Personally I find this is the case with words in general. If I don’t actually know the word, the chance of me identifying the sounds + morae accurately goes down somewhat.
If ん - Wikipedia is any indication then, nope (also gleam & glean are two pretty different ending consonants)
Glad you’re riding the wave with 僕ヤバ. Curious to know how S2 compares to manga.
Well except in English, n only covers [n] and [ŋ]before k and g: English orthography - Wikipedia
From the ん article, it’s a much wider range of sounds that also includes the English m and the 鼻音に関連した音, which is what both of us have reported trouble hearing.
しかし、実際の発音は次項で述べるように前後の音や速度、話者により、[m]、[n]、[ŋ]、[ɴ]、さらに鼻母音の一部 ([ ̃])、その他にも鼻音に関連した音が用いられる。
While I was looking up IPA stuff, I also went deep down a Wikipedia rabbit hole and found this paper: Production of the utterance-final moraic nasal in Japanese: A real-time MRI study | Journal of the International Phonetic Association | Cambridge Core
The conclusion for their findings is also interesting :
The production of Japanese moraic nasal /N/ can be summarized as follows: It is a nasal segment whose place of articulation is entirely unspecified, as described in some of the literature. The location of vocal tract closure is identical to that of the following consonant if there is one. When there is no following consonant, it is determined by progressive assimilation of the preceding vowel. Speakers raise the tongue so that the highest portion of the tongue in the preceding vowel contacts the palate. If there is neither a preceding vowel nor a following consonant, the place of articulation is left unspecified.
They also had a section that was talking about a future paper that said that あ was the only vowel that was deterministic about where the tongue placement goes. I didn’t go so deep down my rabbit hole that I looked that up (but I still might).
I’m still not sure what to do with this information though 
I guess I could try and come up with some minimal pairs of words with nasalized vowels vs regular ones and get some native speakers to say them… but where on earth would I even get people to record those in 2025?
A Japanese friend once pointed me to this video:
What I find very interesting that Japanese are perfectly capable of making these different sounds exactly in the right places, but they (the ones that I met at least) are neither aware of it nor can they distinguish the sounds when listening… 
(But to be fair, in another video this guy points out that it goes both ways https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PTm1-3t2I9Q 
)
There are 2 r and 2 th sounds in English and I don’t think a lot of native speakers realize that until it’s pointed out to them (us, bc I didn’t know it either ), so I imagine this is pretty common across a bunch of languages.
Doesn’t make it any easier to hear the not n/m sounding んs though
April 
| Total Pages | 2,726 |
|---|---|
| Manga | 2,117 |
| Book | 609 |
| Total hours | 45.6 |
|---|---|
| Podcast | 6.2 |
| TV | 16.5 |
| YouTube | 0.4 |
| Audiobook | 22.6 |
I totally blew all of my previous months reading numbers out of the water being obsessed with 僕ヤバ this month. I have 2 more episodes of the anime left (
) and then I’m planning on finishing up the last 3 volumes to catch up to what’s releasing. I think the new volume comes out late next month, so I don’t even have to wait that long (this time) to get more.
I’m still having the feeling that my listening is taking off, especially when I’m listening to audiobooks. I’m now planning on listening to all of the books that I had on my wishlist that have audiobooks under L27 instead of reading along with the audio. I don’t know if this is good or bad, for improving my reading skill/speed, but it’s certainly faster and more enjoyable to listen. Since this is a hobby, damnit, that’s what I’m going to do.
Conversations between people are still harder for me than audiobooks, so I should probably get back to Terrace House | L27 at some point. ひいきびいき is also coming along fine, although I do notice I lose them more than other things I listen to. I think it’s partially because my mind wanders a bit (I usually only listen in the car), and they are also sometimes talking about a store/product that is only in Japan so I’m not even sure what they’re describing at first. I still think it’s good practice since I’m only ever lost for a few seconds at a time, and eventually I’ll want to listen to podcasts with even more speakers who probably talk a lot less clearly. 
Although as far as conversations go, even the 僕ヤバ anime is a bit rough for me from time to time, but so was the manga when I read the sections. I think there’s a lot of slang plus the author writes 市川 to almost always be as terse as possible, so it’s not always super clear what he’s talking about.
