Thank you @Lisaveeta for another fantastic summary! Much appreciated.
I love this episode. It’s a great story of language learning and friendship, and the power of just putting in the time to get amazing results in both.
As Utaco puts it (Episode 18, at 5:00):
「共通点がないような感じなんですけど、でもなぜか気が合うんですよね。すごく不思議です。」
共通点 （きょうつうてん）(n) common feature
感じ（かんじ）(n) feeling, sense, impression
気が合う （きがあう）(exp) to get along (with someone)
不思議 （ふしぎ）(n) wonder, miracle, strange, mystery, marvel, curiosity
Oh you’re so right! It’s so important to remember that consistent effort over time is required to build anything - relationships, skills, communities (like this one), you name it! We live in a time of “instants” - instant noodles, instant communication, instant affinities but we really need to become gardeners - prepared to plant the seeds and patiently nurture growth.
Okay so before I forget or get distracted, I’m going to post my summary of this week’s episode having just relistened to it
Intro: it might be the rainy season in Japan but where she lives, the weather’s been good and she’s feeling happy. Where she lives in (central coast California), it’s not particularly hot. But while she’s not a fan of rain or humidity, she does miss hydrangeas. When she lived in Japan she visited Kamukura in the rainy season to see them and also Buddhist statues (which she also loves).
BIG Yard Sale に行った話：The other day she went to the Spreckels Yard sale (Spreckels is a nearby small town) where a town-wide yard sale is held annually (she explains that a yard sale is similar to Japanese フリーマ except that rather than being held in a park, people hold them in their own yard or garage. Anyway she and her husband have been to the Spreckels one several times as they love yard sales. Sometimes, she buys knickknacks but she can’t resist buying vintage American cookware like Pyrex or Fire King when the prices are so cheap - she bought a Fire King mug at a previous Spreckels yard sale for ten cents. She and her husband also enjoy haggling. At this year’s sale they bought 4 things 1) scrabble 2) beer bottle 3) yakiniku teppan ( had one already but for $2 bought this one) 4) craft wooden beads which she got for $1 instead of the advertised $2. She gets into a conversation with the seller and then others join in so she recommends yard sales a good place to get conversation practice. She particularly recommends yard sales in rich neighbourhoods.
洗濯難民: Here she talks about how American apartments often don’t have washing machines which means that you have to go to coin laundries - either within the building or elsewhere. In the apartment she currently lives in, there is a communal laundry which is cheap but in a previous apartment she had to use the town laundry which was expensive. And then there’s also the problem of having the right change - some laundries have coin machines 両替機 but only some allow you to use a card, otherwise you need to use cash.
英語、ちょっと成功したこと: this is her fifth year in America and she’s realised her English has definitely improved. Before she would create English learning goals but now most of those goals have been reached - she’s mainly watching dramas in English, YouTube videos in English, talking in English every day at school. She’s not saying that she’s fluent or that she understands everything she watches but things have improved. Her goal to become a fluent speaker is stymied though by still speaking Japanese all the time at home
I’ve always wondered how she got married with an American and seemed to start learning English only afterwards, is he fluent in Japanese?
mitrac’s 4989 home postHere I collect my meta thoughts, episodes listened to, and links to any notes I left out of order from the club
2018 Ep 1 - overall summary (WIP)
Utaco is from Shizuoka prefecture. She lives in California with her husband and started this podcast to share her challenges and adventures about life in America. Her husband works as a middle school teacher and her visa does not allow her to work. She describes her daily life in the US, cultural observations, her favourite things, stuff she misses from Japan, and stories about improving her English.
We’re in 2018 and she’s been in the US about 4 years already. She’s lived in 3 towns, now in the Monterrey area. She struggles to understand and communicate in English and takes ESL classes. She enjoys tap dancing, cooking, craft beer, and camping.
This year, she was able to get a semester of scholarship funding in return for working a few days a week at her community college. She helps people with disabilities with their training at the gym and at a special computer lab.
Continue from #3
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Key:
I want to listen again
loved this one
omg I love the idea! You’re a genius 
I’ve been saving bookmarks of all the weekly posts to keep track of the episodes, but that’s more tiresome and annoying because I like my bookmarks to be as few as possible for easy access.
I’ll create my homepost later today!
Her husband is Japanese, not American but he went to university in the U.S. and is fluent in English having lived, studied (and now working) in an English speaking environment
Oh that makes so much sense, thanks!
@mitrac I love the idea! I’m at episode 33 but still feeling like I don’t understand a lot, everything that Lisaveeta writes is new to me 
That’s a good idea!
(Do I just ping to ask them to wiki it?)
yeah, that’s right, link to the post, or just specify which one you want (the first or second one) and then they take care of it!
@Mods could you please make the post I replied to into a wiki? 
