🗾🌸🚅March ⛩️🍜🍱🛫
Logged* count
| Total pages |
1,398 |
| Manga |
981 |
| Book |
417 |
| Total listening hours |
16 |
| Audiobook |
5 |
| Podcast |
2 |
| TV |
9 |
I both heard and spoke so much more Japanese over two weeks than I do probably in 3 months at home, but how do you log “overhearing people’s conversation walking down the street”, “reading the scrolling text on the shinkansen”, or “browsing shelves at Book Off”? I also watched a fair bit of TV in hotel rooms that I didn’t bother tracking, and also didn’t bother tracking when I met up with friends and chatted with them. I did track TV episodes on streaming sties and things I read when I was there (but it wasn’t a lot since I had other priorities). So, apologies to March, bc it will probably be my biggest Japanese month of the year but it won’t reflect it in the numbers 
I’ve remembered one of the problems I have with Terrace House is that I feel too much empathy for the people and sometimes I need a break from it. 
So I haven’t been watching much of that last week. I did pick up some new seasonal anime that I wrote up in the watching thread.
I also started ひいきびいき this week. It’s harder than 4989 for sure, but honestly a big part of that is just the audio levels… I usually listen to podcasts in the car and not with headphones so I miss some things and I’m having to turn it way up and then way back down when they are laughing. I’m hoping that they upgrade equipment/setup at some point, but with some hundreds of episodes I imagine it won’t be soon 
Other than that, it’s a pretty enjoyable listen so far. It’s just two people talking about things they are interested in. It not having a ton of substance is both helpful for when I lose them for a bit, or when I realize I’ve been zoning out and I come back it only takes a few seconds to figure out what they’re talking about.
Something I kinda noticed before I left, but I’m definitely starting to feel now is I’m starting to wonder if I’m approaching the fabled “escape velocity” part of language learning that I’ve heard about where everything is fun again and you just can pick things up because you’re interested in it and not because it’s going to improve your language skills.
Of course, this is only happening for me in listening. Reading still feels like a huge chore, although I have also felt some improvements here as well. Only a few months ago I was avoiding manga above around level 22, but right now I’m reading NANA―ナナ― | L28 and ダンダダン | L26 without much trouble (a lot of lookups, sure, but no real difficulties in understanding). Nana is techincally a re-read (and I’ve seen some of the anime too) and I watched ダンダダン in the fall, so they’re not totally new to me, but I think a year ago both would be so much of a struggle that I wouldn’t enjoy them.
To help address my “reading issues”, I’m continuing with my plan of reading with audiobooks, and I played around with a bunch of TTS and have settled on ElevenLabs with Natural Reader as a back up.
TTS details for nerds
ElevenLabs
The TTS voice is great but afaict there’s ONE Japanese voice, which is frustrating. I don’t need 15 voices with different accents and styles, but even a male and a female voice would be nice. It also is the only one of my top three that has a pay as you go model. It was the one I tested last, so I haven’t been using its TTS much but it looks like maybe I’ll hit the free quotas quickly. They’re cagey about pricing too, so we’ll see how it goes and depending on prices I’ll either pay them a bit or use Natural Reader when my free credits expires.
Natural Reader and Speechify are both yearly subscription models, and both are above $100/year.
Speechify had the better voices imo, but none of the Japanese voices are premium voices. You also can’t download audio to listen offline in Japanese, and just generally they have a lot less on their free program.
The Natural Reader voices are fine. Not computery at all, but it does (ironically) have the least natural intonation. It’s the one I’ve noticed has the most kanji misreadings, feels less aware of text formatting, and will read things that other TTS wouldn’t. I wouldn’t pay for them, but their free features are good as a backup for ElevenLabs
Honorable mention: ReadEra Android app
It somehow has access to the better tts voices on my phone than Kindle and Google Books seem to, for whatever reason (probably bc they both want to sell me audiobooks), but it’s still really computery. I’d love to just buy a high(er) quality voice for $20-50 and have that get me through until I’m less dependent on TTS, but I couldn’t really find a lot of information on that, and the few I found were only Eurpoean languages. What I really want is the Yamanote line’s TTS
At the end of the day, I don’t really want to rely on TTS much/at all, but it’s much better with the high quality voices and I am reading more with it than without. My assumption is that the more I read the faster it will be until I’m ready to read without the aid of audio. So far that theory has felt true, and I’ve found some scholarly research to support my intuition.
Reading without audiobooks still feels like pulling out my fingernails, but level 25+ manga also felt that way only a few months back so I’m going to Trust the Process™ and enjoy the fun I’m having.
GI Joeeee
