I liked Utaco’s advice this week to adjust the playback speed on Youtube videos/podcasts and I think that advice is also really useful for Japanese listening training. Though she may have been talking about it in terms of time savings (人生と時間は有限なんですね), I’m sort of finding that gradually getting used to 早口 Japanese is helping my Japanese listening comprehension in general – everything else sounds so relaxed!
I tried listening to her podcast at her husband’s usual 1.5x speed, but that was a bit much for me. At her recommended 1.2x speed though, as she says, it somehow works (案外いけるんですよ).
I’ve been wanting to join this club for a while since I have been listening to her more recent podcasts while walking. But I like the idea of starting from the very beginning. Hopefully I will catch up soon. Thank you for creating this club!
That’s when I listen to her podcasts too. I’ve also been listening to her more recent podcasts (was a little weary of just listening to things that happened some years ago). I’m hoping she finds suitable work soon. Applying for jobs (and not even getting a reply) can be soul destroying
Yes I’ve been listening to them as they came out (not consistently as I found a few podcasts I found that i’ve saved and try to listen to on walks - she is consistently my favorite podcast). I’m not sure where I am compared to you, but i love Utaco for her resilience and outlook on life. It is so hard to move to a new country and learn a new language as an adult. Making new friends as an adult is difficult even without the language obstacle. It can be quite lonely. I send her good wishes on her journey too and am grateful she is sharing it.
Mmm, I’ve listened to her podcasts from the beginning with the club. Recently, I’ve also been listening to her podcasts from where she started adding scripts (I listen first to the podcast and then the next day use her script for reading practice. I’m thinking of using the scripts as a basis for discussion in the 読んで話そう lessons I do). And to make things really confusing (笑), I also listen to her most recent episodes. She’s currently unemployed and looking for work. And yes, I admire her resilience, nod along with her observations about learning another language and living in a foreign country, and just enjoy her humor.
That’s exactly what I want to do! Listen to the episodes that have transcripts, then read along and perhaps try shadowing so that my mouth becomes more familiar with the phrases frequently used in conversation. BUT, this a great hypothetical plan presently in the form of a post-it and not yet executed. I am surrounded by post-its like this. Oh the recent episodes I was listening to she was working part-time at a sushi restaurant and had graduated from a local college with an accounting degree and was teaching tap dance to kids. I don’t recall her finding a job in accounting though. Maybe that’s what you mean. I’m not familiar with 読んで話そう but it sounds interesting.
I’m not surrounded by physical post-its but I have wall-to-wall mental ones. I sometimes find talking about these in my study log helps me to actualise them - public accountability and all that…
The episode I’m referring to is #338 posted last Friday (as I said I’m really all over the place with my listening..)
Welcome to the club! If you’d like to track your progress here, you can make a post for that and then reference it from the second comment on this thread here
Buruberimiruku’s home post (thanks @mitrac for the great idea !)
(couldn’t figure out how to make the boxes… Edit: thank you @shitsurei for teaching me a new superpower )
I was curious about the song that Utaco was singing ~31:00 when she was talking about the milk truck that came to her neighborhood playing music when she was a kid. I think something like this one from Youtube might be what she’s referencing?:
I listened to the first eight episodes (and the current week’s episode 36) while walking. This approach is somewhat limited for learning, since I am not following a transcript and don’t always focus on what’s being said. So long as I am not materially misunderstanding what she’s saying, I feel like that’s a win?
I’ll stop to look up a word I don’t know if it’s repeated a number of times or I am clueless about the topic (eg. In Ep. 7, Utaco speaks at length about the benefits of 湯たんぽ the situations you could use 湯たんぽ, how cheap 湯たんぽ is at Walmart. I had no idea what she was passionately talking about!)
The great thing about this club is now I’m motivated to write a little summary after each episode, like others are doing. This is forcing me to listen more closely. And in reading the comments, I am shocked at how much rich language detail I miss - expressions, backgrounds to words - thank you for sharing these! It’s made me rethink my approach. Once I’m caught up, I hope to find the time to more actively listen to the weekly episodes too.
