Takamiy's Voice 2011 May 30: Top 10 Things People Want to Do in an Empty Office

Started doing some radio listening, to try and separate my listening skills from my visual-information-extrapolation skills, which I heavily rely upon, alas, when watching Japanese media. I am, as you probably are, quite adept at putting visual cues together in order to fill in the gaps in my Japanese comprehension. Which is a good skill to have, but not so much when you are trying to hone your listening skills. So besides shadowing, I thought I'd try this. I looked on TBS and downloaded some radio blogs. Today I looked for the shortest one I had (5 minutes or so), and it was... Takamiy's Voice! From May 30th, to be exact. I found him in the Culture section and thought "爆走・暴走・爆笑" and "ロック選曲" sounded like it could be my kind of program. I didn't recognize Takamiy, aka Takamizawa Toshihiko...

This man was born in the 50's and has nicer hair than I do.

...but I have heard of The Alfee, which is the band he is a member of. I'm pretty sure I have/had at one time one of their songs/collaborations. Found a handy dandy playlist on youtube, if you're interested. Click through it a bit, since they've had very long careers and so have experimented with a few different styles.

Anyway, he has this radio blog, which I enjoyed listening to. I felt like I understood at least 90% of it, but transcribing it was a different matter. Once again, I extracted all the main ideas but I wasn't listening for details. So this was a good exercise. Try listening to it yourself. You might be able to fill in the (?) or correct the (probably incorrect sentences?), or even revise some of the sentences I thought were pretty decent.

A working transcript:

今週のTakamiy's Voiceですけどね。ちょっと想像してほしいと思うんですけどね、だれもいないオフィスね・・・　（どうも？）自分の中に潜む、こう、いたずらのですね。（むしが、こう、さわいでしかたがない？）。実際にやらないにしても誰もいないオフィスでこんなことしたら楽しいではないのかなとですね。妄想ですね。含ませることもあるんじゃないかな。怖いからいかないかい？誰でもいないオフィスは。誰もいないね、静かなオフィスでみんなやってみたいこと何だろうということで、愚問やりますね。もう、これ、もう色んなランキングがあるんですけど、ここまで調べるのがということで、誰もいないオフィスで一度やってみたいことランキングっていうのがあるんですが、一位から十位まであるんですけどね。（？）の結果こうなりました。

第十位が、ドミノ倒しですよ。何倒すんだろう、誰もいないオフィスで。あっ、ドミノ並べてやるんだ。これは（いっそ？）大変な時間かかるよ、これね。第九位。臭いがきついものを大量に食べてる。何だこれは。たとえばギョウザとかにんにく（？）ですかね。これはでもね、かなり・・・　たけどあれだよね、お弁当とかそういうもの、駅弁（？）、お弁当、においきつくなくても「ああ、誰か食ってんだ」ってわかるよね、新幹線なんかとかでね。会社でもそうなのかね、やっぱり。

第八位がですね、嫌いな上司のモニターの位置はあげるってどういうこと、これ？見にくくするんだ！これはちょっとプチ犯罪だけど。もうだめでしょう、これは。（嫌いな上司の）モニターをちょっと、コンピューターのモニターの位置上げて、見にくく・・・　でも意味ないと思うよ。あっと思うとすぐ直すからね。嫌がらせですね、これね。

次、第七位。爆音で音楽をかけて踊る。踊るか！まあ、爆音の音楽をかけるのはわかりますね。誰もいない。だけどびっくりして警備の方来ちゃうんじゃないですかね、これ、ね、あんまりデカイと。そして第六位がホワイトボートに落書き！ああ。かさ書いて・・・９かくのから？）・・・　社長を（？）とかやつ。相合傘。そんなわけないですかね。次、第四位。会社の大きいプロジェクターで映画を見る。これはいいんじゃない。そう思うよ。映画をね。映画館（？）に、一人で見ると。これもあまり大きい（？）あの警備の方来ちゃうぜ。気をつけてほしいな、と思いますね。

そして第三位。コピーで顔や体を複写・・・できんのか、そんなこと！コピー機で。えっ、できるの？顔をつけるの、これだって？やったことあんのか！ちょっとびっくりしました、は、これ（？）（が入ってる？）んで、これないだろうと思った。あるんだ！意外と僕は、夜中と言いますかね、まあ、スタジオが多いんでね、そう、会社に行ったことないんですけど。まあ、スタジオなんかでもコピー機ありますから！へー。でもあんまコピー自分でやったことない。（やってまっちゃうんだね？）、コピーとかね。（？）コピーできるの？何でもコピーできるんだ！とりあえず・・・　へー。（さくらい*のね？）（？）やってみようかな、俺も。へー。