I added Quartet 1 to my studies this month as well. I’m wondering if I maybe should have just gotten book 2 since at this point I’m wondering if I’m approaching N2 territory… the readings so far have been easy (although I’m still super slow) and the grammar points are more like clarifications on things I already know. Since I’m a textbook skeptic anyway, maybe it’s better for me to use them to polish rather than learn…
Speaking of N2, I was waffling on whether or not I wanted to take it in July, and I ended up missing the deadline which made the point moot. But the same facility that runs the test is running a mock exam next month and I signed up for that. You take the test as it is run under test conditions with the idea that it gives you an idea of what you need to study, but for me it will just be an interesting data point to see how far away I am from passing. I’m going to rage if I pass the mock test. I think my grammar and kanji are going to be my weak spots, but it will be nice to actually get that theory verified.
Anecdotally I feel like reading along with audiobooks made me faster since I needed to keep up, and then eventually I got faster than some audiobook narrators and I’ll listen/read at 2x speed sometimes fwiw.
I feel like generally speaking it’s re-enforcing the correct readings of words and cadence of sentences (provided it’s not AI voiced) and is a good thing.
I agree that reading along helps for sure. But I’ve gotten to the point where I’m lazy and just want to listen.
Of course, I can’t just listen to higher level books, so I’m trying to make sure I’m reading at least one 26+ with an audiobook at a time. But I’d say at least 3/4 of my Japanese time is now listening while reading or listening only.
You’re making me consider doing this w/ 幼なじみが絶対に負けないラブコメ | L27 since it looks trashy enough that I don’t care if I miss things. I wasn’t planning on reading it otherwise - so good candidate. Really though I need to not start another novel
That’s sorta what I view them for at this point. Polish and/or fill in random gaps… though I tend to do to forget about them pretty quickly (I say as it’s sitting on my kotatsu, right in front of me) 
That’s definitely on my list 
I have some L25/26 to get through first (including the ひろひげ side stories which I couldn’t be bothered to read along to back when I was reading those).
I can get through an audiobook in about 5-10 days (depending on length) even at 1x. I usually don’t bump it up since I’m not giving it 100% of my attention , but sometimes some of the speakers are really slow (or annoying ) and I will.
Quartet has been nice with all of the writing exercises (that I absolutely loathe ), bc I do actually write in Japanese but it’s all in Line messages to friends, which is way different than 300-400 characters essays.
spiderman_pointing.gif
I couldn’t find anything in that range that looked interesting really… I’m too picky I guess
Good luck - lmk if they’re as bad as I expect, I guess? (It’s ひげひろ btw - tho he did start shaving not after picking her up… So technically it works on either direction 
)
Yeah, I don’t do annoying narrators, so respect to you there. Have definitely found myself speeding things up at times tho
Now that I’m getting more into writing, cuz of this pen pal thing, I can definitely see the appeal of the essays. Too much else on my plate rn tho
I was really into the idea of using LINE for a bit… But I barely know anyone who uses it, so it didn’t last
Anyway, enjoy/good luck with the audiobooks
That’s pretty much where I’m at with 本好き right now. For some reason I own the first 12 books and the first 19 audiobooks, so it’s like the perfect series to get that audiobook listening in.
You know, someone here on Natively (@monace, I think?) mentioned wanting to do an “audiothon” (like a readathon, but with listening); I wonder if there’d be interest in setting up a thread for it? Then you could boost your listening statistics even more!
Yessss it would be so much fun to have other people join in!
My idea was to take the next 2 months to build up my listening skills / stamina, and on June 21st (Summer Solstice) have a full day of listening. The challenge could be to listen to as long as possible, or harder level contents, or try to listen to as many different sources as possible (audiobooks, movies, scripted podcasts, unscripted vlogs, maybe listen to a song while trying to understand the lyrics…).
There’s still time, let me know if you would be interested 
I would definitely be interested! I’d just need to figure out how to time it with the WK readathon that weekend.
We could do it the following week, to close the month. The Solstice is just an excuse, I don’t mind changing the date.
I would totally be up for it!
I’ve been meaning to dip my toes into more vlogs and/or vtuber/streamer content, so that would be a good excuse to make that a priority!
Excellent I’ll set up a thread when we get closer to June, and we can vote on the date then.
