Oh, it’s been a while…Wed 17th - Sat 26th (9 days)
Audiobook: レンタルロボット | L18 = 0.8 hours
Podcast: Bite Sized Japanese = 1 hour
Anime:
= 1.3 hours
YouTube - various, including a nice play through of Melty Amethyst = 0.9 hours
TV: Nothing!
Movie: すずめの戸締まり | L28 = 0.6 hours
Game: Lots more “Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth” cut scenes = 2 hours
Total: 6.6 hours
Day 26:
2 and a half hours of listening to Japanese with Shun episodes.
I find I’m picking up more words I recognise as I’m listening but not sure if that’s from the listening, the reading or the progress in the textbooks again recently.
Some of these episodes I’m finding a bit easy but others I’m finding still difficult. I think that’s due to the topics as they are quite varied and some of them I’m not understanding because I don’t know the important vocabulary.
Total for today: 2h 30m
tl;dr I’m at about 20 hours and no way I’m making my goal this month.
Y’all. I’m so behind.
I don’t know that I burned out of listening, exactly, but more that I’ve found that I’ve been able to comfortably read a bunch of manga that I’ve been waiting to read for a long time now and that just feels like a better use of my time.
I’m still watching a bunch of simulcast anime and have a few series I’ve been watching when there’s no new episodes to watch. But mostly I’ve been spending my time reading a ton of manga. And I’m not sad about it 
I’m at just under 20 hours watched and I don’t think I’m going to make it to 31 by the end of the month at this rate.
I did, however, discount 30 minute tv shows by another 2 minutes this month based on the code I have for measuring how much time is elapsed when subtitles appear on screen. I might have an extra half an hour I’ve lost from last month with that (but it’s not nearly enough to bring my listening hours as much as it was last month).
I feel that, the desire to do stuff just comes in unpredictable waves doesn’t it? 
98 hours now. Going to finish 恋愛ドラマな恋がしたい S3 despite it being boring to me, have to finish by 10/31 or it goes off netflix. Started 侵略！イカ娘 S2 and this is fun as usual. リトルウィッチアカデミア S1 is surprisingly tough for a kids show. Finished ぐでたま 〜母をたずねてどんくらい〜 S1 up at last.
In other news, did ONE PIECE FAN LETTER - and added it the site. Simple, interesting, but something only for those who are far into One Piece (New World). Also did ONE PIECE FILM RED which goes with the manga I just read. For some reason they did not translate the runes in the song. No spoilers from me!
Totally! And I’m trying to remember that this is my hobby so if something isn’t fun (or is less fun than something else) I don’t have to do it.
Totally understandable. I find that I enjoy things better when I switch things up a bit. So last month I read a lot more than I did this month. Maybe reading is what you need this month because you’re enjoying more.
I am starting to feel burned out on listening this month so next month I’ll switch it up a bit and do something different.
Any interaction with something in Japanese is helping you towards your ultimate goal. As long as you’re enjoying what you’re doing, it’s progress 
I came here to say the opposite!
I’ve been feeling some low level stress - there’s always something I’m falling behind on…tv series, audiobooks, podcasts, anime, games, book clubs, apps, etc…
I counted up how many things I’m actively trying to complete on a daily basis and it came to 19! That’s not including the pile of physical books and other “it would be nice to get back to that one” shows.
So I’m aiming to focus on just a few things every day for the next month.
Sunday 27th Oct
A daily update!
Podcasts
Bite sized Japanese - 0.9 hours
YouTube
Melty Amethyst - 0.5 hours
I’m finding this one easy and fun - maybe a L19 level?
Total - 1.4 hours
November listening challenge is open for sign ups. I can tell some people are feeling a bit worn down by the challenge - feel free to set lower numbers for next month! It should be what is reasonable for you. It also doesn’t need to be every single day (I explicitly avoided an ‘every day’ type challenge) so if listening fits your schedule M/W/F/Su then do that, or whatever else works for you
Day 27:
Watched 22/ 26 episodes of Tales of Zestria the X (Cross) (episode 0 to 21, 25m per episode, 9h 10m) split across today. I could have managed the last 4 but that would leave no time for me to get my textbook chapter done or a little reading in, so will just watch the last 4 episodes tomorrow.
I managed to catch most of the short conversations so far and the parts about next episode (though those had JP subs kind of like the in-game skits). I’ll definitely need another watch through at a later point though as the longer parts were more difficult to follow just by listening.
I do feel that I’m picking up the words correctly but it’s still taking me too long to get the meaning of them before the rest start filtering through. By then I’ve lost the meaning of the rest of the sentence. Maybe some practice figuring out longer sentences might help or maybe some shadowing.
