Listening Practice

こんにちは！

I've been spending way too much time practicing listening recently. Listening is the most enjoyable of langauge skills, in my opinion. However, I am one of the few aural learners--students who prefer to learn via listening. Most students are visual learners (Felder & Solomon). Although this theory is currently being debated. Nonetheless--I have a natural affinity to sound...Maybe I should really get into phonology...

When learning Chinese, I focused on the lyrics of artists like Faye Wong, Karen Mok, and Tanya Chua. Hopefully, you can see why I enjoyed their music so.

I have also been a huge fan of the Korean rock band Jaurim.

But I sadly know nothing about Japanese music--PLEASE help! Give some links and suggestions in the comments section.

In the meantime, I am going back to a childhood love--anime. If you want to really listen to people talk in Japanese, this is an enjoyable way to do it. I currently suggest the site: http://www.crunchyroll.com

I've already completed all the episodes for 進撃の巨人 (Attack on Titan) and 魔法少女まどか☆マギカ (Puella Magi Madoka Magica). I am also very near to finishing ソードアート・オンライン (Sword Art Online). I would highly suggest these to anyone who prefers darker and thoughtful fiction, and Sword Art Online really hits me in my aging geek heart--as someone who was a level 50 Paladin on an old MUD (MultiUser Dungeon), circa 1996--I can relate to the MMO theme. Any other suggestions along these lines would be greatly appreciated. Sadly, I can only find カウボーイビバップ (Cowboy Bebop) and 黒の契約者 (Darker than Black) in English dubbed versions--which does not help me with my listening ability.

One lesson I have quickly garnered from this enjoyable form of studying is that the canned reply そですか ("Is that so?") has a wide range of variation. Often, I noted the use being more similar to そで or even そだ (the vowel is reduced in quality, similar to a schwa sound /ə/). Also, other times, I notice that the characters only say そか. I have yet to hear the full reply. One day I hope to perform a pragmatic/discourse analysis of this phrase and its usage.

Until then, さよなら！