次、第二位。オフィスチェアで廊下をかけっ[笑]！　さあって、子供じゃないんだ、これ！これなんか楽しそうだね、廊下をわーっとかでかけるの。これはなんか、(ストレッサー？）（？）にいいんじゃないですかねこれ、なかなかね。誰もいないだったら平気でしょう。あんまり（やると？）あの警備が来ちゃうんでね、んん、気をつけたほうがいい。第一位が、社長のいすに座る。はぁ。色んなことありますね、これね。誰もいないオフィスで、一度やってみたいことランキングっつのね、一位から十位まで。なんか自分がやってみたいのは何だろうな。

[・・・]でもそうだね。でも小学校ってさあ、あんだけ人がいっぱいいるのに気楽になるじゃない。けっこう（閑散？）とする中にちょっと、こう、怖さもあるんじゃない。だからなんか忘れ物取りに行くときに（？）、「なんか、あれ？なんか怖くないこれ。これちょっとこわくないみたい」の感じがありますね。最近の方、なんか、学校の怖い映画とかいっぱいあるのね。んん。子供たちは怖がっているみたいです、やっぱり。ええ。オフィスで廊下をかけるっていうの、こう、ちょっと楽しそうだなって。あと、爆音で音楽をかける。あるいはアンプを入れて爆音でギターを弾くと。社長（？）、社長のいすに座って、思い切り爆音でギターを弾くよ。これがTakamiy's（？）オフィスで一度やってみたいことランキングでありますけど。うちのオフィスの社長ですよね、デカイ鉄人に（？）。何の会社（？）みたいな。かなり目立てますね。ということでありました。といことで、今週のTakamiy's Voiceはここまで！

*Sakurai is the name of another member of The Alfee. 

Shadowing

Shadowing is a way to increase your listening comprehension, better your pronunciation, and give you more natural pitch and rhythm in your foreign language. All you need is:

1. A text in a foreign language.
2. The same text in your native language (for our purposes, English).
3. Audio of the text (in the foreign language, of course). 

You can find a more in-depth discussion of Alexander Arguelles' specific technique of shadowing here or here. The following is just a basic run-down.

For beginning students, try listening to the audio without looking at the text. Your goal is to repeat the audio as closely as possible. This means you will be speaking while the audio is going, maybe a second or two behind. Try to honestly rely on your listening ability. Don't worry if you don't know the exact meaning of the words you say, because you will be learning them shortly. Next, you can listen to the audio and read silently along with text 1. Then listen and read silently along with text 2. Finally, you can return to shadowing, following along with the text. Even though you are reading, your goal isn't to read the text; rather, you want to hear the audio and repeat it, following along as a supplement.

If you are sufficiently advanced, you may not feel the need for the texts. I don't consider myself sufficiently advanced, but I try to shadow as I watch dramas, which, naturally, I don't usually have the text for, unless there are subtitles 字幕 attached. Shadowing dramas is definitely not the easiest task, since half the time people are talking over each other. You may want to try watching the drama first, since shadowing it can sometimes take a bit of the enjoyment out of it. This means you'll have to find a drama you don't mind watching twice. If you are at loss as to where to find dramas, try one of the links on the side bar. Because you don't have a text to refer to in order to perfectly parse or understand every word or grammar point, you may find shadowing a drama to primarily improve your listening comprehension, pronunciation, and rhythm, less so than up your grammar/vocabulary (although context is one of the most effective teachers of grammar/vocab, I think).

You can use the dialogues and corresponding audio tracks from your textbook to practice shadowing. This is probably the best course of action as a beginner, since dialogues from textbooks are usually more clearly enunciated and a bit slower than normal speech.These are the kind of text/audio sources that Alexander Arguelles seems to be using.

Another option: audiobooks! You can find a large repository of them here and here. Most of them also contain transcripts. While this may not allow you to have a completely natural cadence (reading cadence is often quite different from a natural speaking cadence), you will definitely see improvement in your pronunciation and listening ability. Listening to audiobooks will also prepare you for the kind of constructions you may come across while reading.

Try looking at  Alexander Arguelles' website. The previous link will send you to a section for self-study aids, but if you're interested in languages, I think it's a good site to peruse for a bit of time!