I am recognising more of the grammar though so picking up on that at least which is still an improvement on previously, especially with the new grammar that I was struggling with previously. Unfortunately that’s only left me with a little time today for textbook stuff and very little for reading otherwise, but I now want to go play both Zestria and Berseria again.
Total for today: 9h 10m
If I thought about all the things separately I have unfinished or that I want to get done, my anxiety would cripple me (and that’s just the books list, not to mention games, other hobbies etc 
).
I have a great respect for anyone that can do so many things in the one day. I always feel like there aren’t enough hours to get done what I want to (today was a chillout day for me which is why I could spend so much time on Japanese) and I always feel that I fall short in what I’m doing.
Watched several more episodes of Cardcaptors with Japanese subs this weekend! I’ve figured out that if I watch 2 episodes in a row, I hit my brain-soup point about 98% of the way through the second episode, but I can also feel it getting less taxing as I go and get used to how all of the characters speak. It’s nice to be able to clearly see where my limit is, but also feel confident that my stamina will improve if I keep at it (':
I had a bit of an aha! moment chatting with my sister yesterday, because the way she talked about “watching Youtube” made me realize that probably the reason I’ve had such a frustrating time finding suitable content on Youtube and Twitch is because I don’t engage with those platforms in the way they’re meant to be watched. The whole concept of “watching Youtube” at all, like it’s a TV channel or something, is crazy to me I only go to Youtube if I’m looking for something specific, and then I search that thing, find my video, and leave – whereas curating a feed of personalized recommendations and subscriptions is probably the only effective way to serve a vague search scope like “Japanese listening content I don’t hate”. Figuring that out makes my failure to find content make more sense and I’m less mad at myself for it now, but I still haven’t decided if that means I should just give up on Youtube/Twitch altogether (tempting) or sell my soul and attention span to The Algorithm on the off-chance I get something worthwhile (much less tempting).
I’ve already sold my soul to the Japanese YouTube algorithm so if there are topics you know you like let me know and I may have recommendations (or someone else here may)
I watch a lot of edutainment in English (sci show, PBS channels, technology connections, practical engineering, etc), but I haven’t found anything like that in Japanese yet…
Clicking through my sub list these look to fall in the edutainment space:
)Oh bonus, this probably hasn’t been updated recently, but I remembered I made a post about youtube channels sometime ago:
quick update since this challenge is coming to an end, and i don’t want to forget to add what little I have managed lately:
1 podcast episode - 7’
Part of a video- 21’30
total: 28’30
Not sure if this would be of any help. Depending on your level, NHK for school app (free) has a lot of stuff like that. I was using it for the nature documentaries but from what I’ve seen it’s short videos and covers a variety of different topics.
I didn’t bother posting last week, but I’m currently a little over 8 hours now. I tried every Korean cartoon I have access to and settled on Bubblegem. The art style is quite cute, the level is manageable, and netflix has it. So I watched four episodes of that.
I don’t think anything else has changed content wise. I do think it’s improving, but recognizing the sounds is still quite difficult for me. I can read and understand a Korean subtitle, play the sentence again, and still feel like I’ve never heard any of those words before.
Thanks so much for the offer! Unfortunately I don’t engage with much of any content, in any medium, in any language, period, so I don’t even know what kind of topics I would enjoy watching videos about It’s why my challenge for this month was just to find SOMETHING I can listen to, because I have no idea what I like or what’s out there.
Besides just stubbornly not wanting to let The Algorithm win, I hesitate to dive into Youtube because trying to tune my recommendations at the same time that I’m trial-and-error learning how to Consume Content like a real user is inevitably going to get me a lot of crap I don’t want to see, which will discourage me from trying to find stuff there even more than I am now. I do have a Japanese-only account that I optimistically set up way back, but I almost never use it because it feels like I can only watch videos that I’ve already vetted as enjoyable on it, or else I’ll end up with garbage recommendations that will keep me away anyway.
Day 28:
Watched the last 4 episodes (1h 40m) of Tales of Zestria the X (Cross). The did change some parts and things did veer off the storyline of the game but not by too much. There wasn’t much about Berseria in it, a bit of an explanation about the storyline from it in a nutshell as well as the part right at the start of Berseria that shows a little about who that main character is.
I also watched more Terraced house: Boys and Girls in the City (10 episodes, 4h 57m). Again noticing more of the grammar and I’ve started being able to understand more complex grammar as long as the sentences are short-ish.
Total for today: 6h 37m