That lasted all of 5 minutes, just not in the mood for that sort of protagonist. So now I’ve picked up 声優ラジオのウラオモテ #02 夕陽とやすみは諦めきれない? | L28 - which I also wasn’t gonna read before. Thx for the inspiration there
Ugh, I’m in another funk.
I’ve been mostly keeping up with my TV shows and listening to audiobooks when I’m doing stuff around the house, but other than that it’s been a bit rough to get other things done.
I think I’m (thankfully) coming out of it because I read a bit more over the weekend. But I definitely would rather play Blue Prince right now than read a stinky Japanese book
To that end, I decided to productively procrastinate over the weekend and I added the jpdb decks for 黒猫ニャンゴの冒険 | L29 and クラスで2番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった | L27. Which of course shot my reviews up to 300+ and instead of having a panic attack, I just sat down and did them like an adult. It took more than 2 hours. I’m both proud and appalled. Now I’m going through the words with 4+ occurrences and I’ll switch to chronological order when we get closer to club start dates.
I also ended up dropping a bunch of my seasonals. I realized that I was dragging my feet to watch them and if I’m not enjoying shows I shouldn’t be watching them. It doesn’t help that it’s harder for me when things are on Crunchyroll and I’m adding subs and have to figure out timing… If something isn’t great and/or perfectly timed it’s really hard for me to keep with it.
That said, I’m still enjoying #謎解きはディナーのあとで S1 | L31 quite a lot. ざつ旅 -That's Journey- S1 | L24 I ended up dropping to no subs which is usually fine. And honestly I care a lot more about the settings than I do the characters so I’m not even bothered that much when I’m missing things.
In the past I’ve noticed that language funks tend to be correlated with the feeling of growth pretty soon afterwards, so I’m gonna be fingers crossed and just push on through.
It’s come up a few times both here and on the WK forums, but I think a big part of it is that I’m fairly happy with my progress but my reading is so slow that it makes the terrible things I’m reading just so painful to read. I don’t mind reading kids books and/or LN trash if it takes me less than a week to finish. But I struggle at 2+. Which brings about a viscous cycle of starting a bunch of books to find that one that is both perfectly interesting and difficult, not finding it, having a million books in progress and then feeling overwhelmed by the books that I “have” to finish. I should probably just get better at dropping things or having a trial period or whatever would work, but also, have some grace for myself when I don’t. Anyway, hopefully going back to jpdb will decrease my number of lookups per page to speed me along. I have noticed my comfortable reads are more in the 26-28 range these days when only a few months back it was more like 23-25. So the process is working, I’m just impatient af, as usual (afau? 
)
In other news, I started talking lessons. I was pretty pleased with my speaking abilities in Japan in March, considering I wasn’t working on that skill at all the past … decade? So far I’m just doing conversation lessons, but I may consider going through Quartet with a teacher if I can find some who teaches it. What’s shocking is that it’s actually not that hard for me to talk for an hour. I get tripped up and there are times I’m not saying anything close to correctly but my meaning does get across. Honestly, this is a huge win bc outside of university when I had to, I just haven’t focused any energy on speaking.
And on that vaguely upbeat note, I think that’s the end of my rant for the day.
Have you read the books? You may find them more accessible if you’ve seen the show already and might help with being in a funk. The audiobooks are fun and both Audible and Audiobook.jp have them (possibly different versions - not sure without looking).
My worst reading slumps are when I’m forcing myself to finish, or attempting to force myself to finish a book. The result is barely or no reading gets done because I dread that book. Start dropping those coals! They’ll be there for you if you ever decide it’s compelling enough to want to go back
Can you link the deck for クラにか？ It doesn’t come up when I search in English or JP
Mine are at 507 rn, cuz I ignored them for the last week or two that I’ve been on a yuri manga binge. Not sure if I should just abandon, go through them, etc. Most of them are for anime eps… So I guess if I watch them, I can delete the decks
Good call on dropping stuff btw
It doesn’t matter how fast I read, of something’s terrible, my reading speed will drop like a fly. If it’s just mediocre or I have some damn compelling reason, I can kinda survive, but otherwise totally lost cause
Relatable, and congrats
I’d imagine almost any teacher would be willing and able to work with it
