and pick up words I missed first time around. When I finally get to a stage where it’s too easy and I know everything from it, I’ll stop, but for now it’s kind of my version of more interesting SRS since I can’t focus on flash cards.

I think I’ve found recently that my interest isn’t in the actual stories or such, it’s the words and realising my own understanding of them without translating, that’s probably why I can focus when re-doing stuff. Not sure if that makes much sense though :sweat_smile: I’m determined to learn Japanese to the point I can use it fluently regardless of how much I have to go through to get there, so maybe stubbornness is also a part of this :joy:

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Ironically all my hours so far have been anime (ガルクラ - which I’ve already seen 3x :sweat_smile:). I’ve understood like 90-95% of it easily, except for a few specific sections that I also had trouble understanding the last 3x I watched (I’m definitely watching with JP subs next month). Even though I’ve seen it 3x, it’s still helpful doing this… occasionally I catch what was said, but don’t immediately process the full meaning. For the few trouble sections, I tried playing them 2-3x, then put subs on so I could get the words/divisions, and then re-listened a few times to solidify it. So I guess I’ll see how I do next time!

Next up:

  • アニメ
    • ガルクラ 9-13 - 115 min
    • AKB0048 8-13 - 138 min, if I don’t skip OP/ED
  • 声優ラジオ
    • ガルクラジオ 17 + omake - 40 min
    • ささ恋 7-8 + omake - 80 min
  • Audiobooks?? (possible options)
    • SAO 1
    • 天転 1
    • 裏世界ピクニック 1
    • Something easier?

For max benefit, I really should make audiobooks the focus, since they’ll have the highest word density and fastest speech rates… it’s just hard to figure out what’s the right mix of vocab difficulty vs interesting material. 裏世界ピクニック 1 would be helpful in a sense, since it would probly make it easier to (re)read in my weekly lessons.

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