Ep. 36
I made a reeealy big effort to listen to this episode, writing out the summary while walking (!) and even so, I totally missed 移動販売 （thank you lcaraba!) I thought Utaco was talking about both milk vending machines AND milk trucks back in Shizuoka. Could the taste difference in milk (US v Japan) have to do with pasturization process as well?
I like the club for that, too. I wasn’t expecting the summary writing to be so great but it pushes me a bit more each time. I’m hoping to get more consistent again here
Quick, but apparently missing a lot of the detailed nuances. I really liked your time-stamped summaries and the other detailed posts. I realized I could get so much more out of these podcasts if I did something like that.
I am so pleased to learn this expression 三日坊主. So glad you shared it! I keep thinking about this because I recently learned the expression 仏頂面 (ぶっちょうづら）which means sour face or grumpy face, but the kanji for it is a Buddha’s face. Another everyday expression referencing Buddhism
For the first two sections, I would say I had my worst listening comprehension ever with Utaco! I got more on the second listen and sundrop’s notes were helpful.
I’ll listen to this one again when I feel my skills have improved. This one feels like a good candidate for that, she really seemed to let fly with blunt and open impressions and if I can come back and understand not just the topic but her impressions and discussion, I know I’ve advanced a fair bit
Intro plus 適当 story, first 16 minutes
That was tough. I really only got a rough outline of threads from her stories and not the interesting nuggets of her more nuanced thoughts. So I’ll just write a brief outline as I don’t want to misrepresent anything she said with my own misunderstandings
She started taking about her friend from the Philippines and then moved on to stories from work. She was surprised how Americans act so differently in situations where they’re late or otherwise cause inconvenience. Where in Japan you would get a lot of apologies, she was surprised not to hear that.
16:20 アメリカあるある
欧米と友達と写真を取ると自分のスタイル悪さ際立って悲しくなる
As far as I can understand, she compares herself to others and is sad at her appearance. She focused a lot on her round face but touched on other topics of appearance. I couldn’t puzzle out exactly what she was getting at here, whether she was just talking about noticing 欧米 faces are narrower in comparison, and/ or if someone had made fun of or commented on her face being very round.
Very helpful comment! This is the first time I came across the face shape being a topic, so yes, since it wasn’t a known concept to me, at first I was very confused because I’m thinking, everyone has a differently shaped face, why does this matter. After she mentioned many times that her face is so round I thought about it more and realized for the first time that her face is rounder than a typical European ancestry person, and that models have very gaunt faces, but I hadn’t been conscious of it before, or even thought that a narrow face would be at all desirable irl. Faces are not my forte at all, and I’ve never really cared about things like makeup, so mostly I just wanted to cheer her up and say that it’s her lovely personality that matters. But maybe I totally misunderstood and she was fine by the end. I didn’t get the last thoughts
22:40 英語の話のコーナー
Yay, I can finally understand her again. Until this point I wondered if I forgot Japanese
I like the examples she gives for realizing for some things, English is easier for her!
Episode 036
Intro
It sounds like she’s just finished an essay for her English class and is moving on to a research paper.
2 min: 今年のやりたいことリスト100
I haven’t listened to every episode so I don’t know if this is the first time she mentions this list.
FYI you can find it here and that might make it easier to follow along:
She misses economics programs from Japan. That’s surprising. And I didn’t get the second main genre. I think she said since they don’t place that much importance on tv, they decided not to get a cable contract. Instead they watch Netflix, amazon prime, and YouTube.
17:40 英語の話のコーナー
She has hard time understanding young classmates, eg, when they ask and answer queasiness or when doing group work. Sounds tough!
And children
Around 22 minutes I started running out of steam for me as well . Listening is tough
22:50 今週のmy favourite
She talks about finding American milk thin, but she found a different brand with a higher fat percentage (3.8% vs the normal 3.2% for whole milk). This is a good episode for fast numbers with decimal places!
I loved milk back when I could drink it and can totally identify with her preferring full fat. I remembered noticing milk and yogurt tasting better when I moved to Germany, I just checked and yes the fat content is higher generally 3.8 or higher compared to America’s 3.2.
)
. Listening is tough
Episode: 
Time Count: 29:12