Overview
Continuing from last time.
What I’ve Tried So Far
- Eiken® Grade 1 Deru-jun Pass-Tan (4th Edition)
- I’ve kept up with this as always. I love memorizing vocabulary because you can see your progress so clearly.
- I’m now past the “Frequency A” level.
- Anki.app
- As before, I use this app to work through the above word list.
- NHK Radio Business English (https://www.nhk.jp/p/rs/368315KKP8/list/)
- I’ve been doing dictation → shadowing on the days I can, but I noticed something.
- Monday–Thursday business skits: setting difficulty aside, the content is fictional, so it’s hard to stay interested. My motivation to listen dropped, so I stopped doing dictation and shadowing.
- Friday interviews: these are insanely tough in a good way, and because the content is real, they’re actually pretty engaging. I only do dictation and shadowing for these. If anything, it’s a bit repetitive—always executives and big shots sharing similar success stories.
- Below is my dictation of the interviews. On the left is August’s James Aquilina-san, and on the right is June/July’s Neil McInnes-san. The latter probably speaks with a British accent, so I made tons of mistakes. When Neil McInnes-san’s turn ended in July, I felt on one hand “Finally free…” and on the other “I was just getting used to it…” It’s true that when the content can be a bit dry, it’s nice to enjoy the interviewee’s personality this way.
- NHK News to Learn “Contemporary English” (https://www.nhk.jp/p/rs/77RQWQX1L6/list/)
- This one’s my top pick.
- The real-world content is exactly my style, and the variety of news topics is fun.
- Since I dropped dictation and shadowing for NHK Radio Business English Monday–Thursday, I’m doing them on this program instead.
Thoughts
- As I mentioned, it’s fun to tweak my study methods little by little to fit me. It really feels like my own personal hobby.