Done and done! At least I think it’s done. This is my first time making a post into a wiki, so if it didn’t work, please let me know! I’ll make sure it gets taken care of properly.
Thank you!
Yay it works! Thanks so much both 
Thanks for creating the wiki!
prath’s home post My home post is embarrassingly going to reveal how far behind I am on this podcast. 
But I think it’s a great way for me to keep track of things and take listening a bit more seriously! It’s about time I focus more on listening - my N3 exam is creeping up way too fast aaaaAAH! 
Totally copying the format from mitrac’s post lol thank you
My main goal is to finish listening to all the previous episodes while catching up with the current ones, then keep building the list as I go.
Notes:
- 1x
- 2x+
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You’re not as behind as me! I’m on episode 4.
Episode: 020
Time Count: 30:14
Will you be listening along with us this week?
If you’ve already listened to this podcast but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have finished this episode.”
Okay, so here’s another summary from last year - love this week’s アメリカあるある. Everything she says about arriving for parties applies to Australia too. Must be so frustrating for 時間に厳しい日本人 (笑)
Intro: she’s about to go on her summer holidays - the fine details haven’t been worked out yet but they’re heading to the north of the state, Oregon way to enjoy some hiking, camping & craft beers. She’s also thinking of visiting a friend in Portland.
スパニッシュの必要性: she’s reflecting once again that it would be good to be able to speak Spanish. In the Californian town she lives in over 70% of the residents are Hispanic & in the small town she lived in when she first arrived, Hispanic people made up 90% of the community. While young Hispanic people who’ve attended school are bilingual, their parents and grandparents often speak no English at all and this is not generally a problem as most business dealings there can be transacted in Spanish. While she can exchange greetings in Spanish with her neighbours, that’s about as far as the conversation goes. At the meat counter at the Mexican supermarket where she goes to buy her meat, she sometimes encounters shop assistants who cannot speak English who respond to her requests with gestures indicating they need to get someone else to deal with her. At such times, she thinks it would be great to be able to say “ No problem. I speak Spanish”. She also gives the example of being asked to volunteer at a school event by a friend, but the event turned out to be comprised of bilingual or Spanish-only speakers. Even the instructions to the volunteers were issued in Spanish. Although she didn’t feel she’d been useless as a volunteer, she reflected that she would have been better able to assist and enjoy herself more if she’d been able to speak Spanish. She adds that she recently went to a tiny local Mexican eatery where the serving staff understood English but the older female cook didn’t. When the others weren’t around she asked the cook where the toilet was but the cook couldn’t understand what she was asking. And to top it off, if Utaco wants to work, Spanish is a requirement for most jobs.
My favourite/ スニーカー: Sneakers. In Japan she didn’t wear them much, but since coming to America she wears them a lot. Lots of people where she lives (including women and girls), wear sneakers all the time and own many pairs of them. In comparison, Utaco knows women in Japan who don’t even own one pair. She started wearing sneakers in America when there was a period she couldn’t get her drivers license because of visa issues and so had to walk a lot.
アメリカあるある: parties in America never start at the stated time! If the invite says 1pm and you go there then, no-one will have arrived and the hosts will still be finishing off their preparations. Even when they try to be late, she and her husband are often the first guests to arrive. Local parties seem to be mostly relaxed affairs with friends and relatives but Utaco worries when she goes to parties with her husband where she doesn’t know anyone and where most people are speaking Spanish if it’s rude to be speaking Japanese with him in front of others. She also finds it difficult to know when to leave but concludes that the general rule seems to be “arrive when you like, leave when you like”, something she’s still struggling to adjust to.
Episode 20, from 13:00 to 13:35:
Utaco tells a funny story about the question “Are you bilingual?” on job applications in California.
A Japanese friend of hers was applying for jobs. In answer to the question “Are you bilingual?” on a job application, she answered “Yes”. Then it was explained to her that no, that question actually means “Do you speak both English and Spanish?” In this region, speaking English and Japanese is not considered ‘bilingual’.
At 13:28
「この地域では English-Japanese バイリングアルとは呼びません。」
In this region, they don’t call English-Japanese ‘bilingual’.
At the end of this story, Utaco says (at 13:35):
「はい、ドヨーン」
I think I get the meaning of this word from the context, but I can’t find it in the dictionary.
Is it some kind of onomatopoeia? Maybe I’m misspelling it?
Can anyone shed any light on this word?
I don’t know this word myself and don’t think it’s essential meaning-wise but I just looked it up and found the following for what’s it’s worth:
「どよん」の言い換えは？
人の気分や様子、周囲の雰囲気などが暗く落ち込んでいるさま
The problem with Japanese onomatopoeia is that it varies from region to region and individuals sometimes even seem to make up their own so there aren’t always fixed meanings.
